BOOTHY YAMAHA YZF-R1M
THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Doing massive wheelies.”
You may have noticed that my R1M termer column was conspicuous by its absence last month. That was because I was over on the Isle of Man pretending to be a TT superstar, but don’t worry, I wasn’t going to leave it at home – I j ust can’t get enough of the R1M. And the more I ride it the more I love it.
Before I went over to the island, I’d been clocking the miles up at home riding to work, and more often than not taking the long way home, so when I got over there I really felt at one with the big sex y Yam. I was a fairly busy boy during the TT fortnight but whenever I got a bit of down time I made sure I got a few laps in on the R1M as the Isle of Man is THE ( with a capital TH) best place to wring the neck off your road bike, owing to the lack of speed limits. That said, during the TT there are a whole load of temporary speed limits in place due to the ex tra volume of traffic and multitude of camp site entrances lining the course. To make up for that though, there’s a good 10 mile section of road up on the mountain that is not only unrestricted, but one-way. It’s fantastic, and I lost count of howmany laps I did flat-out over the mountain, left at the Creg-ny-Baa, through the back roads to the Gooseneck and then back over the mountain again.
And you wouldn’t believe the attention the R1M got whenever it was parked up over there. It didn’t matter where it was, whether it was outside my race awning, in a layby up on the mountain or in Tesco’s car park, on an island full of motorbike people there was never a shortage of folk gawping at its sleek lines.
I had a severe case of the TT Blues when I came home from the IO M and the only thing that got me through was swingingmy leg over the R1M and going for a blast. In fact I was that desperate to stretch some cables that I booked onto a trackday at Cadwell Park. I had an itch that I needed to scratch and Cadders didn’t half scratch it – it’s such an awesome place. If you haven’t ridden there yet, you need to. What it highlighted, though, was the R1Ms brakes. I was well aware of the fact that they aren’t the most proficient anchors on the market but they really were a nuisance on track. It was mainly the ABS kicking it; with all the fancy electronics on the R1MI don’t know why there isn’t the option to turn it off. Rest assured, the nex t time I take it on track( which I’m hoping will be soon) it will be getting turned off, by hook or by crook – even if it’s only a case of yanking the ABS fuse out.
As far as mods go, I haven’t made any yet. I’ll be honest, I like the thing j ust the way it is. I’ll probably chuck a tail tidy at it and maybe a can – I don’t want anything too noisy but something with a little bit more ‘ brap’ factor wouldn’t go a miss.
In the meantime I’m going to carry on loving life on one wheel, as that’s where the I spend a good proportion of the time when astride my 2018 termer. Please don’t tell my mum.