Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Left) The Tmax has 4.8 Inches of suspension travel, front and rear· quite a lot for a scooter. Also, check out the 267mm rear disc. It provides plenty of stopping power, especially when paired with the front 280mm disc. (Right) The widespread handlebars allow plenty of leverage for cornering, while the white-out gauges are easy to read. deliver the extra power to the wheel that you've just dialed up . The way to counter this is the time-honored scooter practice of using the back brake to accelerate against into a tum, allowing you effectively to pre-load the throttle and thus cut out the lag. The Tmax's lowdown build makes it excitingly easy to flick from side to side through a faster series of bends, and the good-sized pair of disc brakes haul your combined weight down from speed pretty well - fortunate, since ABS isn't an option. The fact that these are no longer linked, but may be operated separately in the same way as on a bike, is a great asset which improves overall handling - though you have to use them both hard together if you want to brake quickly from any speed. By motorcycle standards the Tmax already stops pretty well, but for a scooter, the quality of its brake package is unbelievably good. Steering is quite precise for a smallwheeled vehicle, even with that bikesized fat front tire. Only the sheer length and rakish 28-degree head angle prevent any great degree of agility in getting around a tight tum - though it's quite possible to employ the good grip of the motorcycle-type Dunlops in using up all of that 50-degree bank angle, to get the sidestand scraping leaning into a tum (there's also a center stand). The only time you can ever get it to pump slightly is taking a 50-75 mph bend on part-throttle over a bumpy surface, when the back shock (not compressed under power) will start to move around a little - but for only a moment, before the long wheelbase and low CG, coupled with the conservative steering geometry (95mm trail) ensures normal service is resumed. Otherwise, in regular use, for a 14-inchwheeled device, the Tmax is impressively stable. It also, quite seriously and however improbably, rivals a well setup trail bike in being the fastest way from A to B along a twisting country road, thanks in part to the leverage of the wide-spread handlebar, the fact that there's no gear-changing, and the engine braking delivered by the centrifugal clutch (which will even have the back tire chirping from time to time on the right kind of road surface). So, the Tmax is functionally excellent, dynamically practical, has impressive performance in real-world road conditions by any standards (especially by those of the middle-weight motorcycle class), and seems very solid and well put together, with a good build quality reflecting its rather high price. It goes, stops, corners and handles more than acceptably - in some ways, impressively. So where's the downside? Is there one? Well - yes, but only by motorcycle standards, because at the end of the day this is still a scooter, and that means it's just not very thrilling to ride. Fast, yes but exciting, no. Riding it instead of a twin-cylinder 500cc motorcycle is the exact same difference as driving a Jaguar XK8 or BMW Z3 sports ca tted with an automatic transmission, instead of with a third pedal and the full five-onthe-floor. Those who like that will opt for its two-wheeled equivalent - which is perhaps the whole point of Yamaha creating the T max in the first place. CN WHO WANTS JJ SCOOTER? Although at the end of the day it's still a scooter, it delivers many of the dynamic qualities and most of the performance of a motorcycle - just not so much of the spirit. However, for car drivers making the switch to two wheels for commuting and even the occasional pleasure outing, and no longer content to trickle through traffic on the underpowered ring-ding two-stroke they passed their test with, the Tmax opens up a level of performance fuBy on a par with the glass-windowed box they've put to one side. It's significant that Yamaha's press presentation made comparisons only with four-wheelers in terms of acceleration, rather than with motorcycles, with the Tmax's claimed 0-100 kph (0-62 mph) figure of 7.5 seconds out-punching the 8.5 seconds of a VW Golf GTI, or even the 7.7 seconds of an Alfa Romeo V6 Turbo. This gives an indication of where Yamaha eVidently thinks Tmax sales are likely to come from - for while the model is undeniably practical as well as performing, it delivers this in a functionally bland manner that will be the despair of most motorcyclists. It's a scooter with bike levels of performance, rather than a motorcycle with automatic transmission. Expect any bikers who buy a Tmax to have one sitting alongside their motorcycle in the garage, not replacing it - although at the rather high price of $7940 on the road (compared to just another $500 more for the YZF600 Thundercat still marketed in Italy, or perhaps more importantly, just $6000 for an XV535 Virago), this is an expensive luxury as a back-up commuter product. (Above) The front end allows ample wind protection for most, although bigger riders will want to purchase a taller windscreen from Yamaha. Without the available Yamaha hand wlndguards, hands can get very cold very quickly. Scooter or ~torCJfcle? In concocting the Tmax, Yamaha went back to first principles in order to combine motorcycle chassis design with scooter engineering, to create a unique marriage of two-wheeled opposites. In creating the Tmax, Yamaha engineers needed to discard conventional design concepts for both motorcycles and scooters, and figure out a way to combine the best of both worlds. On paper, at least, they seem to have succeeded - for in its execution the new model follows its R1 stablemate in setting benchmark design standards for those of its competitors that will sureiy follow after. SCOOTER • • • • Scooter aesthetics employ styling derived from Yamaha's best-selling Majesty 250 Engine is underslung beneath the seat, and there's no fuel tank between the rider's legs Transmission is fully automatic Don't get the idea this is an R1-type alloy Deltabox frame - the horizontal silver "chassis spars" running along the scooter are just plastic cladding moldings for styling purposes • The cast-aluminum twin-sided bike-style swingarm pivots in the rear of the engine's crankcase casting, substantially reducing the unsprung weight represented by the whole combined engine/transmission unit acting in effect as the swingarm, as on smaller- capacity scooters • Automatic clutch incorporates the variable-length pulleys and belt primary drive commonplace on scooters • Healthy 8.3 galions worth of storage space • Left hand iever operates rear brake MOTORCYCLE • Long-stroke 66 x 73 mm electric-start, liquid-cooled, 360-degree parallel-twin fourstroke engine w/ twin-overhead camshafts & 8 valves (both pistons rise and fali together) is sporting specification • Twin 30mm Mikuni carbs with automatic choke • In order to offset the vibration endemic in the 360-degree crank layout, Yamaha has adapted an idea from the Ducati Supermono single by fitting a third, horizontally opposed "blind" cylinder to the engine, containing a connecting rod and piston equaling the combined mass of the other two (power-producing) cylinders • Unlike other scooters where the engine and transmission unit pivot together as a single unit in a pressed-steel U-frame, the Tmax's horizontaliy-Iocated engine is rigidly bolted into the model's separate motorcycle-style tubular steel chassis, creating a much stiffer frame structure • Zero-maintenance twin-row finai-drive chain runs in an oil bath and is wrapped around the left side of the swingarm • Clutch is a motorcycle-type multi-plate design, operated by a pressure plate • Since the swingarm pivot is coaxial with the puliey supporting the toothed belt primary drive Oust as on the Tamburini Bimotas like the KB2 and SB3 which adopted the same idea relative to the gearbox sprocket). this delivers constant tension - and thus longer life - for the final-drive chain. • Yamaha isn't ashamed to have adopted a Hariey-Davidson idea on the Tmax: the Kayaba rear shock is underslung lengthways beneath the engine, and operated in traction rather than compression - just as on any Bueli (and the 500cc Elf GP racer). • Motorcycle-style (except its non-adjustable) 38mm Kayaba fork mounted (at a conservative 28 degrees) in a pair of triple clamps (not a single one, as on most scooters) • Unprecedented amount of suspension travel at both ends by scooter standards, with 4.8 inches of wheel travel front and rear • Weight distribution is worthy of a motorcycle: the Tmax's 47/53 percent rearward bias compares well with the 48/52 percent of Yamaha's own TDM850 - but contrasts vividly with the 38/62 percent format of the 250 Majesty, typical for a scooter • Wheels are 14-inch front and rear (large for a scooter). and are shod with Dunlop tires of bike-style construction, the front a 120/70 and the rear a 150/70 - again, the fattest ever fitted to a scooter • Ground clearance of 5.6 inches aids in an un-scooteresque 50-degree banking angle before anything touches down • 280mm and 267mm front and rear brake discs, respectively, are innovative in scootering terms • Twin-pot calipers are not only the largest ever fitted to such a machine, they're also no longer linked for joint operation with a rearward balance-bias, as on all other scooters including the 250 Majesty. Instead, these are separately operated via a pair of levers eye I e n e "" so • JANUARY 31, 2001 21

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