By now, the dust has settled on the commotion surrounding the Yamaha YZF-R7 debut – one of the more surprising and interesting motorcycles to debut so far this year.
This fully faired middleweight-twin takes the Yamaha MT-07 platform, with its 689cc parallel-twin engine, and prepares it for Yamaha’s “R” world of sport-focused, track-ready, motorcycles.
This week, we will see the first real life assessments of the new R7, and of course the reviews will be glowing pieces of literature – because those are the only kind of reviews that Yamaha USA will now tolerate.
Don’t let that detract from what the R7 represents, however. Like its naked sibling, the YZF-R7 will disrupt the middleweight-twins category, which has long been stagnating on the vine with bikes like the Suzuki SV650.
This stalwart bike has long been the go-to entry point for new riders and veteran racers alike, but the SV650’s decades of service have seen little in the way of deserving and meaningful change.
The means that the opportunity for a little disruption is ripe, and the Yamaha YZF-R7 is just set to be one of the key bikes to satiate our appetite.
Unseating the King: The Suzuki SV650
For the past two decades, the Suzuki SV650 has defined the middleweight-twin category.
In fact, it would be more correct to say that the Suzuki SV650 created the middleweight-twin segment, as the popular v-twin sport bike created a following that included not only novice riders, but also expert racers.
The recipe was fairly simple, the 90° v-twin provided tons of character, while the price tag on the SV650 was approachable.
Modifying the SV650 was an easy enough task, with track enthusiasts grafting GSX-R front ends onto the aluminum trellis frame.
The SV650 will go down in motorcycle history as a cult classic, but that doesn’t meant that Suzuki has managed this iconic machine very well.
The “Gladius Gaff” in 2009 saw a more “pop” style come to the SV lineup, which tried to modernize the more UJM look that had become synonymous with the Suzuki SV650 name.
Suzuki’s subsequent retreat back to the conservative hasn’t been a winning strategy for the motorcycle brand, either. Unchanged since 2017, the SV650 has come under fire from the other Japanese brands, most notably from Yamaha with its FZ-07 street bike.
With a 270° crank on its 689cc parallel-twin engine, the Yamaha FZ-07 provided enough character to detract from the no-thrills offering that came with its sub-$7,000 price tag, and a new challenger to the throne was born.
The Constantly Changing Middleweight Category
The Yamaha FZ-07 has become the Yamaha MT-07 (to keep the naming the same throughout Yamaha’s global markets), and along the way, the Tuning Fork brand has brought subtle revisions to the machine as recently as the current model year.
This has allowed the Yamaha MT-07 to become the new de facto standard in the middleweight-twin category that the Suzuki SV650 started.
That is an important fact for the Japanese brands, especially as they have seen on their watch the demise of the 600cc supersport class. The pursuit for absolute track performance led the supersport segment down a path where OEMs were making horrible street bikes in the name of winning trophies.
It is not surprising then to see that new riders, and even experienced racers, were preferring the character and more ridable torque range available on these twin-cylinder bikes with similar engine displacement sizes.
This has created a renaissance for the middleweight-twin category (and not just in the sport bike segment), and with motorcycle manufacturers scrambling to find the next big trend in the sport, we have seen some unexpected names enter into the fray.
Chasing Waterfalls, And the Aprilia RS 660
The most surprising name in the category certainly has to be the Italian brand Aprilia, which turned the middleweight-category on its head with its relatively expensive, but feature-pack two-pronged approach to the segment.
The Aprilia Tuono 660 is perhaps the better comparison to bikes like the Suzuki SV650 and Yamaha MT-07, but it is the Aprilia RS 660 that has turned the most heads.
Using a six-axis inertial measurement platform (IMU), the full-fairing Aprilia offers features like cornering ABS and lean-sensitive traction control, which would normally be reserved for only more powerful and more expensive superbikes.
In a class dominated by machines that cost below the $8,000 mark (and usually closer to the sum of $7,000 than not), the $11,400 MSRP of the Aprilia RS 660 was astounding in every shape of the word.
The Italian bike sets a new standard in the middleweight-twins category, which can now consider itself properly bifurcated with budget-focused machines as well as premium offerings, for with Aprilia defines the latter.
With the Aprilia RS660 being perhaps one of the most talked about motorcycles to debut in 2021, the industry is just now feeling the effects of what this bike will do to the market.
So when Asphalt & Rubber broke the news that a full-fairing version of the MT-07 was coming, it created speculation as to whether Yamaha would chase Aprilia down the path of a more capable and feature-rich middleweight-twin sport bike, or if the Tuning Forkers would keep closer to their budget roots.
Expectations, Reasonable and Otherwise
That speculation was fueled primarily by what was happening independently at race tracks around America, as the “FZ-07R” was becoming a popular tool for those who wanted a lightweight-class race bike.
That movements was due in large part to the work of Andy Palmer, at AP MotoWorks, who had created a suite of products around making the then FZ-07 into a competent track bike, namely with his MotoGP-inspired bodywork.
