#UJM will always come first

[jamieenthusiast]

aboutta drop a second "ask me about my au" drawing later

[olivereliott]

Bikes Of The Week: Tokyo Motor Show Edition

The Japanese put on a show of force at the Tokyo Motor Show. Honda tore the wraps off its new Monkey and ‘Neo’ cafe racer concepts. Yamaha revealed an oddball three-wheeler. Suzuki showed a tasty potential SV650 variant, and Kawasaki set the interwebs alight with the Z900RS. Which one would you pick?

Honda Monkey 125 concept Built around the same 125cc thumper found in the insanely fun Grom, the refreshed Monkey is a modern throwback to Honda’s mini-bikes of yore. And let’s be honest: it absolutely defines radness. The concept stays true to the original Z-series styling and promises to make riders look as ridiculous as ever, although it has been modernized a touch—with a hat tip towards the scrambler movement.

LED lighting, a digital gauge and disc brakes front and rear bring performance and amenities into the 21st century, but the chunky seat and chromed front fender scream mid-sixties sexiness. Considering that many of the parts used here can be plucked from the Grom bins, I can’t see any reason not to rekindle the Monkey movement. Come on Big Red, you know you wanna! [Honda Japan]

2018 Kawasaki Z900RS After teasing us with video snippets over the past few months, Kawasaki finally revealed the Z900RS in Tokyo. And mouths around here are watering. Harkening back to the mighty Z1, Team Green’s new retro ride is a UJM version of their Z900 streetfighter with squeaky clean lines and a honey of a power plant.

In RS guise the 948cc inline-4 has been remapped to deliver a beefier bottom end, which has trimmed peak horsepower to 111 (from 123) but keeps it competitive against the Yamaha XSR900. Other mechanical changes include a shorter first gear for extra squirt at the lights, and a longer final drive to quell buzziness on the interstate.

The trellis frame is new and the radial-mount binders up front are a welcome upgrade. Suspension is a carryover from the streetfighter platform, with full adjustability at front and rear.

The overall design looks incredible right out of the box, and we’re looking forward to telling you how it performs. Wes and I are in round 265 of our rock, paper, scissor fight to see who’ll ride it first, so watch this space. [More]

Yamaha Niken When I think of a three-wheeler my mind immediately conjures up images of a sidecar rig. Sure, I’ll grant you that ‘trikes’ can and do exist, but a Ural or some other tasty combination just feels more ‘right.’

Yamaha obviously doesn’t feel the same way. Looking like a Piaggio MP3 with a steroid and amphetamine addiction, the Yamaha Niken is a ‘Leaning Multi-Wheeler’ that, believe it or not, is a production bike thing vehicle. Powered by the same sonorous triple found in the XSR900, the Niken is clearly pitched at performance-minded riders with a Michael Bay fetish who’d prefer not to grind a knee-puck. And they won’t have to, thanks to a front end that is both confusing and incredibly awesome.

It consists of a pair of 15-inch articulating wheels that are suspended by a set of dual-tube, USD forks, each with a floating disc on their outer side. The width up front is 885mm, which should mean those hoops will probably track awkwardly on anything but silky smooth pavement, making it a bit of a workout to ride. Which I will gladly attempt, if Yamaha will have me. In the name of science, of course. [More]

Suzuki SV650X concept Not to be outdone by its countrymen and rivals, Suzuki is also looking to dip a toe in the retro waters with a cafe version of their SV650. The SV650X, as it’s called, is an evolution of last year’s Rally concept that got people talking about the little Suzi in a good way.

This time around, the concept loses the Rally’s 80’s nostalgia and instead captures the look of a slightly customized first-gen, naked SV. And that’s not a bad thing at all. There are clip-ons up front, and that tidy fairing looks as close to a factory product as I’ve ever seen. The tuck-rolled seat already exists in the Suzuki accessory catalogue so unless those mini fog lights are constructed from Unobtanium, I’m unsure as to why the concept tag is still being applied.

The hope is that this thing makes it out of the Tokyo Motor Show and onto showroom floors: it would be a perfect retro styled ride for beginners and those of us not looking to achieve warp speeds. The SV platform has always been a good one: it’s priced right, performs well and looks great with a bit of kit.

Honda Neo Sports Cafe concept Proving that the UJM bug is biting all brands, Honda also debuted its Neo Sports Cafe concept at the Tokyo Motor Show. The design is reminiscent of the CB4 Concept that dropped at EICMA back in 2015, but with a much stronger retro nod. And it’s easily Honda’s prettiest work of recent years.

Powering Big Red’s cafe racer is a re-tuned version of the 999cc engine that powered previous generation CBR1000RRs around the racetracks of the world. That means horsepower figures should slot into the 105-115 range—which is the sweet spot for the bikes of this ilk.

The selvedge denim and Red Wing crowd might find the design language a little too ‘Neo’ for their tastes, but I’m hoping Honda stays true to this iteration. The lines on the sculpted tank are gorgeous to my eyes, and the rear perch is picture-perfect.

