Yamaha MT-09

FIRST RIDE Yamaha’s giant-killing supernaked gets a complete makeover for 2021 – and we’ve just ridden it...

Since its launch in 2013 the MT09 has been hugely important for Yamaha, lifting them out of a decade-long patch in the mainstream doldrums. As well as being a big seller in its own right, with around 9,000 of them hitting the roads every year, it’s also the backbone of the whole MT range, donating its basic running gear to the Tracer and XSR, and its DNA to every other MT model. Light, quick, fun, affordable, it’s been a winning formula which has seen the MT range rise to make up nearly half of Yamaha’s European sales, with over a quarter of a million units sold in Europe alone. The original 2013 MT-09 set the template – fantastic, grunty, three-cylinder engine, minimalist bodywork and budget suspension only let down by snatchy engine management and slightly crude ride quality. 2017’s update brought a bit of muchneeded refinement, but there was still room for improvement. Now the need to conform to ever stricter emissions rules means a complete revision was necessary, and that’s why we’re here in not so sunny Marseille to have our first ride on the all-new 2021 model. Have Yamaha managed to hit Euro 5 standards without losing power and adding weight? More importantly, have they done it without stifling the MT’s trademark fun factor? We’re about to find out....

What’s new

It’d be quicker to say what’s not new – the crankcases, basically...

At first glance the engine looks the same, but under the skin it’s heavily updated. The most obvious change is clear from a quick glance at the spec sheet – an extra 3mm on the stroke to take capacity up by 42cc to 889cc. More cubes is always a good strategy, especially when emissions rules are stifling your options to make more power by other means. That longer stroke gives a slightly less manic feel to the engine, as mentioned above, and it’s aided by a significantly heavier crankshaft, which gives more of a flywheel effect to the engine, making it a bit less snappy than before. It also probably helps with vibration and underlying noise. Revised camshafts also contribute to the change in torque peaks. There’s plenty more going on in the bowels of the motor though. New, lighter pistons are joined to that crankshaft by connecting rods that are each cast in one piece before being snapped to make a two-piece bearing to bolt round the crank (this allows a lighter casting, and fewer machining processes). The fuel injection system is heavily revised, with new injector banks squirting fuel more or less directly on to the tops of the intake valves, rather than further upstream in the inlet tracts. This is claimed to improve fuel atomisation and reduce the amount of fuel that resists combining with the incoming air and simply ‘sticks’ to the intake tract wall. The final link in the dynamic chain is a change in gear ratios for first and second, both of which become slightly taller, to damp out the previous model’s often criticised snapppiness from low revs in low gears. Before I forget, the Assist and Slip clutch (the clutch pack is forced together under acceleration, stopping it slipping, and forced apart under deceleration, allowing some slip to avoid locking the rear wheel) is revised too, with new friction material, and a different cable pull ratio for a lighter lever feel and less of a clunk on downshifts, especially with the new quickshifter (of which more later).

The forks are new – shorter overall than before to keep the weight low, but with the same travel – and they’re fully adjustable for compression (left fork), rebound (right fork) and preload. The rear shock’s adjustable for preload and rebound and has a new, more compact linkage design. They’re connected by an all-new frame made with a new die-casting process that allows daftly thin sections (just 1.7mm in places) where it’s not structurally important, while still giving extra stiffness where it’s needed. The swing arm is new too, and so are the wheels, again using a new process which allows thin walls – the thinnest sections of the rims are just 2mm thick, where nearly twice that would be more normal. The result of all this, says Yamaha, is less mass (189kg ready to roll is pretty good) and more emphasis on weighting the front tyre for better control and a more positive feel from the front end.

Yamaha has gone big with the electronics package, as well as dishing up a well-stuffed optional accessory list. Rider aids first though. It’s got ABS – as everything has these days. But this is cornering ABS, which is impressive on a bike at this price point. It also has lean-sensitive traction control (TCS), but added to that it has slide control (SCS), which isn’t quite the same thing, and it also has an ‘Anti-Lift’ system to help keep the front wheel on the floor more of the time under hard acceleration. The thing that makes all that work is a 6-axis IMU, based on the one fitted to the R1. I won’t go into too much detail about that because the tech is beyond me, frankly, but basically it’s a very clever little black box which takes data from sensors measuring the bike’s movement from front to rear, left to right and up and down. Not just movement either, but the speed of that movement.

It uses that data to tailor the ABS, traction, slide and lift controls to real-time conditions rather than the older style one size fits all algorithm. It does all that 125 times a second – told you it was clever.

