Ride impression of the Yamaha MT-03.....

Yamaha have realeased their new 660 based single. The MT-03. See I so want one....MT-03 The bike can be had in Europe but not here in Aussie land. I have asked Yamaha Australia if they will bring them in. They said "No plans at this stage to introduce the MT03 in to Australia." To rub salt into the wounds, axxess, the forum admin guy at http://forum.monoconnection.nl/ got to ride one. NOOOO!!! So unfair. He translated his ride impression into English for those of us who will not get to ride this. Thank you mate for doing this for us. So lets see what he has to say.....

Saturday 16 February I could try the Yamaha MT-03 at Gebben Motors. I could try a brand new red 2008 model. After a short instruction and a warning because of the new tires we were ready to go! The first thing I noticed was the enormous wide steer and the upright riding position It gave me a feeling of absolute control and power! The seat was quit hard but not uncomfortable at all.



Unless it was still freezing that morning the machine immediate rides well. The gears were going smooth without the typical clicking sounds some other Yamaha models make. The first miles gave me a pretty weird feeling, this because you can’t see the motor-cycle below you. It gave me a feeling like I was hovering above the tarmac without anything below my butt. The machine took the corners excellent and gave a lot of trust!



The instrument panel of the MT-03 is minimized. It offers a small torque meter and a small digital display for the speed and the trip counters. A few led lights are mounted above the display to indicate the neutral and the blinker status for example. Because of the upright riding position you really have to look down to read the speed-display or the torque-meters. Also the sun made it hard to see what was displayed. Luckily it is possible to adjust the brightness of the dashboard in three steps.



The engine works marvelous in the MT-03. It has a lot of power also at the low range! Riding the MT-03 you’ll run quickly through each gear which keeps you really active. The top speed of the MT-03 was around 160 km/h. Because of the upright position I took all the wind and it wasn’t a pleasure to ride that speed at all. Cruising around 130 km/h is much better to do!



The brakes worked very well and had a nice ‘bite’ without being too aggressive. The exhaust did sound well but produced way to less noise in my opinion. Lucky Yamaha can provide the MT-03 with an Akrapovic exhaust system too!

Beside the brave the exhaust system there was another small disadvantage. At constant speeds you could feel that the injection was ‘searching’ a bit. The dealer told this was because the machine was brand new and it should be better after the first 1000 miles.



Concluding I can say that the MT-03 is a marvelous machine. It has a lot of power and is running through the gears smoothly. The machine handles extraordinary in the corners and is made to play. It isn’t a machine for high speeds at the high-way or the long straights.

By the way, I liked the machine so much, that I have bought one this weekend!

Now that is some ride impression if you liked it that much that you went and bought one.