Yamaha R9.

What RPM said. The R6 was a race bike they made useable on the street. In its replacement it looks like they're making a street bike that you can modify into a race bike... with yet to be determined performance.

This coming after other manufacturers were making next gen supersport bikes that were going more and more in the direction of more power, more race-focus, etc.

 

RPM - That right there is the problem. High power for displacement is only a factor for racers. Street riders dont care for the most part.

 

More like

 

I wonder how many owners actually care about trackday or Superstock laptimes. This board is definitely skewed in that direction - maybe 80% of the ppl here care about that for a potential new bike. But for all the people that will actually own an R9, I'd guess it's closer to 10% that care about laptimes.

IMO, I'd guess that the R9 will be close enough to R6 laptimes for me not to feel slow. The extra grunt out of the corners may actually make the bike feel faster, even though the ultimate laptime may be a touch slower.

Does anyone have any data comparing the laptimes of MT-09 and R6 in comparable builds?

 

I only care about bikes on the track. Riding is an active sport that can only be done legally on a closed course. Rolling around on the street is not riding.

Hopefully we move towards more bikes designed for the track like the Kramer.

 

I have data with a stock MT09, but not really with a stock R6 that makes it fair. I do have comparisons with the stock MT09 to other stock similar bikes (890R, STRS) and it's really not that fast - stock. That said, I have seen what a modded Mt09 can do and it is impressive.

Ken

 

This board is composed of the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of motorcycle owners and riders. It is not representative of the broader motorcycle buying public; we are a niche group that products like Kramers and preferably clapped out SV650s are marketed towards.

This same dynamic plays out in the automotive industry. I worked on a high performance vehicle program where we endlessly debated whether or not lap times mattered to the customer. The short answer: no. This is especially true with Nürburgring lap times. There's more to it, but distilled down, the customer sentiment was, "cool, but.." because as soon as you publish the lap time, it's obsolete. Even among elite consumers, lap times were a nice to have. Exclusivity, design, and brand appeal were more prominent buying consideration, especially over arbitrary metrics like lap times. For more mass market products, price and value are the primary buying considerations. Generally speaking, motorcycles are discretionary emotional purchases, but I'd argue price / value is still a key consideration for purchase - especially amongst this group of tight wads . Again, we can argue and care about a lap times amongst this forum all we want, but to the general public it's an esoteric number that they can't stare at in their garage.

Also, everyone that sees the R9 as a replacement for the R6 is looking at that bike incorrectly. Yamaha is revamping their product lineup; not refreshing it. The R6 is no longer part of the line up. The R9 is a new product, amongst a different competitive set, with a different design brief. Yes, it may overlap with the R6 in certain historical contexts (i.e., competition, product positioning, etc.) but it is not a direct replacement for the R6 because the segment that the R6 was created for no longer exists in the market. The market, competitive set, and the consumer has moved on. For better or worse.

PS: if you don't wanna take my word for it, here's an article on consumer research on motorcycle buying considerations. I have no idea how credible the data is, but the top 3 considerations are 1. tech, 2. design, 3. brand.

 

Not without building and maintaining an interest in motorcycling, in all forms.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and without street-going production models there won’t be any riders to take it to the track.

 

For picking out racebikes, what matters to club racers is "is this competitive in the classes my club allows it to race?".

This is very different than : does it make 200 hp per liter?

 

Maybe, but I think there is a possibility that by overlapping street riding with track riding, such as referring to them as the same thing and using the same bikes, actually causes less people to come to the track. Why spend money on the track when you think the street is similar or that your bike is similar to a track bike? Or if you think you know how to ride?

I know lots of people that ride horses. I don’t know anyone that rides their horse on the street or to Starbucks.

 

I'd hope that trackday participation is at least comparable to 1% for sportbike owners (definitely not for all moto owners). For every 100 R1's that Yamahs sells, at least 1 has to touch the track. Ehh, maybe that's a pipedream.

That's a good way of looking at this comparison / project change. The change in racing thats coming with these bikes is skewing our (board users) viewpoint on all of this, since the R9 is actually replacing the R6 in SS competition.

 

Have you seen a boost in B SBK participation with the introduction of these new bikes? IIRC, all the new MA SS bikes are allowed in B but not C.

 

Those vintage guys are more trouble than theyre worth

 

That might be a realistic statistic, but I personally don't have the data. On the automotive side, IIRC, <15% of high performance vehicle owners took their car to the track even once per year.

That's a great point. Also, it's important to note that Yamaha intentionally did NOT reuse the R6 model name and instead launched an all new model name in R9. This is a significant effort not only from an IP, market, brand, etc. exercise, but launching a new model name is a very EXPENSIVE endeavor in creating brand awareness, model awareness, etc. etc. Given that, they're clearly seeing this as a market segment and product step change; not a 1:1 replacement.

 

If WERA West were to spring back up, I would be in B STK/SBK on an 800cc triple that's not allowed in C. Same goes for CRA that I'm planning to race next season. Not allowed in the 600 stk class, but is allowed in the 600 sbk class (they don't offer "B" classes). Plus maybe Formula 40... haha.

 

Overall from what I've seen on the R9 since yesterday I'm impressed and think it's a killer replacement for the R6.

LOOKS - it's virtually identical to every Yamaha offering since the '15 R1 - it's nothing new and looks are subjective of course.

PERFORMANCE - stock engine but tuned/flashed/piped - it'll be 120hp BUT, close on 70ft lbs of torque so roughly the same peak hp as a stock tuned R6 but 50% more torque and in a usable range. Against the Gix 750 it'll be down 10 ponies but have 25% more torque as well. Only the Duc can match in on torque.

WEIGHT - it's 11lbs more than an R6 but based on the new exhaust, my guess is after a full system is fitted, it'll lose a lot more than the R6 and be almost the same weight.

ERGO'S - similar but a TAD more bearable for street folks, track duty will see rearsets and clips regardless so inconsequential.

TECH - it destroys the R6, if we go MA racing that's out the window anyways with the mandated ECU but street or TD guys - so much better - the QS/blipper alone is the best in the biz and is the first to allow on-throttle downshifts.

PRICE - same as what an R6 would be I'm guessing so dead heat. Similar to a GIX 7-fiddy or a tad more.

CHASSIS - it's a revised Deltabox that had to undergo some tweaks to get it to handle and if any company is renowned for it's sweet-handling bikes it's Yamaha so I have faith it'll be just fine.

Hopefully to quell the off-season boredom Yamaha hosts some Journo's on Track/road releases somewhere warm and we can hear what the talking heads think about it.

 

Competitive, or dominant?

 

How very elitist of you.

If you have a clapped out SV budget, stay home.

How many of the assembled crew would be here if their only chance of getting on track was to buy a purpose built race bike?