Yamaha Rings In the New Year
Yamaha Rings In The New Year
ROUNDUP
LET’S FACE IT, LAST YEAR YAmaha kicked butt. With the all-new FZR1000 and FZR600, along with the outstanding FZR400 and the return of the FJ1200, Yamaha had a sportbike lineup hard to beat. Add to those the Virago cruisers, the luxury-touring Venture Royale, the standard-style Radian and the V-Max muscle bike, and Yamaha had the most-rounded line in the business.
For 1990, all of those models are back, largely unchanged except for new paint and different decals. But that doesn’t mean that Yamaha is without something to show for the new model year.
Instead of wooing riders with more horsepower and better handling, two attributes Yamaha already had plenty of, the company has turned its attention to entrylevel motorcyclists. The new offroad-only RT 100 and RT 180 represent a low-intensity, unintimidating admission to the sport. The bikes, with styling similar to Yamaha dirtbikes of the 1970s, are both powered by two-stroke Singles with automatic oil-injection.
Because Yamaha designed the 97cc, five-speed RT100 for the smaller beginning rider, it comes standard with an l 8-inch front wheel and a 16-inch rear to keep the seat height at a low 28 inches.
For slightly larger and/or moreexperienced riders, there’s the I76cc RT 180, equipped with larger wheels and tires— 18-inch rear and 21-inch front—and longer-travel suspension than the 100. Still, it is far from a motocross machine, with an emphasis on being easy to ride.
On the street side, Yamaha has reintroduced the Virago 535—absent for a year—with some changes. The peanut-shaped fuel-tank cover has been enlarged, and now is actually a working fuel tank, supplementing the underseat fuel cell.
Then, for sportbike lovers, the razor-sharp FZR400 has had several updates, with the big news being the addition of an aluminum Deltabox swingarm. Yamaha claims it weighs less and provides more rigidity than last year’s rectangular-section unit. Also new are four-piston front-brake calipers. The 400 was not lacking in brakes before, so now should be nothing short of awesome.
As far as the rest of FZR models go, there’s new paint and graphics, but more important, the FZR600 gets radial tires, the rear mounted on a wider rim, and four-piston front brakes. (For a preview riding impression of the new FZR600, see “Quick Ride” on next page.) The FZR 1000 acquires just a polished muffler, but for the bike that was voted as Cycle Worlds Best Superbike, doing much more would have been wasted energy.
About the only sportbike conspicuous by its absence is a 750cc FZR, especially in a model year that will see potent racer-replicas from the three other Japanese companies. But don’t get your hopes up for one in the near future because according to company spokesmen, such a bike isn’t in Yamaha’s new-model pipeline.
But, there is news of another new machine, albeit not a sportbike. Yamaha has one more 1990 bike to release, though the company is keeping the wraps on it for another month. We can’t say exactly what it is, but can tell that you that dualpurpose riders are going to love it.
—Camron E. Bussard