Settings for the rider aids and engine modes are configured through the new 3.5in TFT screen, in conjunction with a scroll wheel on the right switchgear and buttons on the left. You can also choose settings for the new quickshifter, which operates on both up and down shifts (so long as you're above 2200rpm and 12mph). You can have it switched fully on, up only, down only or off altogether. A new single LED projector headlight rounds out the standard equipment, along with twin LED position lights and new LED indicators.

As for available accessories, there will be lots... Yamaha are already listing something like 55 separate lines for the MT, from crash protection to heated grips to luggage to a full Akrapovic exhaust system – tasty, but then at around 1500 quid it should be... Too much to list here but have a look at https://www. yamaha-motor.eu/gb/en/products/ motorcycles/hyper-naked/mt-09/ accessories/#/ for more details.

There will be three ‘packs’ of accessories offered through dealers, with a saving on full retail compared with buying individual items.

■ The Weekend Pack (£692.90) has a front screen, more comfortable seat, soft panniers and a USB outlet.

■ The Sport Pack (£571.40) has brake lever guards, a fly screen and grippy tank side pads.

■ The Urban Pack (£436.30) has a short screen, a rear carrier, a 39-litre top case, a USB outlet and a central tank pad. Riding impressions Kick a leg over the MT's deceptively wide seat (it's narrow enough at the front not to feel wide at all) and the riding position's all business – relatively upright, with wide, fairly high bars to give plenty of leverage, and not a huge amount of legroom, even with the footrests in their standard position. There's a solid, workmanlike feel to the controls, and no problems with fiddly buttons even in thick gloves. Fire it up and there's a pleasing burble from the exhaust. Pull away and you're off on a wave of torque – no need to rev it hard, you can just twist the throttle and get instant drive pretty much anywhere in the rev range. The original MT engine was great for this, but this new long stroke version is even better. The first thing you notice as you start to up the pace is the electronics. Or at least, you gradually become aware that there's nothing there TO notice

– in normal riding there’s just no sign that it’s all there working in the background. For example, I’d assumed the LIF lift control system was just a euphemism for Anti-Wheelie – and why on earth would anyone be anti-wheelie...? But it’s not. Powering out of bends, you simply wouldn’t know it was there. It allows plenty of leeway for catching a cheeky bit of air under the front wheel

– so long as you’re driving hard forwards as well, it’s happy to let you take responsibility and have fun. And you can fool it with a big handful in first and hoist a big one should you wish. If you prefer both tyres glued to the Tarmac, you have two choices – a bit less right hand, or alter the settings on the LIF system. As with the other aids, this is done via a sub-menu on the new TFT screen (which, by the way, is a bit small but otherwise well designed and full featured) and by the button on the left bar letting you switch between four principle riding modes plus three settings for the rider aids. TCS setting 1 gives you minimum intervention on all rider aids, while setting 2 ups the safety level, but it's still pretty unobtrusive. Alternatively, Manual mode lets you set each individual aid parameter separately – levels 1, 2, 3 or Off, so you can customise each function to suit. As for power delivery, engine Mode 1 gives you the snappiest throttle response, Mode 2 knocks the edge off the power a little, and so on until you get to Mode 4 which I tried for a couple of miles but which blunted the power so much it was no fun. I can’t see me ever wanting that, but then again if I had a midwinter, diesel-strewn commute in the dark after a 12-hour shift, I might well change my mind...

“Bottom line: It’s an affordable bike which punches well above its weight in terms of tech spec and has a truly magnificent engine.”

In the end, once I got a grownup to show me how to access the manual mode settings (just a press and twiddle of the right-hand scroll button) I settled on leaving the TCS and Slide control on minimum setting, because you never know, and turning the Lift system off altogether, because hooligan... Despite the hooligan element, I surprised myself by preferring that set up in conjunction with the slightly softer Mode 2 engine setting, which was just more instinctive and controllable on the road than the snatchier Mode 1, and needed less precise throttle control. I’d save Mode 1 for track days. Same goes for the adjustable footrests – you have a choice of standard, or 14mm higher and a few mm further back. I reckon that would be too cramped for anyone taller than me (which is most people...) and on the road, ground clearance simply wasn't an issue – I grazed the tips of the footrest blobs a few times, but that was it.

The MT-09 has always been well balanced, great on smooth roads but hobbled by cheap, crude suspension when the going gets faster and bumpier. The suspension’s still budget, especially at the rear, but it’s more controlled than I remember, possibly helped by the lighter wheels giving less unsprung weight for the suspension to control. it’s still overwhelmed by large bumps taken at speed though, and by sequences of small stutter bumps. The rear shock is definitely on the bouncy side too, especially as it heats up. The difference against the old model is that the rest of the time it rides better, and the suspension’s shortcomings don’t start to show themselves until you’re going faster than the older bike (and especially the original) would have been happy with.