The bikes were attractive, and to a point, the FZ-07R saw some traction on the MotoAmerica grid, though that uptake has slowed lately, due largely to the limitations inherent in the design of the MT-07 itself.
Those wishing to run the Yamaha on the race track faced the fact that the bike in a more stock trim was perhaps a worse option than the venerable SV650, and required a great deal of work to get to an acceptable standard.
At the pointier end of the racing spectrum too, there was the discovery that the Yamaha suffered from the fact that the MT-07 chassis was never going to be up to the task for true race-pace riding, and the rules allowed for virtually no remedy for this fact.
With Aprilia making wave the in the category, there was at least a hope from some that a factory “FZ-07R” would follow suit, be the next track weapon, and offer an attractive alternative to the Italian machine.
More fuel was added to that fire when the “R7” name was revealed for the project, with the namesake being one of sport biking’s most iconic machines. A true successor to the R7 name would surely be a behemoth on the track.
I will talk about the R7 name in a minute, but I don’t think it spoils our conversation to agree that this full-fairing bike falls short of the YZF-R7 expectation. That is perhaps an unfair thought, however.
Smart Changes Make for a Smart Bike
As a race bike, or let’s call it a racy sport bike, the Yamaha MT-07 fails in just about every way.
Bargain basement suspension, lackluster brakes, and a chassis made of steel noodles, the MT-07 does just fine as a price-point people-mover, but it requires serious investment for turning laps on a race track or slicing up canyons at unreasonable speeds.
This is where Yamaha took a page from King Solomon and split the baby in half with the YZF-R7. The new R-bike wouldn’t be the full-racer aimed to rival the Aprilia, nor would it be just an MT-07 with a fairing.
Instead, Yamaha took stock of where the MT-07 lacked in its abilities, and offered a true sport bike with virtually none of the compromises they existed before.
The chassis was made stiffer wit more rigid rear aluminum plates, while the handling was improved with the 23.7° rake and 90mm trail.
The forks were inverted, and given fully adjustable clickers. The brakes were radially mounted and given a radial pump from Brembo.
Subtle updates also came to the motor, including a slip-assist clutch and the option for a factory quickshifter.
In short, the list of changes between the MT-07 and the YZF-R7 are the top complaining points from any FZ-07R rider.
At $9,000 MSRP too, the Yamaha YZF-R7 offers a potent street bike, but it also offers racers a more practical and potent platform to use for their racing dreams.
Getting on the track seriously with Yamaha’s twin-cylinder platform just got thousands and thousands of dollars cheaper.
The Yamaha YZF-R7 offers track enthusiasts pretty much a turnkey option to use for their track day pursuits, or to compete in the lower classes of the middleweight-twin racing categories.
No other brand has done this, save for Aprilia, and that alternative comes with a price tag with an extra $2,400 on it.
Reasonable minds can debate the value proposition between the Yamaha and the Aprilia for enthusiasts, but the indisputable truth is that only the Yamaha is offering a turnkey solution at a sub-$9,000 price point, and that is a powerful statement.
Where the MT-07 was petering out of favor with track enthusiasts, it seems for certain that the Yamaha YZF-R7 is set to pick up that football and run with it until other brands take note of what this bike means to the category.
In terms of features, updates, and pricing, Yamaha nailed it with the YZF-R7…save for one thing.
The Asterisk
As one who has had no shortage of issues with the Japanese brand, my words should then bare considerable weight when I say that I am supremely impressed with the machine Yamaha has built.
There is little not to like about the Yamaha YZF-R7…except its name.
Sorry to offend Yamaha’s marketing team with that ruined pull quote, but students of history will too surely be offended by Yamaha’s recycling of the “R7” badge, as today’s model is certainly just a shadow of its predecessor.
Yamaha Europe even had the gall to dedicate a whole section of the bike’s press release to how the new Yamaha R7 bike was “respecting the legend” when it obviously was doing anything but.
Of course, the target audience for this bike will likely know nothing about the R7 that came before it, nor will they know its history in racing during a time when the Japanese brands were fighting the flagrantly biased rules in the Superbike World Championship.
This history lesson is lost on the current generation, who will only see the R7 name as a logical designation in a sea of other “R” machines – even more so when the three-cylinder R9 arrives, likely next year.
But for those who know their history, who pinned for bikes like the R7 that hung on their walls as kids, the use of its name for a bike like the one we consider today will always leave a bitter taste. It will be the bike’s unshakable asterisk.
For every time someone levels praise at this twin-cylinder Yamaha YZF-R7 – which they surely will do, mark my words in a few days’ time – someone will chime in to make a disparaging comparison between this bike and the R7 of yore – which they surely will do, mark my words in a few days’ time.
Will that affect sales for the Yamaha YZF-R7? Probably not. But, it will be an unshakeable aspect of the bike’s story going forward, which seems unfortunate because Yamaha got so much right with the YZF-R7, except the YZF-R7 part…
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