YAMAHA MT01 WITH STAGE II RACE KIT
The Hammer of Thor
Story by Andrew "Son of Elvis" McClymont
Photography by Martin Kopp and Andrew.
On the way to Phillip Island, a large quantity of metal, some rubber, various volatile fluids, an amount of carbon fibre, and my aging carcass came to rest atop Victoria's alpine Mt. Hotham, surrounded by late-season snow. As I shut down the noisiest, most unusual, and exotic bike I have ever ridden, my arse was chilly, yet my cerebral cortex was hot with blood and electricity. The combined effect of a fine and twisty mountain road, the company of most of the Supreme Riding Soviet, and Yamaha's pagan MT-01, fitted with some expensive and gratuitous go-faster bits, had fired more neurons in my skull in a short period than is probably healthy.
The Yamaha MT-01 is an odd motorcycle for Australia, here in 2007. Transplanted from its native birthplace (not the motorcycle concept show, the U.S. freeway riding culture), it took me a while just to get my head around the idea of a dirty great 1700cc air-cooled push-rod V-twin being fuel-injected. It seems an even more ridiculous notion to wrap a stiff alloy frame around the donor Yamaha Warrior motor and gearbox, and then hang sports bike suspension and brakes off it, stolen from the mighty R1, no less.
The Yamaha MT-01 with Yamaha's own 'Stage II Race Kit' banged on to it, is an even odder, yet a more fascinating and rewarding motorcycle. Full titanium Akrapovic exhaust, carbon fibre detailing, Michelin Pilots, and an upgraded ECU, make for a pretty interesting spec sheet. But what to classify it as? It is not a sports bike with that dinosaur engine although it is sport-ish, it's not really a naked bike, as it never really had any clothes on to start with, it's far too sophisticated and upright to be a 'cruiser', or even a 'power-cruiser'. So what then? Yamaha call it a 'torque cruiser'. Thanks US marketing gurus, that's just great, whatever it means. Personally, the MT-01 is such an anachronism I can only think of it in Modern Art terminology -- 'pre-post-modern' or 'retro-futurist' for example. And it is rolling art. Just look at it.
 |
|
"So you're saying we get to ride DOWN the mountain as well?" |
To start with, I assaulted them with noise. Believe me this works, even if you can't ride for shit. The MT-01's 48° V-twin, uninhibited by a water-jacket, overhead cams, or standard pipes, cackles like a witch on the over-run, stalls, backfires, and misbehaves at low revs. But, that's just the percussion section of the MT-01 orchestra. After Shaun Giles' customised Suzuki Boulevard -- with its naughty Cobra pipes -- the big Yamaha was the noisiest bike on tour, chiefly due to the two Akrapovic cans blurting out under the tailpiece. The original MT-01 pipes look like splayed-out megaphones, spreading the good message, whereas the much noisier Akrapovics look far neater, and yet more sinister. These cans bring news, and when I cracked open the throttle the news simply read "FUCKING PAY ATTENTION! CAN'T YOU SEE WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? HEY!" No wonder my head throbbed, with a Norse God bellowing that to everyone on the planet all day.
One of the changes from the original show-bike MT-01 is the rear shock location. In order to cope with the transfer case for the shaft drive disappearing from the Warrior motor, and relocating the oil tank for the dry sump, the side-mounted linkage and shock has disappeared under the gearbox. It seems reasonably well protected down there, but the idea of exposing a delicate hydraulic shaft to every bit of shite thrown up by the front wheel doesn't fill me with joy. Still, it worked a treat, controlling the heavily braced and triangulated swingarm perfectly well.
 |
|
Designed like this. Production engineers had other ideas. |
In spite of all the light bits, like the carbon-fibre heat shields, the titanium exhaust and so on, carting about large chunks of iron i.e. the donk (and remember all those cooling fins aren't made of snow) means the MT-01 is a touch porky at 240 kg. And there is only so much that a big fat set of forks can do with that many bricks in the cart. Quite frankly, the MT-01 really needed to be muscled through the tight stuff -- this is not a bike suitable for a lady, or the otherwise faint of heart.
I found, however, that one of the numerous rewards gained in applying some brute force, was NOT finding myself lying semi-conscious on my back, nostrils filled with delightful cocktail of dirt, petrol and hot, smouldering grass. I came pretty fucking close at one stage though. Following Mick, in a hurry on his home patch, isn't the best idea at any time -- let alone on an unfamiliar motorcycle. Neither is it a good idea to go in too hot, still braking, into a lumpy narrow right hander. Never before have I ridden a bike that suggested to me quite so strongly that I mess my trousers on the way into tight bumpy corners, but when I pointed out to it that in fact my upper body and I were in charge, and you'd better get used to that idea matey, the MT-01 really hunkered down and railed through corners. It was almost fun. All in all, pretty much like sado-masochism, I imagine.
 |
|
The variety of riding positions available on the MT-01 was quite acceptable |
The gearbox only has five gears. It's really all you need. And no fancy gear indicator, either, you poof.
