2015 Yamaha FZ07 Motorcycle Review

Hello and welcome to Motorcycle Experience the voice of motorcyclists everywhere I’m Dave Hatch and this week we’re coming to you from the Roebling Road Raceway in Savannah, Georgia, where we’re sampling some brand new motorcycles from the folks at Honda Canada. As for our road test this week, we’re going to sample a new street bike from the folks at Yamaha motor Canada.

VO

Every once and a while a motorcycle manufacturer steps up to the bat and presents a motorcycle that appears to have it all; an affordable price tag, good looks, and exciting performance. Well, when it comes to Yamaha’s new middle weight parallel twin, the FZ-07, it appears to be a hit right out of the park. Powering the 07 is an all new fuel injected, liquid cooled, six hundred and eighty-nine CC parallel twin said to produce an impressive seventy-five horsepower and fifty foot pounds of torque. Here’s what Inside Motorcycles journalist Larry Tate had to say after a day in the saddle.

Dave Hatch

So Larry, Yamaha is super excited about this motorcycle, they’ve been talking about it coming to our country for months and months and months. I know when I looked at it for the very first time I was like, wow, nice bike, it’s so small. What was your first impression?

Larry Tate

Nice bike, it’s really small.
Dave Hatch

Yeah, I mean compact.

Larry Tate

It’s really in the line with a whole new philosophy that Yamaha’s had the last few years in engine design and also the overall king of look and feel for the bike.
Dave Hatch

I think part of the fun of that motor is it feels low. I don’t know how they’ve done that but it feels low in the chassis so they get that nice C of G.

Larry Tate

Well it is fairly low to start with, I mean, the fuel tank is kind of down in here, it’s not sitting up top, which is pretty common in a lot of designs now. The revs pretty low, you can see that the engine’s canted forward a little bit which you can see the engine’s a little more weighed down. It’s very short partly because the transmission has got stacked shafts inside the case is vertical so the whole thing is a little bit shorter. Which gives it a larger swing arm is allowed which gives it a little more stability while still allowing you a fairly steep front end, so you can turn quickly. It’s a really nice piece of work.
Dave Hatch

Yup. And the sound… is very distinctive. It sounds, again, a bit like a single but it also sounds a bit like a twin.

Larry Tate

Yeah I’m riding and I can’t hear the exhaust very much but there’s a nice intake roar too. They’ve obviously spent some time on the air blocks getting that kind of a twin single triple noise to it … very very different from the whine you get from the four cylinder bike.

Dave Hatch

So we like the motor, you and I both agree on the motor… the brakes, you know, it pretty much stops on a dime. You’ve got those nice discs up front.

Larry Tate

It’s quick. You know Yamaha makes there own mono block calipers, which are very strong and they work really well. The peddle shape on the front, they say it’s supposed to be better for dissipation but I think it’s more of a fashion statement than anything else. The suspension is relatively basic, the front is not adjustable… the rear which you can see has got a lay down shaw like it’s almost horizontal. You can adjust that slightly, there’s a rebound dampening adjuster and also compression on it… the response was fine without it bouncing around so it’s a pretty good job for a fairly basic suspension unit. I think it’s great.

Dave Hatch

Larry, this saddle is quite interesting, I mean, it’s really carved in here and yet it’s quite generous and wide at the back. How did you find it?

Larry Tate

Well it’s hard to say how it would be over the long term. You know for the short term that we were on it for an hour on, an hour off that kind of thing. The nice thing about it is it’s not that thick so you don’t know how the padding will last but the fact that it’s fairly thick and broad back here says it will probably be not too bad. The nice thing about the way it’s carved away up here is with the narrow bike itself you’re actually behind the engine at that point, it’s nice and narrow so somebody with a short inseam will easily get their feet. I can get both feet flat on the ground and I’m only five eight so I think that anybody with halfway normal stature should be able to comfortably sit on this bike and control it at low speeds.

Dave Hatch

If somebody said what’s your one stand out impression, what will it be for this particular bike?

Larry Tate

Fun.
Dave Hatch

Fun.

Larry Tate

It really wants to wheely like, as I said, I’d really love to get it on the track. It’s so light, it moves so well. Lots of power, lots of grunt… it’s about seventy-five horsepower if I remember all my specs property and about forty-five foot pounds of torque… which again is really strong and it feels like it. Again it’s strong right off idle. It just wants to go. You could tour on it, light touring. I don’t know if Yamaha’s going to have accessories for it like saddlebags. I’m sure EV or somebody else aftermarket will eventually so you could make it more of a tourer if you wanted to but just for an all around bike, if you’re commuting, going to school, going to work or just weekend day trips it’s awesome, awesome value for the money.

Dave Hatch

Great job Larry. Glad you had so much fun today.

Larry Tate

Sure yeah, it was good.

VO

Hang in there we’ve got plenty more experience still ahead. Next, touring expert Ken Edick doesn’t wing it when it comes to rain riding. While in Quebec Norm Wells and I explore the south shore of the St. Lawrence.

Portions of this broadcast are brought to by Harley-Davidson, BMW Motorad, and Honda Canada.