Today was a maintenance day for my 2015 non-ES. 28,375 miles and over due for a few things. Changed the oil and filter with some nice Motul 10-40, changed the diff oil to some fresh Valvoline Synpower 75-90, new air cleaner, new Iridium spark plugs, (zero crud or water indications on any of the plugs), some improvements/changes to the GPS mounting so I can once again see my turn signal indicators, swapped in the LED marker lights that I've had sitting in the garage for nearly a year and sat down and checked all my spokes. Only a few very minor tightening on some of the rear wheel spokes.
After all that I rolled the bike out in the sunshine of the driveway and hooked up the Morgan CarbTune. I've used the CarbTune for maybe ten times over the last decade and it's still like new and works perfectly. Great piece of kit. The bike fired up *instantly* with the new Iridium plugs. Only a whisper of the starter and it caught. It's never started that quickly before. Oh sure, it's 75 degrees and the fresh Motul didn't hurt either, but it still was noticeable.
Less than 5 minutes later the TBs were balanced after doing the 3/4 out mod on the painted reference TB, (following my own advice to others even though I've not had issues with the bike at all). Button things back up and clean a few items and the bike is ready to ride the 6 hours to a 5 Star Yamaha dealer for the valve check/adjust on Tuesday. If all goes well, I should be home before nightfall with a nice 720 mile day. In logging my maintenance I realized what a crappy time it's been over the last 18 months. It took me 11 months to ride 8k miles. I've done more in two weeks in the past on several occasions. And 2k of that 8k miles was last month doing a nice ride of Florida. Pretty sad.
Out with the old, in with the new. This year looks much more promising for riding and life in general.