Tyres are Michelin Pilot thingies -- no problems there. The cast alloy
wheels have four spokes. Four. Weird hey? The brakes are brilliant. The R1
stoppers are actually probably too good. I mean that by way of saying that
there is only so much the laws of physics can deal with, and if you grab a
big and-I-mean-big handful of stop, you can feel the flex in the headstock
as a couple of hundred kilo's of motorcycle tries to mate with its own front
wheel. Potential stoppies notwithstanding, I found simple and pure
decelerating joy, each time I pulled on the lever. The back brake is
similarly delightful at speed. Power. Feel. All. Good.
My take on 'upright' bikes is probably known -- I prefer a race crouch, or, a
cruiser slouch. In the middle, like most naked bikes, leaves me feeling too
much like a kid on a tricycle. But given this was pretty much all that I was
going to get between Sydney and P.I., the variety of positions available on
the MT-01 was quite acceptable. When the airspeed got to the point of
discomfort, I simply adopted my best "Bathurst" Superbike position (dans
le style des magnifiques Rob Phillis), and got used to my ears and my
wrists being friends again.
 |
|
Wrists, meet ears; ears, these are wrists... |
 |
|
Fairings are clearly not just for pooves, but also for committed heterosexuals who hate cleaning tiny bugs off tiny bits of bike. |
Oh alright, I lied. The over-under headlight is slightly canted back. Happy now?
The single seat is also taken from the Yamaha catalogue, and is part of the Stage II kit. It is tastefully embossed with the MT-01 logo, and perfectly padded -- "firm yet pliant" -- as Ronny Barker's post-pubescent daughter Ingrid once declared of herself in "Porridge", if you get my drift. I did object to the stylish curve up towards the back though, rather than a flatter profile. Because? In effect the seat tilts forward as your arse shifts back, which in turn rolls the pelvis (the Son-Of-Elvis pelvis in my case) forward. Physiologically this is a good thing for keeping your lower spine in a 'neutral' position, but not necessarily really what you really need or want when stretching back from the bars. However, it works perfectly when one is crouched over the tank, trying to get around Klink.
As we now know, one of the style points of the original MT-01 involves the placing of the 'zorst cans not so much under the rear seat as either side of it, splayed out like a public address system, chiefly in order to present young lady passengers to passers-by at their best. With the 'race' Akrapovics fitted, the rear pegs and young ladies say goodbye, and the solo seat says hello.
Yamaha's EXUP exhaust valve is also ditched, and a lot more noise and a bit more poke get fitted, along with some extra heat-shielding. And get this: There's an electric fan hidden under the tail. It took me a while to find the source of the whirring (two gigantic cylinders were purging their spent gases in the vicinity, you realise) from the back end, but sure enough, there is a fan up there, pulling cold air from the wheel-well and sending it up towards the hot arse-piece. I suppose it's there on the regular model to stop your pillion boiling their bum at city speeds, but I thought the solo seat option would have dispensed with that feature. Whatever... my arse was cold on top of Mt. Hotham. An electric fan on an air-cooled bike. What will they think of next?
Lighting is OK. The twin lamps aren't that great, low beam has quite a nice spread, but high beam is neither high enough, nor concentrated enough. It's not that hard to make a really good headlight these days, surely? There is a de rigueur LED taillight -- big news when the show bike first reared its head, now common-as, an electro-luminescent backlit tacho, and a digital speedo, again in keeping with the minimalist retro theme. That freakin' tacho housing collected more than its fair share of bugs too. Reflecting its bike-show heritage, the MT-01 headlight does have one nice little design feature -- or more precisely, the parking light. It reflects the malevolence generated by the rest of this package.
 |
|
This shot was voted Most Informative and Entertaining at the BIKE ME! Beer and Whisky Tasting Championship Finals |
Hell, who cares, no one is going to buy this bike just to ride to work. It's native habitat is the highway.
Once out of town, it's another barrel of monkeys altogether. Day One of the Supreme Riding Soviet's attack on Phillip Island, for example, was tailor made for the MT-01. No, really -- let us examine the route: Four hours of freeway cruising, three hours of highway blasting, and several intermittent, orgiastic episodes of footpeg-scraping twisty fun. Most modern naked bikes handle this sort of schedule with aplomb. Not all, however, radiate the easy arrogance of the big Yamaha. Having said that, there were some drawbacks -- the fuel capacity, at about 14 litres, is crap for a thirsty 1700cc motor, giving a range of only about 180kms before the warning light comes on. The bike is comfortable enough to double that, easily. There is also nowhere to store stuff, and no easy means of attaching luggage anywhere. Even the look-at-me plastic moulding over the too-small tank interferes with the otherwise simple task of tank-baggery.
