So in this blog I want to talk about my experiences to date with my 2008 Yamaha R1 4C8. This isn’t a review as such, just my opinion on having this bike as an everyday bike, it is a fraction of the cost of the latest superbikes, but is it any good to live with?
Now before I start, I’ll explain my brief history with my R1. I’ve had it for a year and got the bike after spending 4 years with my previous bike, a 2007 Yamaha FZ6 Fazer. Now the R1 was the bike I had always dreamt of during my time with my rather uninspiring FZ6. My dream of owning one finally came true when I left my student life behind me and my FZ6 kicked the bucket and died (...thankfully). Now, although I always knew I wanted an R1, actually making the choice to buy one was a tough one; there are so many great bikes out there in the superbike class and all the reviews were great, it can be really hard to choose between them. When it came down to it, I bought the R1 4C8 simply because there was one near me with a low mileage in a Yamaha Blue that I loved.
I will break down my opinions on the good and bad points of owning a 4C8.
What's good about owning a 2008 R1?
- In my opinion the best looking R1 to date.
- It is so silky smooth to ride, if you are running the standard exhaust and wearing earplugs, it almost becomes hard to tell if the engine is on. All the more reason to get an aftermarket exhaust, if you are into that sort of thing!
- Comfortable riding position once getting up to speed. The biggest thing that surprised me about the R1 4C8 was the fact it can eat up miles, the tall gearing means the engine is on quite low revs at motorway speeds.
- Lots of sheer power! About 180 at the crank to be exact.
- Its £9000 cheaper than the new R1. Great superbike for someone on a budget.
- The bike handles like it’s on rails, suspension gives a lot of feedback and is fully adjustable, meaning you can stiffen everything up for a track day to get even more out of the bike.
- Brakes are pretty decent, with 6 pot calipers providing the stopping force, although it doesn't have the initial bite of newer Brembo calipers..
- The Yamaha R1 has really good build quality, and it is known for its reliability.
- Despite having a claimed 180bhp, the bike isn’t intimidating to ride at all, I was expecting a beast when I first got the motorcycle, but it's quite tame under 6000 revs. However if you open the bike up, you get a completely different machine, so it's sort of like buying two bikes in one.
- Fly by wire throttle gives really good throttle response.
What's bad about owning a 2008 R1?
- The fact that the bike has tall gearing, most of the power is at the top of the rev range, like you would expect from a 4 cylinder sports bike, however with 1st gear taking you to around 100mph, this power is not accessible on the road unless you want to die or get a hefty speeding fine. This kinda leaves you feeling like on the road the R1 is a bit dull.
- The sound, it's just my opinion as some people love the sound of an inline 4 engine, while I don’t think the bike sounds particularly bad, I think there are so many more bikes out there with engines that provide a more characterful sound, such as the Ducati’s Vtwins, Aprilias V4s and the newer Crossplane Crankshaft R1s.
- The brakes, while providing really good stopping power, lack ABS which is on all modern bikes. Before everyone jumps at me with the same old story, “I can stop faster without ABS, I don’t need any of that new tech”, that's all well and good in the summer when you have lots of grip, but try doing an emergency stop in the middle of winter while the ground is wet, I doubt you will get good results.
Conclusions
This is a tough topic for me to conclude on, as I think the R1 is an amazing bike in the right hands, it's plenty powerful and handles brilliantly and feels like a track weapon. But the key word here is track. With most of my riding being done on the road, I can’t help but feel disappointed when I can’t use the full potential of this bike on the road. I feel like a 600 would be much more fun on the road with the power being a bit more accessible than on most of the 1000cc superbikes. This is just my opinion though, living with the bike is very easy, however, if you want road riding to be exciting but at the same time still survivable with your license intact, I don’t think it's the best bike for that.
