Ok where do I start
……..first I thought that travelling an hour southbound just to go and look at a couple of new bikes was taking the pìss a bit but since nobody in and around my area were going to give me a test ride of owt unless I showed them the cash first and that I didn’t have anything better to do balls to it and off I went.
Now the predicament I find myself in goes like this, I have had my carbed 2000 R6 for 3 years now and as much as I love it I feel myself wanting some more power so after a good look about and reading a few magazines I thought why not the new R6 a. looks good enough to put on your mantle piece and b. boasts all this new GP type technology and with that goes like stink……So on the other side of the coin if you’ve grown out of your yamy 600 your natural progression is to get an R1, all in all I have got about 8 grand to spend so I’d like to make the right choice in the end.
So do I get the new 600 which will undoubtedly be quicker than my carbed model or say balls to it and get the R1?
Well the guy at Yamaha Aklam`s in Harrogate was ace didn’t try to sell me anything but went well out of his way to let me make my own mind up about which bike I’d prefer and without me even asking he’d wheeled the demo R6 out the shop and started her up.
I have got to say this bike sounds awesome with that new stubby can which if I read it correctly wouldn’t even be allowed on a low decibel track day and that’s with a standard can fitted, its rev range is mental and endless and redlines at 17 and a half thousand.
Sitting on the R6 is a strange sensation I couldn’t see the bike when I was on it, I know that sounds strange but its as if I’m towering above the bike and I’m a fairly stumpy guy, it was smooth around town and with the ram air system it growls when you give it a bit of throttle, hitting an open straight with it was my chance to open her up and she goes really really well without giving me that feeling of a power band it was just there all the time, smooth and direct oh and wants to rev forever. The only real downside of the 600 is that it lacks the grunt that you get from a 1 litre bike i.e. that feeling that your arms are going to be ripped out of their sockets, overall the if I was after a 600 the R6 would be everything I would want but at the end of the day its still only a 600.
So returning back to the bike shop and after a 5 minutes of telling the shop owner that I wasn’t really impressed with the new R6 off he went to fetch the keys to a brand new R1, his reply when he returned with a slight chuckle in his voice was “try that on for size and I have got a shredder for your licence if you want to save yourself the bother”.
So after he wheeled the silver beast out of the shop and started her up off I went again and this time the bike felt more substantial in size and presence as if I was on a bike where the R6 felt like the bike was on me and all I can really say is that I had an instant smile on my face, its smooth at low speeds and you could ride it all day in a civilised manner…..but….if you dare to give the throttle a bit more twist it’ll roar at you and the torque kicks straight in. the bike has exactly the level of excitement I was looking for. Its something that would take me a lot longer to tire of and with paying that kind of money you expect the trill to last more than a few months which is how the R6 made me feel.
So to top off if you’ve got and older 600 or feel that 600cc is more than enough to quench your appetite for a thrill the R6 will deliver also the R6 has the makings of an awesome track tool. However if you`re at the same junction of you riding as I am and longing for that thrill you first had when you opened the throttle of the first quick bike you rode the R1 is for you and I know where my money will be going.
Incidentally fully comp insurance quotes between both bikes are fairly similar there’s only really a couple of hundred quid in it.
