Life with my Yamaha R1 WGP 50th anniversery edition

The Honda Fireblade feels like a scalpel and cuts along with so much precision and control, while the Yamaha R1 feels more like a Machete in the hands of a madman!

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It's been a while since I posted any updates here. But the 1 month or so has been pretty uneventful. Managed to get in a few rides in between and also managed to cram in 2 new bike deliveries in between all that for friends who are also fellow BHPians, people who follow this section of the forum already know who all I am talking about.

Anyways, this post is more of an update on the R1 and the tiger and initial impressions on a new set of tyres for the tiger and tail bags for the R1. So let me get started.

Kreiga US10 & US20 tail bags

I have been a constant complainer about how riding with a backpack makes my life very hard because of the added fatigue because of the weight, as I do not pack light when it comes to rides, I always have a set of puncture repair kit, air compressor, some basic tools and 1-2L of water bottle packed in. This really adds up and with someone who already has a bad back and an injured left shoulder the pain is nothing to joke about. With the under-seat exhaust on the R1, most of the conventional luggage solutions are thrown out right away.

Kreiga US 10 & US20

That is when fellow bhpian @Wolfy has pinged me back in Jan about the Kreiga US series bags and how he has been using the US10 & 20 on his 10r extensively while touring on it and how it worked wonders for him. Did some research on the product and found that it is a universal fit design and their lock-in mechanism makes it pretty easy to mount on and off the bike too. I had shortlisted it to buy from Revzilla but then coincidently @neil.jericho came in clutch by letting me know that a local store in Cochin has a ton of stock come in from Kreiga and they might have it in stock. And what do you know both the 10L and 20L bags were in stock. Got a super killer deal on them as they were old stock the shop had purchased from another shop that went out of business. Jumped on the opportunity and bought them right away.

Mounting is pretty easy, actually on the R1 its even easier, since the R1 pillion seat already comes with 4 loops pre-fitted from the factory, I can easily loop the mounting strap through them and secure the bags to the rear seat in less than 2 minutes. Then all I need to do is adjust the slackness of the strap to get a snug fit.

4 straps built in on the factory rear seat

US20 all mounted and ready to roll

As for my initial impression, I rode for over 300kms with the US20 mounted to the rear seat, the bag was a little over half full and the feedback/impression so far has been great, the bag fits perfectly well on the seat, mounting time is less than 2minutes, with additional 2 minutes to adjust slack on all 4 sides, so all in all 5 mins and you are sorted. Once set snug the bag does not move around at all, you do not feel the bag sliding or hitting you on your back when braking or anything. Since the bag was only half full I had no trouble getting on and off the bike in a traditional way, need to check that with a full bag to be sure.

The best part was the bike in no way felt off-balance at all which was a worry I had. And most importantly I was able to enjoy my ride without having to worry about early fatigue as I was riding free without the added burden of a backpack.

Maybe once I add a few thousand kms of usage I'll prepare a detailed review for the same.

The day the 2 Japanese Legends met

The 2 jap legends are finally side by side.

This was a highly anticipated day for me, this was a goosebumps moment for both of us we have been riding together for close to 12 years now and have always talked about owning the R1 and the blade someday and we really thought that it was never going to happen and years and years of hard work and search and toil later when we made it happen it was rather special, I can't find a simpler way of saying this even if I tried. But even then somehow I felt I was way more excited for this ride than Xaos636 himself.

This was the day both the R1 and the Fireblade met and rode together. As usual, as with any new bike purchase goes, a proper service was set in line and we rode to our friend Sanju at Cochin(Fmotors) so that we had the right tool to work on the bike. As years of tradition goes, we always work on the bike together, so it's always a fun time.

Met with Xaos636 at Valanchery just before Dawn broke and rode to Cochin, we swapped rides from Thrissur, that way we both got to experience the blade and the R1 back to back. and boy what a Night and Day difference it is.

The TLDR part of it can simply be put in the following words. the Fireblade feels like a scalpel and cuts along with so much precision and control, while the R1 feels more like a Machete in the hands of a madman!

Don't get me wrong both the bikes are insanely powerful but the major difference here is the throttle response, the blade is so fine-tuned and smooth with its power delivery and the R1 is just a wild animal in the way it delivers power.

Another aspect that was a bit funny was that the R1 has TC but no ABS, while the Blade was no TC but has ABS. Both Xaos636 and me made the mistake of giving a handful of throttle like we did on the R1 (which we have done a thousand times) and had the scare of our lives when the bike power wheelied like it was nothing, this was in second gear and while trying to get a decent start from the front of a signal with a clear road in front of us, and needless to say as soon as we felt the front lift we bailed on the throttle and all was back to normal. The thing is that we were so used to the TC of the R1 not allowing the front to lift that when we gave the same amount of throttle for the blade with no TC to cover our ass the front end went skyward.

The next important thing is the ride comfort, the Hondas come with raised clipons right from the factory and this makes it so so much more comfortable to ride than the R1, while the footpegs are a lot more raised on the blade than the R1 the clipons make a world of difference, I was immediately so much more comfortable riding on the blade. This now makes me want to look for aftermarket raised clipons for the R1.

Well, I'll stop my comparisons for nowhere and will wait till Xaos636 finally gets around to starting an ownership thread on the blade.

Now let me leave you with a sneak peek of what we did at cochin on the blade.

Sorry, that's all you get, if you want any more, make sure to spam Xaos636 to start a thread, rest assured I have documented every little piece of the work done, and trust me we gave the bike a very thorough once over.

And eventful ride with the R1 and the Blade

Fin

The Tiger and the Blade

The subsequent week of the R1 and the Blade going to Cochin, the next week it was the chance for the Tiger and the Blade. The blade still had a bit more work to be done to get it back to its full factory glory and the Tiger needed a tyre change so that's how the previous weekend was spent. The Metzeler Tourance Next on the Tiger had started to wear off square pretty badly on the rear tyre, it was so much of a problem that roads with slight undulation or uneven patchwork height the rear started to slide and the bike felt seriously off balance. The bike has only 14k kms on the odo with this tyre, it still has a lot of tread depth but the squarely worn-out situation makes it a risk to ride around with. So managed to source a set of the new Michelin karoo street tyres from a shop in Cochin a few weeks back and booked the tyres. Went and got them changed during this ride.

New shoes

The new karoo street is a bit more off-road set tyre than the Tourance next, apparently, it's more of a 70% road and 30% offroad focussed than the 80-20 split for the tourance next. Managed to run about 140kms post tyre change and the scrub in phase has been complete, the grip levels on the tyre are satisfactory so far in the dry, never tried it on soft/off-road so can't comment on it right away.

But what I can say is that these tyres are loud!! Once you reach highway cruising speeds the tyres get super loud and bothersome. So unless you are riding around with earplugs or music playing it's going to get on your nerves over long distances.

Well, that's about it for now. More updates to follow on soon hopefully.

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