Naked

My Transalp is in for service today at CMC Daybrook, Nottingham. My side of a deal that gives me a perpetual warranty for as long as I own the bike, which also allows me a courtesy bike. So here it is, a 2005 Yamaha Faser 600 that is obviously a shop bike that has seen a hard life despite the low mileage. The engine is a gem, unlike the rest of the package.


A 5800 miler, the engine is its strong point


It is tiny but the clutch is impossibly heavy

I recently bought a glossy motorcycle magazine that proclaimed 2014 to be the 'Year of the naked' (motorcycle). Well, it is generally accepted that this model Faser is one of the best in class and typifies the breed. Well all I can say is truly horrid. First off, while I am only 5' 8" tall weighing 210 pounds and with a 29" leg I dwarf the bike, it is tiny. The seat is more slippery than a glass surface covered in sheet ice and then covered in diesel - open the throttle and you slide off the back, touch the brakes and the wedding tackle makes painful contact with the fuel tank. It is cramped - footpegs are so high that even my stumpy little legs have difficulty tucking up into the crouch position that the footpeg position dictates. The handle bars are so narrow that it makes the front end feel twitchy. The instrumentation appears to be fairly comprehensive although I have yet to find a gear indicator so I am never sure which of the 6 gears I am in, but as it is so lowly geared and the ratios so close together I find that at anything over 40mph I am already in 6th and looking for more, which brings me to the worst feature - the clutch, which is so, so heavy that the 20 mile ride home resulted in a painful wrist.

That ride home highlighted the problem (for me) with naked bikes - the wind blast. I can cruise comfortably on my Transalp at speeds up to 85mph (in Europe, obviously) but this little bike is quite literally a pain at anything above 60mph and combined with the slippery seat means that there is no joy to be had - a motorway bike it is not.

So, if 2014 is going to be the 'year of the naked' then all I can say is that 2015 will see an awful lot of pre-owned naked bikes for sale as disgruntled owners trade them in for something that is more - more user friendly, more comfortable, more useable, more fun.