VOLUME 56 ISSUE 39 OCTOBER 1, 2019 P95
YA M A H A Y Z F - R1M
The R1M is another level and one of the best out-
of-the-crate sport bikes money can buy.
Stunning, right?
The R1M is
undoubtedly a
head-turner.
high-fives to the Japanese develop-
ment team who was there for the
launch, and giving big thumbs up to
the test riders, Kazuyuki Nishimura
(chassis and suspension development
test rider) and Tomoya Osaka, who is
the engine and electronics develop-
ment test rider. This bike is brilliant.
Yamaha has made it so that even a
suspension newbie can fine-tune this
bike for their own riding style. They've
started with an excellent baseline, then
added all the adjustability most people
could wish for so that you can start
with a great package, and dial it in, and
change it according to your wants on a
different day, or at a different track.
I was shown how to easily adjust the
bike to be stiffer while I was braking,
or to make it squat less when I was on
the throttle. It's got sensors in the bike
that know when you're on the gas, in
a turn, on the brakes a little or a lot,
and it uses the information from these
sensors to adjust your suspension on
the fly.
Your suspension tuner is your
dash, so you don't have to learn about
compression and rebound and all of
that confusing stuff (if you don't want
to). And while you can still adjust each
and every one of those things, you can
also do a whole lot of good for your rid-
ing by merely playing around with the
dials on the dash or the touch of your
tablet!
The top-of-the-line electronics
extends to the rest of the bike, with the
engine braking and wheelie control
and lots of trick components adjust-
able on the fly.
A couple other cool things about
this new YZF-R1M are all the little
details in the styling. The fairings are
tapered off instead of having sharp
lines, which I wasn't sure about until
I heard Josh Hayes talk about it. The
four-time MotoAmerica Superbike
Champion said it allowed him to have
his body position how he wanted and
didn't negatively affect his legs. I also
loved all the carbon fiber on the R1M,
though photos don't ever seem to do
carbon fiber justice.
The new intake also caught my
attention. I'm so used to seeing plastic
intakes that the idea of an aluminum
one never dawned on me. The plastic
one has just enough give, though, that
it allowed the nose of the bike to dive,
ever so slightly, under wind pressure at
high speeds, and Hayes commented
that he could actually see that happen.
Now it's aluminum and will hold the
nose up more sturdily. Yamaha's not
gone too overboard with the changes
for the YZF-R1 and YZF-R1M. What
they have done has amounted to a
better bike than what was on sale this
year. It's also future-proofed the bike
somewhat, so it's unlikely we'll see any
more changes to the bike for at least
another couple of years.
That's all well and good because as
Cameron Beaubier has just proved,
the R1 is still at the very forefront of
superbike racing and technology.
Shelina Moreda