It generally feels more planted than I remember from previous MT rides, with a smooth, rolling feel to the steering which is ideally suited to the twisty mountain roads we’ve been enjoying. On a track day, chasing perfect apexes, you might wish for faster turn-in, a bit more precision to exactly where you put your front wheel, but on the road it works just fine. My only reservation is that the extra front weighting gives it a bit of a ponderous feeling in town.

There’s also a surprisingly limited amount of steering lock, which can catch you out when threading through stationary traffic or turning round on small roads.

The brakes (radial calipers and a new radial master cylinder pinched from the R1) are strong enough to torture the front tyre and send your eyeballs out of their sockets, and with enough feel to be able to feather them all the way into turns – a real sportsbike fiend might find the feel at the lever a bit soft, but I like it like that on the road. The front-weighted set up helps with both of those, as do the high-ish, wide bars (although they're actually marginally less wide than the old model). The ABS is pleasingly subtle too – I provoked it deliberately a few times on dusty roads and it cut in smoothly and without fuss, and not too early.

The same couldn’t be said for the rear, which seemed to be chattering and cutting in all the time in a straight line, although I didn’t have a problem with that when using the rear to tighten a line in a corner. And before you ask: no, I wasn’t brave or cackhanded enough to make the cornering ABS work – these are not the kind of roads for that sort of silliness.

The quickshifter works very well so long as you’re cracking on, riding and changing crisply. It’s less good for pootling about, when it's a bit clunky, and it can trip itself up if you forget it's there and throttle off before shifting, as you would for a conventional clutchless shift, but you can obviously override it by just using the clutch as normal. Again, it’s easily switchable a choice of on, off, up only or down only.

Is it comfortable? Tricky... That'll have to wait ’til we get a test bike in the UK – 150km isn’t enough to make a judgement, especially as only the last 20-odd km were in any kind of steady state, on the autoroute back into Marseille. The rest were all manic direction changes and frantic acceleration and braking, so no test of long-term comfort. Even so, my backside wasn’t tremendously comfy at the end of the day – I think if I were buying an MT I’d be trying to persuade the dealer to throw in the optional Comfort seat (RRP £217) to sweeten the deal. As for economy, Yamaha claim the new MT is around nine per cent more fuel efficient than last year’s model, and capable of averaging around 55mpg. That doesn’t sound far-fetched – on our 150km loop, with a lot of heavy-handed throttle action and practically no pootling around, we were getting low 40s according to my hasty calculations after a couple of splash and dash topups. With a relatively small 14-litre fuel tank, that means you’ll be looking at filling up after around 110 miles, or running out after about 130 miles, stretching to 150 miles if you manage a genuine 50mpg.

Conclusion

A nine grand price tag puts the new MT-09 right where it needs to be - significantly cheaper than most of the opposition, and just squeezing under the hundred quid a month barrier for a typical finance deal. It’s a bit hard to place the MT-09 in relation to its potential rivals though. Dynamically, the closest you’ll get to the grunty triple engine and sheer joie de vivre of the MT is Triumph’s Speed Triple 1050, but that’s nearly a third again as expensive at £11,600 for the base model. Pretty much everything else that might be seen as a natural competitor is similarly more expensive – Suzuki’s Katana at £11,499 or GSX-S1000 at £10,699, and Honda’s CB1000R at £12,999 for the Black Edition version (prices for the 2021 base model weren’t available at time of writing). The forthcoming MT-09 SP is more likely to be closer in price to those, and with better suspension and brakes as well, but we don't have a price yet.

Closest in price to this standard MT are Kawasaki’s Z900 at £9297 otr, and BMW’s F800R at £8660, but really, neither of them is in the MT’s league for exuberant performance and well-developed tech. Class of its own? Maybe.

Bottom line: It’s an affordable bike which punches well above its weight in terms of tech spec and has a truly magnificent engine. Cleverly, it’s welcoming and intuitive enough to cosset newer riders, but sparky enough to satisfy the most commmitted hooligan or sportsbike rider. Neat trick if you can so it. So the suspension could be better? Fine, that’s easy to sort out a year or two down the road, with an upgraded rear shock and a revalve and new springs at the front. In the meantime there’s little to find fault with at this price. I’d certainly be very happy to have one peeking out of the garage at me each morning.

A note on availability: Covid has delayed deliveries into the UK slightly, but at the time of writing Yamaha was expecting the first bikes to land with dealers at the end of March, and as it’s such an important model, most dealers will be running demo bikes, with test rides available as soon as the lockdown situation allows, currently expected to be by April 12 at the latest.