On the flipside, Jesus H. Christ I had fun. Easy, easy torque-fuelled roll-ons and overtaking, comfortable seat, and most of all, a fabulous sense of involvement and participation (by comparison, I swapped bikes with Dino's BMW GS1150 -- and immediately felt like I was in a limo, detached entirely from the road). Allegedly, the MT-01 will easily sit all day at 140 to 180 km/h. Allegedly remember, as we always say here at BIKE ME! Exploring any velocities in excess of 110km/h will cause cancer, global warming and your nuts to fall off. Even if you're a girl. So don't say we encourage you to speed, because we don't. It's naughty and you know it.
Imagine my surprise then, when we got to the mountain pass between Mt. Beauty and Bright, in Victoria's alpine backyard. Steve and his Speed Triple and I found ourselves leading the way into Bright having recently dispensed with in no particular order, a brand-new Z1000, one MV Agusta F4 312R, a Guzzi 1200 Sport, seven other unknown sports bikes, and a BMW K1200S. My point being, that the considerably lardy MT-01 has no problem keeping up with a similar rider mounted on anything -- or indeed, passing anything if you are good enough -- on a twisty road. The prodigious torque means that one has to try very hard to be in the wrong gear, and the right gear will punch one out of corners like there is no tomorrow. The flat torque curve also means you can forget about being uber-gentle with the throttle -- just roll it on, there's no lagging or snatching here, just bellowing Norse thunder.
There is a downside however, both to this trip, and to upgrading this bike with fancy stuff.
I was attacked by a marsupial-shaped mobile road hazard on an evening jaunt outside Cooma, where the returning SRS had retired for the night. No great drama, but the large bouncing rat did cause me to briefly park the MT-01 on its side. Bad, bad, bad idea. Nearly as bad as the darkness that swept Boris' face, upon hearing the news. Bad, because the Akrapovic headers differ from the stock pipes in that the two-into-one takes a circular path around the bottom of the crankcase. Guess what hits the ground first on the right hand side? Oh, nothing much, just $3300.00 worth of six-piece titanium exhaust system. "Surely not," you cry, "can't you just replace the short section of two-into-one header pipe? It's not even welded in... " No, because apparently the Courteous, Understanding, Nice, and Terribly Supportive people at Akrapovic distributor Gas Imports refuse to supply that piece separately. I have to buy the whole system.
So, on that little piece of information alone, I can not in all good faith recommend the MT-01 with the Stage II, or Stage III kits, as a good bike to own. Jesus, imagine if every time it fell off the sidestand it cost three gorillas? Fuck that.
WELL?
Would I buy one? No. It really is fun, but the race kits make it far too
expensive for the limited performance they add, let alone the potential for
outrageously expensive repairs.
And I like fairings.
*Well it was $25K when I rode it. Yamaha Australia has dropped the price considerably for 2008.
|
||
|
ENGINE/IGNITION/TRANSMISSION
|
||
|
Type
|
4-stroke, OHV, 4-valve, air-cooled, V-twin
|
|
|
Displacement - (cc)
|
1670
|
|
|
Bore Stroke - (mm)
|
97.0 Ã? 113.0
|
|
|
Compression
|
8.4:1
|
|
|
Lubrication
|
Dry sump
|
|
|
Fuel Management
|
Electronic Fuel Injection
|
|
|
Ignition
|
T.C.I.
|
|
|
Starter
|
Electric
|
|
|
Fueltank - (L)
|
15
|
|
|
Oil Capacity - (L)
|
5
|
|
|
Transmission
|
5-speed
|
|
|
Final Transmission
|
Chain drive
|
|
|
CHASSIS
|
||
|
Length - (mm)
|
2185
|
|
|
Width - (mm)
|
790
|
|
|
Height - (mm)
|
1160
|
|
|
Seat Height - (mm)
|
825
|
|
|
Wheelbase - (mm)
|
1525
|
|
|
Clearance - (mm)
|
140
|
|
|
Dry Weight - (kg)
|
240
|
|
|
FRONT END
|
||
|
Suspension Front
|
Telescopic fork
|
|
|
Tyres Front
|
120/70 ZR17MC (58W)
|
|
|
Brakes Front
|
Dual disc
|
|
|
REAR END
|
||
|
Suspension Rear
|
Monocross
|
|
|
Tyres Rear
|
190/50 ZR17MC (73W)
|
|
|
Brakes Rear
|
Single disc
|
|
