Stood up on the pegs, it was equally comfortable, despite the width of the fuel tanks, there’ s a natural standing position. Yes, you can’ t sit forward, knees under the handlebars for tight corners, but the standing position, with upper torso inclined more forward worked just as well. Big the WR may be, but the riding settles into the conventional, on road and dirt.
WHAT’ S NEW Yamaha says it has been putting a lot of store in listening to customer feedback. That’ s very different to chasing competitors. Some of us will recall the heady days of supersport bikes in the 1990s, when manufacturers were year-on-year trying to top trump their rivals: most power, least weight and all that. There’ s been an element of that in adventure, perhaps more in terms of power than weight. It is nonetheless a brave move to ignore the market pressures, and work on less headlinegrabbing core principles. But this is Yamaha and the WR, so what we have is three key focus areas, namely,‘ strengthened long-distance adventure touring, excellent controllability for off-road adventures and premium equipment and expression’. Their words there, not mine. Plus meeting Euro 5 +. So, we get a cleaner engine that’ s using YCC-T( Yamaha Chip Controlled Throttle) aka ride-by-wire. Along the way the snorkel on the airbox has been shortened, which apparently gives a modest boost of torque in the low-mid rev range( no, I couldn’ t detect it). As well, the YCC-T also brings modes: Sport and Explore. Personally, I call those Normal and Laggy. I think I’ d have to be super-tired to ride in
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