For tech boffins the castor angle is a tight 20 degrees and
Yamaha choose not to use ‘normal’ 17-inch front wheels because
they created too much inertia. Each wheel’s rear fork is fully
adjustable for damping changes, while the front fork has no
damping control, it is solely there for stabilising the front wheel.
The main thing to know is that the whole, quite complicated,
system works incredibly well and 90 percent of the time
you would never know it has two front wheels.
What I wasn’t so impressed with was the rear suspension action,
which frankly has a somewhat budget feel to it. The rear suspension is
a typical single shock system with rebound and preload adjustment,
mounted on a rising rate linkage with 125mm of wheel travel.
While it is by no means bad, it doesn’t feel particularly controlled
or plush, sometimes giving uncomfortable feedback on our less
well-conditioned backroads. Perhaps it was the fact that the
front is so good it made the rear seem poor by comparison?
Each front wheel has a single 298mm disc with four-pistin Tokico
calipers and ABS functionality. The braking strength is more than
adequate with plenty of feel but it’s not in the super powerful, superbike
category. The rear braking is a 282mm single disc, two-piston Tokico
caliper. Overall stopping is very good but there is no denying the
263kg dry weight. I never found out if or how to turn the ABS off…
but if you can I’m thinking the Niken could nail a few stoppies!
TRIPLET
The engine, as mentioned above is used in other Yamaha models and
for good reason. The triple cylinder 847cc is a beauty – responsive,
quite linear power delivery, easy to use, quick and fun. For the Niken
Yamaha has added 18 percent more crank mass and two teeth to the
rear sprocket to help punch along that extra mass. It works. The Niken
is plenty spritely, will wheelie easily (I may have mentioned this...), has
strong top end power along with flexible bottom end torque that’s great
in town and slow traffic. The numbers aren’t huge (84.6kW@10,000rpm
and 87.5Nm@8500rpm) but there’s still plenty there. There’s also a
quick-shifter on the six-speed gearbox and a slipper-type clutch.
62 KIWI RIDER