As it’s only a motor show concept, tech details are a touch scant. But Honda can still crank out impressive bikes, so we’re hoping this gets the green light. The rumor is that a production version may make it to Italy in the coming weeks. [Via]

[totallymotorbikes]

Duke’s Den: What Is The Yamaha Sport Heritage Line? The original Royal Star in 1996 heralded Yamaha’s use of labeling its cruisers as Stars, followed by other Star models. With considerable Star power in its lineup, Yamaha launched the Star Motorcycles brand in 2006, a cruiser-oriented marque used in North America to bring Yamaha’s cruiser line under its own tent apart from Yamaha’s other lines. Then, in April of last year, we discovered that the Star Motorcycles website was no longer functioning but redirecting to Yamaha’s website. When we asked about it, we were told Yamaha Motor USA was in the process of dismantling marketing efforts for its sub-brand and would be bringing the Stars back into Yamaha’s fold. Star Motorcycles Reabsorbed Into The Yamaha Motorcycle Family “As the cruiser motorcycle market in the U.S. continues to evolve and mature,” Yamaha stated, “we feel that the best opportunity for future sales success and growth from each Star cruiser model is to integrate our model line with other Yamaha models that hold the strong brand identity, the heritage and the DNA that define the Yamaha Brand. This means that we will begin to promote our Star models in parallel with other Yamaha models. In order to better integrate synergies with the other key Yamaha models, the establishment of a new Street segment called Sport Heritage will be part of this new positioning and marketing integration.” Hmm, Sport Heritage you say. What does that mean? Well, at first it meant returning models: the demon VMax, the back-to-basics SR400 rehash, the cafe-racer’d C-Spec Bolt, and the rabid-but-refined XSR900. Then last June I attended the unveiling of Yamaha’s SCR950, a retro scrambler-inspired version of the Bolt, which brought the Sport Heritage line to five. Shun Miyazawa: “We as a brand have the capability and ambition to basically conquer different types of engine configurations and concepts rather than staying in a comfort zone.” “It’s not really tied up by genre,” explains Shun Miyazawa, Motorcycle Project Coordinator at Yamaha, to me in a recent interview. “We have a VMax, we have an SR, we have a V-Twin, we have a Triple. Other brands are easier to understand because they all have one type of motor, so it’s very easy: air-cooled Boxer is an R-nine-T; air-cooled L-Twin is Scrambler Ducati; and inline-Twin is Triumph. “One thing that unifies our lineup is our respect for the fathers we had in Yamaha history,” Miyazawa continues. “I think the possibilities are kind of unlimited, because if you count the number of bikes we produced in the 60 years of company history, there’s a tremendous amount of cool bikes. We are quite flexible and we are not limiting ourselves when it comes to the type of vehicle.” Miyazawa is a recent import to Yamaha Motor USA, having arrived nine months ago from Yamaha Motor Europe where he was a core member for the XSR900 project, one of our favorite contemporary Yamahas. He says his key role is trying to understand what consumers are looking for in a motorcycle from Yamaha, including market research and working with engineers and designers. Duke’s Den: 1977 Yamaha XS750 Review (Of Sorts) “The approach we took internally, we called it Faster Sons,” he elaborates on the line’s theme. “So those bikes had brothers in the past, but we make them faster, more affordable, reliable and all that.” Miyazawa says the intention is to pay homage to Yamahas from the ’70s and ’80s, yet making sure performance and componentry is up to date. Yamaha Faster Sons Page “It’s like a painting from an impressionist like Van Gogh,” he analogizes. “If you see something, you close your eyes and try to reproduce, you open your eyes, here it is. There’s a certain connection of what’s important to us, not necessarily a link with a particular engine or frame.” “We want to make (sales) growth in older generations (of riders), even those returning to motorcycling, but also taking new generations into the motorcycle industry.” Building motorcycles that entice customers to plunk down their hard-earned money isn’t always as simple as it may seem. It’s important, of course, to appeal to middle-agers/boomers, the group that has for decades propped up the moto industry and continues to do so, but reaching younger riders is key to the long-term survival of two-wheeled transportation. Building bikes that appeal to Boomers is relatively simple: providing a look and feeling they used to have 20 or 30 years ago on Yamaha bikes but also including modern functionality, says Miyazawa. Hitting a younger demographic is more challenging, as their experiences with bikes from the 1970s and ’80s are mostly limited to movies and legend. “For some of them it’s the motorbike design how it should be, and thanks to all for some of those retro-inspired lifestyles popping around here in the States as well,” Miyazawa comments. “I’ve been speaking to many of those guys in the market the last few years. Almost 80 to 90% of them are wanting to do something based on used bike, but not having enough time or knowledge or skill to make a proper restoration. They are telling us, ‘Yeah, I like the look, I like the feeling and all that, but I don’t want to spend 100 hours before I can actually get to ride the thing.’” Here’s Miyazawa’s personal bike, an XSR900 fitted with wire-spoke wheels, turnsignals from a Star cruiser, a headlight screen and mounts for mini saddlebags. Photo by Duke. As for what’s next for Sports Heritage lineup, Miyazawa says he must carefully balance the wants and needs from Yamaha’s designers and engineers with those of its dealers and, of course, a wide variety of potential customers. “We like to follow our heart to a certain degree, but we also need to follow what consumers are looking for,” Miyazawa says with a furrowed brow that reveals the consternation of trying to please a variety of audiences. “There is always a kind of momentum in this particular segment. There was a big hype a few years ago for cafe racer, and now it seems like scramblers are equally attracting. And it could also be a neutral Universal Japanese Motorcycle – UJM – which could be taken to any kind of direction. We have so many choices, but it’s up to us to find the best balance between where our hearts go and where our consumer’s needs are coming across.” Sadly for my dreams, a direct-injected reboot of my old RZ500 apparently isn’t in Yamaha’s plans… Photo by Ian Johnston. Related ReadingDuke’s Den: Ride MoreDuke’s Den: Risk/RewardDuke’s Den: Inside Moto GuzziDuke’s Den: Father’s DayDuke’s Den: You Can’t Help Getting Older…Duke’s Den – Award SeasonDuke’s Den: On TVDuke’s Den: Decades Of FirebladesDuke’s Den: 1977 Yamaha XS750 Review (Of Sorts)Duke’s Den: Inside Info Duke’s Den: What Is The Yamaha Sport Heritage Line? appeared first on Motorcycle.com.