Yamaha Yzf-R6
YAMAHA YZF-R6
Middleweight revmeister
So, you like torque, do you? You know, the kind that flattens your eyeballs and dislocates your shoulders in any gear, at any rpm? Yeah, that kind.
Well, you aren’t going to get any of that here. Not with the R6. This 600-class repli-racer conducts its business with rpm rather than brute torque, and it does it way, way up in the stratospheric end of the rev range between 12,000 and 16,000 rpm.
Down in the rpm basement, which is below 6 or 7 thou on this bike, the engine runs cleanly but produces only meager acceleration. Between 8000 and 12,000, though, the 599cc Four comes alive, enough so that you can maintain a surprisingly fast pace on a backroad without ever wandering outside that range. But once you enter the Twilight Zone of those upper 4000 revs, things change big-time. The intake roar becomes a deafening howl, the exhaust note transforms from a purr into a wail, and the R6 is flung down the road with such force that you think to yourself, “This can’t be
only a 600. No way.” Yes way.
And it has spectacular handling to match. The feathery-light R6 flicks into and around corners with amazing ease and dead-neutral steering, showing virtually no tendency to stand up if the brakes are trailed while leaning. The suspension is just supple enough to soak up road imperfections without any wiggling or instability, and the chassis is so poised that you soon find yourself not just negotiating corners but attacking them.
Hey, it’s even comfortable-for a repliracer. You sit so far forward that the reach to the clip-ons is unusually short, meaning there’s not a lot of weight on your wrists and forearms, and the pegs are high but not painfully so. The seat gets a little tiring after an hour or two, but it’s still tolerable.
As good as this Yamaha is, though, it’s not an ideal everyday middleweight; there are plenty of others out there that better fill that need. But if you’re jonesing for a wickedly fast, impressively agile 600 that
can set a backroad on fire, that’s a challenge the YZF-R6 is ready and fully able to meet. Paul Dean
YAMAHA
VZF-R6
$9299
A Powerful but progressive front brakes A Slick shifting A Adrenaline on two wheels Downs v Tiny windscreen offers little protection v Oh, no, not again: Tach redline is 16,500, actual is 15,950
