Ok, went down to Wellywood on my trusty TDM900 and the lovely White Trash at TSS Red Baron offered me the choice of a test ride on pretty much any Yamaha I wanted.
"you want to try the R1?" said Trashie.
"Nah, it's got to be the Super Ten" said I. About an hour and a half of thrashing ensued.
Handling.....jeez...it's a heavy beast. Anyone who takes this thing on anything other than light gravel needs their head looked at. I've taken a CBR600 and the Tedium on the 309 Road but there's no way in hell I'd brave this on its wet clay.
The old "weight not noticable once moving" mantra is bull$hit. Even with the wide bars, you really don't want to be changing direction quickly or trail braking. It wallows on bumpy corners. Ridden like it should be, it's fine but you'll not keep up with even moderately ridden sportsbikes.
Brakes..... they haul her up well. Not sure if the're as good as the Tedium. ABS is the shizzle. No sure how well it works off road. Wouldn't imagine they'd fade with luggage/pillion. Trackday might be different story but then again, it's not a sportsbike.
Headlights....look fantastic (stock Tedium lights are $hite). Didn't try it in the dark though :-)
Ergonomics. Light controls, comfortable when standing. Nice clocks. Good mirrors. Kedo handguards (same as beemer and had em on my last TDM). Flatter and higher bars than the TDM....think I'll change mine. Liked the fuel consumption thingie. Fabulous in town.
The big spongey seat looks comfortable but is amazingly stupidly designed. For some reason, they've shaped and angled it so that it pushes your forward onto the tank (she's a ball crusher). This in turn, puts the pegs behind you...so you end up in a semi race crouch. Every time I stopped I found myself pushing myself towards the back of the seat. STUPID STUPID STUPID.
The adjustable screen needs about another 4 or 5cm of height if you're 6ft 4. As it stands, when adjusted to the top it hits squarely in the face and makes a lot of wind noise. When I crouched down 5cm, the screen was great. I could open my visor at 100kmh and the wind noise was negligible. Again, for a tall, heavy adventure bike aimed at BMW riders...I can't fathom how Yamaha didn't find and correct this during testing.
Noted how beefy the rear subframe is and the brackets around the exhaust. It's obviously designed with a pillion and heavy luggage in mind. Top marks for that IMHO.
Engine. Flat torque curve...feels like a car. Injection less jerky than the tedium's early system (although fixed in later models and earlier models had nice carbs) so great around town (and I guess off road). Shaft drive un-noticable and it manages to be smooth in top gear from around 40kmh (whereas the TDM wants to take your teeth out and snap the chain). Really no sense of urgency with this engine and it's reluctant to rev. I thought maybe it needed running in but no, there was over 1000k's on the clock.
Drag race against Drew (on my TDM900) at the traffic lights....well I got the jump on him but yet the tedium drew past and buggered off into the distance. Must be the weight.
Top gear roll on from about 85kmh. Surely the 1200 cubes would beat the 900. Nope. It was almost close up to about 110* but once it got into its stride, the TDM piloted by Drew buggered off again. Even at higher speeds it was getting licked. The 1200 even pulls higher revs than the 900 at 90kmh so it didn't make much sense.
How could Yamaha design such a gutless motor? Hopefully to compensate it is massively reliable, has huge service intervals and is able to run frugally on low octane jungle juice.
Conclusion. Ideal bike for folks under 6ft who want to go touring, especially with a pillion but don't want the "old man" touring bike image. It's overpriced for what it is but then again, I'd still have it over the equivalent BMW. Maybe I'd have one in ten years but at the moment, I like my "dual purpose" bike to lean a bit more towards the sports side of things.
Again, thanks to TSS Red Baron in Lower Hut for letting me try the bike. Hopefully Yamaha will stick a 900 motor in the Super's 660cc wee brother and I'll buy one off them in a heartbeat.
*on a track obviously
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