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/686229
YAMAHA XSR900 ROAD TEST P82 lever, which now barely needs anything more than a single finger to operate. One thing that is surprising for such a retro-themed bike is how stiff the chassis is. There's heavier springs in the fork, which are right on the limit for how stiff I'd like my streetbike to be, and it feels like these should be car- ried over to the FZ, a bike aimed much more at fast road riders and hooligan stunters than the old-school XSR. Regardless, the stiffer front end serves wonders for the chassis balance. It's more progressive under heavy braking and more stable at speed – it essentially handles how the FZ should, while doing it in classier attire. The shock is fully adjust- able and even on standard set- tings felt great, soaking up most of the San Diego bumps we could throw at it without send- ing the chassis off line. The XSR tracks precisely with little effort, carving a nice sweeping arc just as easily as negotiating over- crowded car parks. The riding position is an inter- esting case because although you sit 15mm higher than an FZ, I don't fit as nicely thanks to the sculptured tank shrouds. These are not cut as low as I would have liked but, being aluminum and relatively inexpensive, you can always take a hammer to them a beat them into place (seriously, a Yamaha employee taller than me told me that). Having said that, the leather/ suede seat is one of the most comfortable standard seats I've tried this year. Eight hours in the saddle and I felt fine, which is more than I can say for many other bikes out there. The XSR's aesthetics make it feel like a bigger bike than it is. This comes down to the wide tank, seat shape and 'pegs that feel about 10mm too forward for my frame. If the skinny FZ-09 feels like a 750, the XSR feels like a genuine 900. Thus it might be a touch too intimidating for less experienced riders, which may be a good thing because the XSR is far from slow, some- thing riders with a few extra miles under the belts will no doubt appreciate. However, at the end of it all, buying an XSR comes down to what image you want to project. And as odd as this feels to type, I greatly prefer the understated Matte Gray and Aluminum design to the 60th Anniversary yellow and black Speedblock edition. Normally I'd be a Speedblock kinda guy but I feel those colors should be reserved for racing machines (or at least race-able machines, like the YZF-R1) and I think using those colors on the XSR doesn't suit them. Regardless of my opinion on the colors, there is no denying this bike is an absolutely stel- lar example of how to mix old school charm with modern tech- nology. Yamaha has a winner on its hands and hopefully they won't have too much trouble try- ing to convince riders that a new bike that looks old is far more fun to ride, and safer and easier to maintain than a poorly modi- fied café racer. I know which one I'd rather ride. CN THE YELLOW WASP OK, even though I'm not 100 percent keen on the Speedblock color scheme of the production bike, I'm pretty in love with the Yellow Wasp, a machine created by Roland Sands using an FZ-09 that essentially became the prototype for the XSR. It's a few months old now, but this page details the stages the Yellow Wasp went through, starting out as a basic FZ-09 before Sands put all his funky race-inspired touches all over it. It's a pretty interesting story with a very special appearance in the video, which you can see here.