Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

- o CYCLE EWSTEST: ~ By Ron Schneiders A person who tests a motorcycle makes certain assumptions about the w people who are going to ride that Z motorcycle. Sometimes these ~ assumptions are conscious, sometimes ~ not. The worst assumption is that all u riders are like yourself. This is the asswilption that shows when a writer tests every road bike as if it were destined for the Isle of Man and every off road bike for its Inter-Am potential. Rightly or wrongly when 1 fIrSt learned of the Yamaha XS-I, 1 assumed tha:t its primary appeal wo uld be to two fairl y different groups of people. The fJrst group would be those people for whom the motorcycle is sort of an outward extension of their personality. They are seen parading down the Sunset strip dressed to the teeth and usually carrying a member of the opposite sex on the passenger seat. Actually they are kind of a group-within-a.group. If they had more money they would be riding Honda Fours and if they had more talent and patience, they'd be riding choppers or some other custom rig. Having neither they ride a 650 of one sort or another. What turns these people on is looks, sounds and probably something 1 would call "soul" except that I'm not tuned in to that scene. 1 must disqualify myself as road tester for that group because I'm not familar ehou h with the criteria. Z re Points are very_ accessible on the Yamaha. The second group who will buy the Yamaha 650 are those who like to ride everywhere, for whom the motorcycle is really a means of transportation. As a group, they'll be younger (at least in spirit) than BMW riders and they won't want multi-cylinder jobs because they're too much of a hassle. They'll put on 12,000 miles a year and keep the bike until there is nothing left to repair. Jus! like their fathers or brothers did with th~ir TR-6's. 1 decided to test the Yamaha as though 1 were one of them. When the bike was delivered to me, 1 was told 1 would have it for ten days. 1 made up my mind that when 1 returned it there would be 1,000 miles on the odometer. The first trip was ba~k to Yamaha International because the bike was delivered without instruction manual, tools, license plate, or side view mirror. 1 got a license plate and an instruction manaul (for the 70 model) and then 1 took my first ride up the freeway. The first impressions weren't great. There was tremendous vibration in the vicinity of the handlebars and the steering was just plain lousy. The first time I used the front wheel brake hard, I almost went down: the bike just took a nose dive to the right. This was Thursday. 1 took the bike over to my friends at World Cycle in Hollywood for help and consultation. They gave me a mirror and replaced one of the signal light bulbs that had burned out and gave me some screws for the tail 'light ens which was about to falloff., They agreeds that the front end was not right, but they couldn't immediately diagnose what was wrong. Back to Yamaha International. It was found that most of the screws holding the front end together were loose (like the f.ork pinch bolts and front axle pinch bolt!) and that there was insufficient oil in the front forks. This is a function of improper preparation, rather than a deficiency in the machine. Repairs were made while I waited, but it was discovered that something was leaking from under the tan k and it wasn't possible to get the carbs really smooth. They wanted me to leave it but I had no way to get home. I promised to bring it back in the first of the Week. Due·: to ,o,ther affairs that The Yamaha was very much at home in the mountains. turned out to be Tuesday. They worked it over and I came back to get it in the afternoon. They had my bike ready but they wanted to give me a brand new one. 1 refused it, partly for selfish reasons, partly from principle. Afterall, they wouldn't give a customer a new one and besides I had 180 tough break-in miles logged on that machine, It was starting to loosen up. Finally I could really start to test it. JuSt as soon as I could find the headlight that quit working on the way home. That turned out to be a loose connection. No big thing, if you're not on a dark freeway at 70 per. Since the group of people that I postulated as the principle buyers will use the bike on the freeway quite a bit, tnat was my first consideration. All told, I rode about 150 miles on the freeways and, once tne front end was fixed, the bike really felt good. Moreover, it was safe. When a dangerous situation develops on a freeway, you have three options: Accelerate, stop, or swerve. The first is usually the most effective - if you have enough power. The Yamaha had plenty. You could always stick into 4th and pull away very fast or leave it in 5 th and pull away with moderate acceleration_ The front brake is a good stopper with lots of "feel". You can come within an ace of locking up the front wheel repeatedly, without doing it. I really liked it. It never did get completely over its tendency to want to pull to the right a little, but after the screws were tightened it was just that: a very slight tendency. Bet you could eliminate that with a fork brace: One thing that a rider can get used to in a hurry are those nice big signal ligh ts. They ought to knock ten bucks off, your insurance rate if you have lights like th ose on the Yamaha and use them consistently. Taking a cue from the British, the Yamaha has a hom that is totally useless for anything except scaring the passenger. The suspension is a bit stiff for the freeway but 1 didn't find it objectionable. There was, however, one freewa y situation that the Yamaha was Lots of bunons under rider's left thumb can cause confusion, especially in the dark. not up to: Sometimes the roadway is broken into blocks about forty feet long and ripples develop in ihe road. It must be one of the ultimate tests of a suspension. Most car suspensions cannot completely soak up those ripples at 65 mph. The Yamaha suspension can't seem to handle them adequately at any speed that is reasonable. The siutation ranges from decidedly uncomfortable to downright dangerous as the speed increases. Apar~ fr.'?'!' !h.":.~.?Jle ~!e_a, though, the Yamaha seemed to be an excellent fre,eway bike. Since the rider that I have described will do a lot of night riding, I did, also. About six or seven hours worth. The most important consideration :was the lights. On the Yamaha they.are bright. After years of British bikes, I can really appreciate good,' bright lights: Apart from the one loose connection, and the burned out bulb at the beginning of the test, I experienced no difficulty whatever with the lights. The speedo and Tach were well enough lighted to read easily but were not obtrusive. One small complaint: All the buttons under the left thumb become difficult to sort out in the dark. Even after several hundred miles I would still wind up trying to dim the turn signals or turn out the horn. One testing aspect that is often neglected is performance in miserable stop and go traffic. On Saturday my wife and 1 took the bike on a shopping trip, across downtown LA, freeway over' to Manhattan Beach. Saturday afternoon traffic, shopping centers, smog, more traffic, stop every corner for a light, back on the freeway up to Pasadena, through downtown Pasadena, stop for pedestrians, stop for lights, stop for accidents and on and on. The bike made the trip tolerable. Through the whole day, it idled smoothly, didn't overheat, the clutch worked nicely and it was just really nice to ride. It's well geared for that kind of riding, so it's not always necessary to be slipping the clutch. Every place that we stopped, the bike drew compliments on its looks, quite often from non-motorcyclists. The

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