VERY MAXIMUM!

Editor Bsimmonds@mortons.co.uk

It was only a ‘cruiser’, so what could go wrong? This was the line going through my head when I saddled up a Yamaha V-max for the very first time way back in 1995.

Hell, I’d ridden a Honda CBR900RR Fireblade by this point, Suzuki’s GSX-R1100 and many other performance machines, including a Laverda Jota – what would a decade-old Yamaha with a V4 motor derived from a relaxed custom bike do to me? Ha! Easy peasy…

And then I rode it. Hellfire! My mistake was not looking where I was going – please wait before you condemn me. There was that little tachometer atop the tank that, when it hit 6000rpm, took off. Literally… Of course, I wanted to ‘watch’, I always had a morbid fascination, be it for immunity jabs, surgery…

You can imagine what happened next. Rather than looking where I was going I was eagerly anticipating the V-boost system coming on tap at around 6000rpm. With the tacho sat on the tank, I wasn’t looking where I was going and mounted a pavement in a moment of sheer idiocy. Don’t worry, only my pride was hurt. What a complete idiot.

This issue brings you two legends together: the Yamaha V-max and Roland Brown. He tells the story of the bike and test ride, as well as a number of special specials. Meanwhile, Steve Cooper brings us a Buyer’s Guide. In other news, we also have four hot European machines as our main test. Who could resist a Laverda Jota, a BMW R100 S, a Moto Guzzi 850 Le Mans and a Ducati 900 SD Darmah?

We hope you like the esoteric mix we’ve brought you this month and, once more, another plea from us here at CMM: if you like what you see, simply scan that weird box thing on the ‘Next Month’ page or go to: https:// www.classicmagazines.co.uk/issue/preorder