Middleweight heroes in search of brilliant B-roads
Yamaha’s MT-09 all-rounder faced a tough new rival in 2018 — KTM’S 790 Duke. How do they compare, faced with East Anglia’s finest bumps, burgers and biking B-roads?
HUNSTANTON LOOKS PARTICULARLY fine this morning. The still waters of The Wash sparkle in a sugary glaze like one of the seafront’s deepfried doughnuts, as Jimmy and I pull up at the promenade, seeking breakfast in the form of cappuccinos and a two-for-a-pound sugar rush from Kay’s Donut Shack. Yamaha’s MT-09 and KTM’S 790 Duke — the ‘Scalpel’ — line up among a smattering of various other machines; the unseasonal late-autumn warmth bathing East Anglia means mid-week bikers are collecting on the beachfront, including two mates on Triumphs. One gestures at the MT-09’S full Akrapovic system — a £1113 factory accessory — and says it sounds better with the baffle out.
“You’ll be lucky,” laughs Jimmy. “It hasn’t got a toolkit. We can’t even adjust the suspension.” It would be nice if we could: the ride to Hunstanton has shown the stock Yamaha settings to be deficient in damping control over rear-end bounce. Experience has shown a couple of clicks of extra rebound does the trick.
But aside from that, the MT-09 has all its reasons for being such a popular machine
on display: slotted-in, come-and-havea-go riding position; a grunty, snappy three-cylinder motor gargling torque up from low revs into a growling baritone that gets the juices flowing; lightweight, fly-boy steering verging on the unstable but with a distinctly naughty vibe; and bags of anarchic acceleration.
The MT-09 was launched in 2014 and found itself the right bike at the right time at the right price: the credit crunch pushed the value of big-bore Japanese sportsbikes north into five figures, leaving a hole around the eight-grand mark into which the versatile, all-round MT-09 slotted nicely.
Hunstanton to Kersey Mill
Jimmy and I prowl away from Hunstanton, heading through Her Maj’s leafy back garden at Sandringham, pressing on towards Thetford forest and sticking almost exclusively to a helter-skelter network of Norfolk B-roads. Britain is crammed with brilliant Bs — they’re one of biking’s most-ignored pleasures. For years we’ve