MRW Issue 8 preview
A preview to issue 8 of SA's best motorcycle magazine
A preview to issue 8 of SA's best motorcycle magazine
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FIRST RIDE<br />
YAMAHA<br />
MT-09 SP<br />
STREET<br />
PREDATOR<br />
Yamaha’s middleweight naked bike has always been a gem and<br />
now for 2021 a new version is upon us. Is it worthy?<br />
Words by Shaun Portman | Pics by Beam Productions<br />
When you think of exciting and thrilling<br />
naked bikes your first thoughts are either<br />
Austrian or Italian. But there is one bike<br />
from Japan that oozes character just like<br />
the KTM and Ducati’s. Yes, I am talking<br />
about: ‘The Dark Side of Japan’, the<br />
Yamaha MT09. First introduced<br />
in 2014 the Yamaha MT09<br />
added a lot of much-needed<br />
flavour to the monotonous<br />
Japanese Naked bike market<br />
and certainly raised some<br />
eyebrows abroad while<br />
doing so.<br />
The bike was so<br />
different from anything<br />
else that had come<br />
out of Japan since my time on this planet.<br />
Powered by an inline 3-cylinder 847cc<br />
liquid-cooled, DOHC, 12 valves engine, it had<br />
something which couldn’t quite be described<br />
but you cracked a smile every time you<br />
rolled on the throttle and tried to find out. It<br />
was relatively cheap, looked good and was<br />
immediately welcomed by professional stunt<br />
riders worldwide due to its naughty nature.<br />
Over the years Yamaha has made small<br />
refinements but that naughty nature has<br />
always been ever-present. Fast forward to<br />
today and they claim to have released an<br />
all-new Yamaha MT09 and we would get to<br />
test it, but not just any MT09, we would get<br />
to test the Yamaha MT09SP- Yamaha’s top of<br />
the range version.
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