FZ1 Fazer GT: an unprecedented sports bike

Yamaha FZ1

Yamaha FZ1

is a naked bike made by Yamaha Motor Company in Japan.

Bike features

Here are the characteristic features of the Yamaha FZ1 (FZS 1000):

• This is the flagship model of the line;
• the motor was borrowed from the YZF-R1;
• The acceleration dynamics will impress many.

This motorcycle is convenient for daily use, because the seating position is relaxed. However, this is not so much an advantage of a particular model as a property of the class as a whole. Typically, sports motorcycles suffer from problems with ride comfort. But it’s worth considering that this bike may not be very convenient when riding with a passenger due to its not very large dimensions.

Yamaha FZ1

Vladimir Zdorov,
photo:
Dmitry Ivaikin

Yamaha FZ1N: 2006, 198 kg, 150 hp, 250 km/h, 382,800 rub.

I wonder how much can be forgiven for beauty? This is exactly the dilemma that immediately arose for me after testing the Yamaha FZ1N.

Leg and hypotenuse

The first generation of Fazer, which debuted back in 2000, was a revelation, offering the concept of a slightly deformed liter “four” from the Yamaha YZF-R1 sportbike (perhaps the best at that time) in a digestible package with a classic fit. To reduce the cost, all this was diluted with an ordinary front telescope and a steel frame. The market accepted this approach with a bang, sales of the new product grew rapidly, but competitors also did not stand still, significantly spoiling the life of the new product of various kinds Kawasaki Z1000, Suzuki SV1000 and other Hornets. And, despite the general enthusiastic mood of the motorcycle press of that time, over time Fazer developed a number of rather unpleasant specific features. The dubious advantages of the motorcycle included excessive rolliness, not much desire to turn, and scanty ground clearance, allowing even the most notorious losers to feel like real tough “peppers”, grinding the footpegs into dust in vain. True, for such feats the inclinations were needed to be absolutely insignificant, but it was not at all necessary to explain such details to people “not catching up with the chip”.

In a word, the need to retire the pensioner was obvious even to the most ardent fans of the model. And what was “worn” in 2000, in our time, to put it mildly, does not “roll” or even “hypotenusitis”!

Aggressor

Having first seen the pre-production model last year at a foreign exhibition, I most of all wanted only one thing - for it to go into mass production without changes in exactly this form.

Fortunately, this turned out to be the case. In terms of design, this is, without a doubt, one of the company's most successful motorcycles. Every detail is literally imbued with aggression - from the short black muffler, which reminded me a little of the body of a shark, to the headlight, which gives off a coldly confident look of superiority. An uncompromising landing is offered as an enhancing effect, creating a brutal hooligan mood in the pilot. Despite the fact that in general it can be described as almost classic, thanks to the straight rudder coupled with a noticeable shift of the pilot’s body towards the tank, some of the load still falls on the hands. The features listed above create the illusion of an ultra-short wheelbase, giving you the feeling of actually hanging over the front wheel. Undoubtedly, it is the naked version that has the most pronounced correspondence to the already established concept of “classic streetfighter”. Of course, there are probably a fair number of bores who quite rightly believe that the semi-fairing version is much more practical. What can you do, even motorcyclists for the most part are ordinary people, who have completely forgotten that for amenities you need to go to car dealerships, where they can easily sell a self-contained relaxation complex, including a massager in the driver’s seat and a dry closet with a shower. For some reason, it always seemed to me that a motorcycle is not bought to enjoy the benefits of civilization...

Dushilovo

Modern environmental standards force manufacturers to introduce an increasing number of various components into the engine exhaust system that reduce emissions (and at the same time engine power!) of harmful substances into the atmosphere. Almost no new product is complete without a lambda probe and a three-component catalytic converter that firmly occupies the muffler.

Yamaha FZ-1N is also no exception. But how the engineers so shamelessly “fail” the low end (considering the engine size) remains an unpleasant mystery to me. The 150-horsepower liter engine frankly does not want to pull up to 7000 rpm, in this speed range it is practically no different from its 600 cc “relative”! I have never encountered such amorphous behavior at such a cubic capacity - a blatant mistake! In fairness, it’s worth noting that after 7000 rpm everything falls into place, and doubts that the interior mechanics, in a fit of unbridled fun, stuck the “1000 cm3” sticker on the FZ6N go away as quickly as the tachometer needle tending to the red zone. Purely as a test, having pulled the Yamaha FZ1N into a long wheelie from second gear, I finally calmed down, but an unpleasant aftertaste still remained in my soul. After all, many people buy a liter unit not so much because of the maximum speed, but for the sake of juicy traction at the bottom, which does not force them to click the gear lever in vain. Alas, for future owners this is where the biggest disappointment lies. And the fact that the motorcycle, without straining too much, reaches the declared 250 km/h, is unlikely to be very consoling, because in the complete absence of even a slight hint of wind protection, such a speed is more a hypothetical than a practical value. It starts deflating after 180 km/h, and I started accelerating to 250 km/h only for the sake of professional curiosity.

