The Yamaha R15 is just the right bike for the most horrendous of
riders amongst us to hit the racetrack and learn how to ride fast. It's
so technologically advanced, so technically correct, so confidence
inspiring, so smooth in its power delivery, so planted with its
vice-like grip around corners and so stable with the Deltabox frame
working its magic all through that even the clumsiest of riders; the
ones who are so slow that they're considering committing suicide; will
get hope once they ride it.
All the components of the Yamaha R15
work in harmonious unison and right from the time you get astride the
bike, it feels 'just right'. The footpeg-bar-saddle geometry, the height
of the handlebar, the feel of the clutch and brake levers; this bike is
extraordinarily well put together in every perceptible way. It's sporty
but not uncomfortably so, revvy but not torquelessly so, small and
light but not powerlessly so and its suspension is tuned for great
dynamics but not stiffly so. Full points to Yamaha boffins for bringing
out the most uncompromising track oriented motorcycle without trading
off any of the virtues that a street rider desires.
On the track,
all it would take for even the most inexperienced rider to find the
humongous difference between the R15 and the rest of the bikes is one
lap. The new Yamaha is leaps and bounds ahead of its competition; it's
like chalk and cheese, if I maybe allowed to be a little cliched. Turn
the ignition on and the engine emanates the most refined and revvy hums
you have ever heard from a 150cc bike. Slot it in the first gear, and
you'll realize the gearbox works like nothing else; butter-smooth with
loads of feedback. The gear ratios are terrifically well sorted out,
delivering loads of punch to accelerate hard from low speeds and to
deliver the grunt to keep accelerating after reaching the triple digit
figures.
Around the MMSC racetrack, the Yamaha R15 was the only
bike of the quartet to have a perfectly perfect gear for every corner.
All other bikes feel as if they are over or under-revving at some or the
other corner, but on the Yamaha R15 you have a gear that enables you to
power out without the limiter cutting in too soon or the low revs
urging you to shift down.
Apart from the smooth revving, punchy
engine and an equally brilliant gearbox, Yamaha R15 also has the best
underpinnings to qualify as the niftiest handler around the circuit. If
putting your knee down is something that you have been dreaming of ever
since you learnt how to spell BIKE and have been failing to achieve the
feat till date, just take this bike around the racetrack. Like an angel,
the R15 will have your wish granted in no time. You're more of a SWAT
commando than a rider aboard this Yamaha.
Just point and shoot,
and another corner goes down - the Yamaha R15 really makes it that
simple. The beauty of it all is that the bike never scares you as you
try to go faster. It always lets you know that you could do better,
improving you as a rider with every lap unlike some other bikes which
would scare you to death every time you tried to take them to their
limit. Supremely accomplished and incredibly effortless, the Yamaha R15
is a class act and it'll take a Herculean effort from any manufacturer
to match it; in its class at least
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