Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128355
MotoGP monsters I'd just been riding. It fee ls very balanced and toge ther, poised even . Yet, w hile in a straight line , the Yamaha is plenty fast enough to get your attention . It accelerates sweetly and controllably up through the gears, all the way to a genuine - if brief! - top gear past the pits in Valencia, before you must shut off and brake hard fo r the third-gear turn one . The bottom four ratios closed together well enough to maximize acceleration out of the Nice - very nice, but you have to wo rk at making it happen. Though Je rem y Burgess set up the handlebar-to -seat-to -footrest ratio on the Yamaha so that it's exactly the same as Rossi's Honda from last year, the YZF-MI's very spacio us riding position is express ly tailored to allow Rossi to move his body we ight back and fort h on t he bike, as is crucially appropriate for grip an d balance at both ends. Watch him on t he MI and you'll see him doing so in a race much more than he ever did with the V-five Honda. Yet wat ch the bike in turns, and you can see that one of Valentino's great assets on t he Yamaha is his very high turn speed, faster t han anyone e lse in t he MotoGP class except maybe Makoto Tarnada's Bridge ston e -shod Honda, taking full advantage of the Japanese firm's excellent front tire . The Yamaha felt especiallystrong in the first two right-handers at Valencia, where you can actually accelerate hard between them and use the better damping of the uprated TT25 Oh lins 42mm fork and the fatter co ntact patch of the 16.5-inch fro nt Michelin, intro duce d by the Fren ch co mpany this season, to feel what t he tire is Very few of Rossi's competitors ever got to see this particular view of the M 1 in 2004. 36 JAN UARY 5 ,2005 • CYCLE NEWS doing and maintain mo mentum to the max. Th e Yamaha urge s you to do so, because it' s so comforta ble, and co mfort ing, to ride. By com parison, all the o ther MotoG P conte nders feel har der to work with, even t he Honda . They're all less forgiving and so me are nota bly less re fined to ride than the YZF-MI, and it's a real cred it to Yamaha engineers t hat they cou ld respo nd to Rossi's suggestions to improve the bike , as filtered thro ugh Burgess, so effectively. Where the Yamaha really impressed was nicking fro m through side to side Valencia 's infield esses before the right-hand hairpin. In addition, the Yamaha is so agile and easy-steering compared to certain o ther MotoGP bikes that you get a much greater sense of co nfidence in attacking turns at more humble speeds compare d to "The Docto r 's" - but I bet he gets the same fee ling, albeit at a differen t level. Th is is a very friendly and refined, as we ll as powerful, package . The Yamaha steers very we ll and has quite responsive handling fo r such a pote nt bike. It seems more like a 250 co mpared to the ot he r two first -gear be nd. Even so, as I co nfirmed in my afternoon rides on both bikes, it's de finitely not as fast as the V-fo ur Ducat i in a straight line . The Yamaha just makes up the difference in turn-in, corner speed and hoo k-up out of a bend . Still, it's no sled, as the Mugello speed traps confirmed when the Yamaha clocked 2 10 mph dow n that kilometer-long fro nt straight, on ly slightly slower than Alex Barros' Ho nda at 213 mph and Capirossi's Ducati at 211 mph. And that's with the somewhat, er, gangly Valentino aboard, trying to dra pe himself beh ind the Yamaha's ve stigial screen. You can te ll by the way the bike steers and handles that Yamaha o bvio usly decided that high-speed ae ro dynamics were less impo rtant than ease of handling and speed of turn ing in t ighte r co rners - and t hat's the package that it en ded up delivering to Valentino fo r him to do the business with . And indeed he did. Having ridden both bikes tha t he has don e the business of winning MotoGP titles wit h, I have to say that I pre ferred