I had a MK 1 Fazer that I did 30,000 in 3 years on.Loved it but wanted a change so chopped it in for a Honda 600F4. Hornet was a lovely bike but you had to thrash it to get anywhere quickly,however once it was "wound up" it was great fun and very,very quick around the twisties.Let the revs drop though and and you'd have to frantically knock it down a couple of gears.It was pretty much like riding a 2 stroke,a lot "sportier" than the Fazer but in reality no quicker as the Yamaha had vastly superior low and mid-range grunt.Also thrashing a Hornet trashed the fuel consumption and I once had the fuel light come on 80 miles from a full tank when it was more like 100 in more normal use,still pretty pathetic compared to 180 miles I used to do on my Fazer between fill ups.
Had the Hornet for 3 years as well but to be honest there wasn't much it did that the Fazer didn't do better.It looked a lot nicer and was brilliant around town or for blasting along B roads if you could afford to keep it in petrol but the Fazer was a lot more practical,I'd go anywhere on the Yam,I used to avoid Dual Carriageways on my Hornet,let alone motorways,as it was a pain going up and down through the gearbox all the time and the complete lack of wind protection was a real pain as well.I'd go for the Fazer over a 600 Hornet any day.
I currently ride a 900 Hornet,both previous owners are mates of mine so I've ridden the bike since it was new and can directly compare it to my old Fazer.Well the bikes perform very similarly and the 9 is a lot easier to live with than the 600 Hornet but in all honesty the only way it's significantly better than the old Fazer is with the build quality,over 30,000 miles in all weather,never been garaged and it still runs like new and polishes up like new,my old Fazer wasn't bad but not made to the same standard.600 Hornets after the F3 are made in Italy and whatever Honda will try to tell you about superior build quality I'd say Yamaha are now better with Kawasaki and Honda just above Suzuki.My F4 was a rotbox and I don't neglect my bikes.
