Alex from the Netherlands - GEN 2 FZ1S

[AlexZjuH]

Goodevening all,

Alexander from the Netherlands, 40 year old, father of 2 daughters.

Big Petrolhead in cars, mostly the french hothatches (Peugeot 106 Rallye, 206 XS and in the end a 205 GTI engineswapped tracktool, which I used for various racetracks including the Nurburgring )

- Passed my Bike license exam in november '22
- First Bike in Jan '24 (BMW F800ST) after a year of renting stuff for a day or two in 2023.
- Rode it for over 6000 kilometers in 2024 (just fun rides, no commuting)
- Sold it in May '25 and got the FZ1 the day after
- Haven't looked back

The specs;
- '08 FZ1S (ABS)
- Red/Black with the black wheels / gold forks
- I am 2nd owner
- 32K kilometers (sooooo 20K ish miles?)

Enjoying the 4cilinder and the power and rideability it provides.
Had a lot of fun with the Beamer (up untill trivial stuff was breaking and BMW-parts tax came into place) and it taught me how to ride in the real world.

as always, Threads are worthless without pics;






And a couple from the Beemer (I should've kept that tailbag )

 

[CobaltFZ1]

Congratulations on getting the FZ1. Your old BMW looked nice too, but that FZ1 is way nicer.

 

[AlexZjuH]

Congratulations on getting the FZ1. Your old BMW looked nice too, but that FZ1 is way nicer.

Thanks, it was a peculiar bike. Belt driven, instead of a chain or cardan, it was a parallel twin (very un-BMW) and it was fitted as standard with ABS, On board Computer, heated grips and a 6 speed. It also was used as a winter bike (with the belt drive, a hassle free excercise) but it meant a lot of pitting on the forks (and busted seals) and rusted bolts in combination with overengineerd german things, meaning maintenance was a pain in the ass when it was due because of bolts snapping... A very forgiving bike, with some 86horses a good and easy to ride machine, but also something I got used to pretty quickly...

The seat though.... not sure if it was the germans overengineering, or Yamaha's lack of padding for larger europeans, but that BMW seat was MILES better on long rides... then again the vibration of the parallel twin made my arms go numb... as far as the looks, pretty similar to the FZ1 in regards of "not looking their age". The BMW was an early production one, 2006 built, but designwise aged very well. Frequent detailing did help with the overall look of things

 

[AlexZjuH]

Short update;

Hyperflash fixed with some resistors, alle blinkers now led. Looking into replacing the H4 bulbs with LED's for better visibility
Vinyls still looking good

 

[CobaltFZ1]

Looks good!

 

[CaptainAwesome]

Looking good! I always loved these in red, my first one was red. Pictures don't do the color justice, it's more like a red candy over gold than just red.

Couple of mods to these things can really wake them up and make them a monster. So if you ever feel you've grown out of it as the years go by, keep that in mind.