I drove over to Cresent Yamaha today just to have a look at one as it was
raining. It looks nice in the flesh, sitting on it the bars seem quite high
and wide and the footpegs quite far forward and low. I'd say its halfway
toward a trail bike riding position. I was quite suprised at this, wasn't
expecting it at all. Great for my knees though. Frank started it up and it
does make a nice noise at low revs. Nobody had booked a test ride in the
afternoon and he suggested I book it for 3pm and hope the sun came out.
Driving home the sun did come out and the roads started to dry, so I got the
bike out and rode back over straight away. I had 1 1/4 hours on it. 60
miles. I went from Charminster past Three cross and down the Cranborne Chase
road towards Wimborne.
Sitting on the front part of the very triangular seat the bars are very
close and it feels like a supermotard. Back a bit on the wider part feels
more normal. Its very narrow, my knees didnt rest against the tank like the
Fazer8, a bit like the F800GS I rode in Feb.
The engine is a peach, pulls hard from low revs. I seem to remember the
Street Triple I had came alive in the 6-9000 range (or 5-8000 cant
remember), with a huge induction roar as sound track. No induction roar like
that with the MT-09, but a decent noise from the can and power was
everywhere. 50mph in 4th on the Fazer8 gives a bit of a dead spot at 5000
rpm, but the MT-09 had none of that, no holes at all. Riding along back
roads in 4th and overtaking traffic was easy. Impressive.
Gearbox was great. The bike had done less than 600 miles and was due its 1st
service soon. Bikes I've run in have had sticky gear changes as they
approached 1st service mileage.
I found the suspension fine for my tastes, it soaked up a lot of bumps well.
Much better than the stuff the Fazer8 came with. Even with the posh Ohlins
shock I've got I have it set slightly softer than the suggested standard
settings.
Pillion seat is small and there is nothing behind it.
A couple of times I slowed down, stuck it in 2nd and opened it up just to
see what happened. It did sit down slightly at the rear, but I wouldn't say
it was bad. Whilst doing this changing up from 3rd to 4th the front did get
flighty over some small bumps. The front came off the ground once. I put
this down to the higher wider style of handlebars and riding position and
nothing to do with the suspension. Too much pressure on the bars at speed
might cause a few wobbles.
This is where comparing the MT-09 and Sreet Triple like the mags are doesn't
make sense as they seem so different in feel. The only thing in common
really is 3 cylinders. It isn't a Street Triple with an 850 engine in it.
The brakes were fine without being impressive.
Recently I had a go on the new Tiger Sport, and reckon the MT-09 has a much
more lively engine and better suspension. The Tiger was far too hard on the
rear, although I didnt try adjusting it, although it felt like the spring
was way to stiff. Steering felt oddly heavy at slow speeds too. I wasn't
impressed, I really wanted to like it. So as a comfy sporty tourer it failed
big time.
The only thing I didn't like was in 'A' mode, the sporty one, at low speeds
in 1st/2nd opening from throttle off wasn't to clever. It just got so far
and whacked the power in. In the other 2 modes it was fine. In 3rd and
above 30-35 mph it wasn't a problem. Defintaly needs a tweek there and I can
see why it gets a mention in the mag tests. Its not as bad as some of them
make out though, in my opinion.
The saleman said up until the previous test rider, the average mpg readout
said 54mpg. (Pinch of salt) That dropped to 44 mpg by one rider. Did he ride
it just in 1st ?? Doing normal test ride stuff I raised the average up to
47.5 mpg, so reckon for me I could get over 50mpg no problem. No idea if the
gauge is accurate.
Hopefully Yamaha will make a MT-09 with a decent 1/2 fairing/screen. A bit
of extra weight over the front might help the flightines too, although if you
dont want that you could just not accellerate as hard. Maybe a bit of
an adventure style, it sounds like they are going to judging from the riding
position. Something like that would have been just the thing required for
my last trip around Romania. I was on the pegs a couple of times, and a
Fazer8 isnt designed for that.