2019 Yamaha Tracer 900 GT First Ride

There I was last Wednesday night in Stevenson, Washington, on the northern bank of the mighty Columbia River via the excellent hospitality of Yamaha for the launch of the new Tracer 900 GT. I was slurping a fine glass of the local vino when I overheard Greg the Rider magazine guy talking about riding home to SoCal on the new bike, via the Cascades and other places.

I wanna ride home, too, I heard myself saying in my typical half-serious manner.

You can if you want to, said Marcus the Yamaha guy.

I can?

Yes. We can prep you a bike.

For me, this is good planning-aheadness. Hmmmm, a quick Google informed me that Portland to Los Angeles was 964 miles (the fine print I ignored was via I-5 the whole way). My scheduled return flight (two hours) wasn’t going to have me home until 4pm Friday afternoon anyway, so why not ride?

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[StefanRIDES]

I have this bike, and its amazing. I bought it with 24.000 miles on it, and it just had the 25.000 big oil change and velves etc. I just use it for longer distances, and its amazing. I hope i can use this bike for many more years

[Banditmanuk]

I've ridden this bike in the UK, it's a great machine. The screen is adjustable with one hand while on the move but I still got buffeting from it. The seat height is also adjustable so suits quite a range of riders. A great fun to ride lightweight tourer in my opinion.

[tormodi]

Incredible scenery up there. Great bike

[fleemos]

If it were me it would be a no brainer, ride it home.

[dbates]

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is my next motorcycle.

[bunberrier]

Wow what a beautiful place. Really eye popping in 1080p too. Lovely. Nice bike too!

[m.i.]

Not a single piece of information in this review that is not in the manufacturer's brochure.

[Roy_Godiksen]

So flying to try out a bike is ok. Buying an action camera to give a good rider view is out of the question...?

[terenceokeeffesmotorcyclestuff]

It's July 2018, why would it be a 2019 model?

[stanleykania]

Nice bike.. owner of a Honda ST1300 and want one of these now..

[Smaug]

Great video. Good to see John get more scoops like this. About the bike, everything sounds good, but it's high time they learn what Honda learned 25 years ago, namely how to integrate saddle bags so they don't look like bulbuous tumors hanging off the side of the bike. (ex. Goldwing, PC800, ST1300, Helix...) Everyone else is happy to just tack them on. Yamaha is playing in the big league now, it's time to step up, in that regard.

I actually went over and read the article. Thanks Kevin, for taking down some of the spam and making the site more usable.

Nice job, Yamaha, providing a center stand AND the under-slung exhaust. Keep 'em coming!

By the way, how did motorcycle.com snag John from the classical print mags?

[jblue]

Does this bike have off-road capability?

[mephistopheles]

Tracer 900 GT($12, 999) = Versys 1000( $12, 999) in this case i rather get the Versys 1000