BIKETEST YAMAHA R1:The new Yamaha might just make it all too easy, writes Geoff Hill- could that speedometer really be right?
I think I’m coming down with something. It can’t be swine fever, or I would have come out in rashers, so it must be whiplash from cracking open the throttle of the new R1 while it was in Race mode.
Still, it was all my own fault, since Billy Lyons at the dealers had warned me that Standard was enough to satisfy anyone but a kamikaze pilot on acid.
Not only that, but first reports on the R1 – by everyone from ordinary bikers to Motorpoint Yamaha team rider Chris Walker, who said the bike was so good that it felt like cheating – indicate that this was a revolutionary machine.
It was a revolution that started five years ago, when Yamaha fitted Valentino Rossi’s R1 with a crossplane crank and irregular firing so that he could get in and out of corners as quickly and smoothly as possible.
For the technically minded among you, setting the crank pins at 90 degrees reduces the inertia, making it spin as freely as a two-stroke and, when combined with a fly-by-wire throttle system, creating a flat torque curve that gives you smooth power all the way from low down – as opposed to, in the case of some superbikes, when the tacho needle is bouncing off the stop pin.
Add that clever mode control, a MotoGP-based chassis design, more sensitive brakes and suspension, and you have a machine that is not the most powerful on the planet, but the easiest to ride quickly and smoothly, even for a complete idiot.
I know – for I was that idiot – and after only 15 minutes on the R1, I was taking corners faster than ever before. On any bike.
On the way in, engine braking is so smooth that, after the first touch of that highly effective front brake, you can leave it alone, powering your way through even tight corners and out the other side with instant response from low revs all the way down the straight.
At which point I looked at the speedo. Then in the mirrors for sirens and flashing lights. This is a bike on which hero to zero is entirely without effort.
Overtaking is just as smooth, with that flat torque curve whisking you past anything on four wheels, even with the throttle only half open.
When I rode the 2008 R1, I never felt it had the forgiving nature of the Honda Fireblade, or the natural affinity Suzuki have built into both the GSX and the Hayabusa.
But this bike is a whole different kettle of ballgames – and infinitely better.
Faults? Only that it’s going to give Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and the like a headache trying to catch up. I fear they will only do so by the old “if you can’t beat ’em . . .” method, developing the same crank system, especially since Honda toyed with the idea a decade ago.
“Any problems?” asked Billy when I dropped it back.
“Just that you’re going to have to give me a bad bike one of these days for a change, just to stop me raving.”
“Listen, we couldn’t stop you raving, no matter what we do. And we don’t sell bad bikes.”
“I thought you’d say that. And the speedo’s wrongly calibrated. Every time I thought I was doing 40, I looked down to see that I was doing 70,” I said.
“There’s nothing wrong with the speedo. I won’t even ask what speed you were actually doing when you thought you were doing 70.”
"Don't ask, then," I said, handing him the keys and driving home, humming Schubert's Trout Quintet.
Factfile Yamaha R1
- Engine:998cc 16-valve, fuel-injected in-line four cylinder, 157.75bhp @ 12,500rpm, 78.33 ft lb torque @ 9,000rpm
- Top speed:182mph
- Gears and drive:six gears, chain final drive Front suspension: 43mm upside down forks, fully adjustable
- Rear suspension:single rear shock, fully adjustable
- Brakes:front – 2 x 310mm discs, six-piston radial calipers, rear – 220mm disc, twin-piston caliper
- Fuel capacity:18 litres
- Price:€13,000.
- UK price:£9,999.
(Test bike from Millsport Motorcycles of Ballymoney, tel: 028-2766 7776)