DeeKnow’s Grotto

For about 6 months now I’ve been gearing up for a bike replacement, buying magazines, reading website reviews and watching umpteen videos on YouTube. The domestic accountant finally authorised the spending and for the last few weeks now I’ve been waiting for the right day, conditions and opportunity to either sneak away from home for the day on the weekend or get some time off work to finally get out and test some bikes.

Today I took my chance. Beautiful clear blue winters day, a little on the cold side in the morning, warming up a bit by midday and the roads were dry. This was it. Took the afternoon off and went to three of the bike-shops in Hamilton to ride the machines I thought best suited my needs. Following is a review of the 1st bike I took out, the others to follow in coming days…

Yamaha R6 ‘07

Back in 2004 I took an as-new R6 out from Jason at Waikato Yamaha and absolutely loved the thing. I’d been riding a Kwaka ZX7R at the time and the nimble, free-revving, crazy little 600 was a real breath of fresh air for me at the time. Things have moved on a lot technologically since then with the R6, but the new model still shares that light handling rev-head character that rewards a rider happy to keep the engine above 10,000rpm.

Apart from the top-end fun, the thing I loved the most about the 04 R6 was the Superman like position of feeling like your looking over the nose of the bike. The 07 R6 seems much the same, it almost disappears beneath you which is weird at first but quickly you forget about the machine and occasionally you catch yourself thinking that your actually flying along the tarmac and not attached to a motorcycle at all. This is what riding a bike is all about to me, being in the moment like that, and it seems so easy on the R6.

For what looks like a wee bike there’s a ton of room on the seat, and it actually felt like it needed a Dani Pedrosa style rubber stopper on the arse end to stop me sliding about.

The engine spins up effortlessly (sometimes actually over-running on shifts with the clutch) but it suprisingly didnt take long to get into the habit of keeping it revving, however it really still is a little breathless when your not working it and would make for some sweaty passing manouvers for a lazy bugger like me who’s used to the beefy torque of a big-bore machine.

The only other gripe I had (which could have been to do with suspenstion setup I guess) was the front end got a little unstable on the gas in the rough stuff a few times when exiting corners. Would just feel like it was unsettled and not holding contact with the road, although to be fair its at times when you pretty much know you’re actively doing something which might cause it.

All up the R6 is still a wicked fun bike, would be a fantastic machine to step up to, and would clearly make a killer track-bike, but I’m not confident I could do without the midrange, and I’m really in the market for something that can also double as a commuter which it probably aint aimed at. Great bike, just still not for me.