As a result, it turns out that the future owner will almost never be able to feel the advantage of the larger cubic capacity in the naked version compared to its “smaller” brother. Fortunately, in order to notice the positive details of the new product, you don’t have to painstakingly seek out and highlight the tiny successes of the engineers. The most noticeable innovation compared to its predecessor was a completely new chassis, which decisively broke with the conservative past. The aluminum alloy frame is successfully complemented by the front “upside down”, this is exactly the same duo that the previous model was so missing! It is important to note that the minor details that are usually left out by manufacturers are very bright and original and ultimately create a memorable image. And if in the case of stylish chrome mirrors we can still talk about a small quotation, even if it’s from our own models, then the airy tail, topped with a side lamp divided in two in the bizarre delights of the designers, cannot be confused with any other... um... rear part.

Old rake

Looking doubtfully at the rather low running boards and muffler, I began to slowly roll into the corners of the go-kart track. That’s right - already on the second lap I heard the characteristic grinding sound of the right footrest - well, how long can you step on the same rake, because at that moment the angle of inclination was still far from critical, I would rather call it “civilian”! This is all the more disappointing because, in general, the handling of the Yamaha FZ1N has stepped to a fundamentally different level; just shorten the base a little - and it would actually feel like a YZF-R1! As for the braking potential, direct analogies with the company’s sportbikes are appropriate here. The only caveat is that the rear brake is much more effective here, which is explained by the layout. After about eight laps, the stops on the footrests had worn out quite a bit, allowing the bike to be laid at an ever-increasing angle, but my joy was premature - our photographer was desperately gesturing with his hands at the end of the start-finish straight, trying to attract my attention. This made me a little wary, because usually he is phlegmatic to such an extent that if a flying saucer happens to land next to him, he will silently take a photo shoot of it, simultaneously being capricious at the aliens about their unhealthy skin color.

I even wondered what I had “performed” so extraordinary, forcing the photographer to move a whole ten meters. It turned out that there was nothing at all, just the last couple of laps, from his point of view, I was cutting on the muffler. A helpful inner voice, mixed with the quiet pronouncement of the main one, immediately gave out a long tirade about my intellectual abilities, and the boss’s timbre reverberated for a long time in the disturbed consciousness of the fading “600 euros, clown!”

Immediately falling to his knees, he checked the virginity of the silencer with trembling hands - hurray, he is pure! Our editorial Hawkeye was wrong, but as a careful review of the photo shoot showed, the asphalt surface was indeed too close to the exhaust system, I would even say, prohibitively close! It’s good that I was stopped in time, but how, gentlemen, engineers, do you plan to turn? Or is this motorcycle model designed exclusively for respectable German pensioners who have already fallen into senile nirvana and ride strictly in a straight line?..

About the benefits of tolerance

Or maybe I'm still wrong? After all, how many times have I come across much more serious motorcycles? Let's say, a Suzuki GSX-R1000 with a rear tire perfectly ground exactly in the middle of the tread, which has never known such terrible and incomprehensible expressions as burn out or wheelie. At the same time, the owner himself always flaunted fashionable jeans, because they are not so hot, and, most importantly, not so embarrassing... After all, what did Yamaha actually create in its new vision of an ultra-brutal urban traffic killer that tightly clogged countless city streets? A truly stylish and well-handled vehicle that meets strict Euro-3 standards. At the same time, the lows, of course, disappeared simply to the point of indecentness, but, on the other hand, you can turn the tachometer needle at 7000 rpm, and no one will have any doubt that the engine has 998 cm3. As for the scanty ground clearance that has not changed (here I primarily mean the distance from the surface to the driver’s footrests and the extremely low muffler), who said that only people tend to make the same mistakes? Sometimes large corporations do this with no less success.

But the driver’s seating position successfully combines visual aggressiveness with comfort, and even with all the lightness and openwork of the rear of the motorcycle, the passenger will have no reason to complain about discrimination. You can, of course, throw out the standard exhaust system, hang a forward flow, load the brains of the motorcycle to the heap with a powercommander and also be sure to install tuning pegs, fortunately, with such their standard arrangement, in any more or less self-respecting aftermarket office there will probably be not a single ready-made option . In this situation, the overheated engine will likely have decent thrust in the lower rev range, and the motorcycle will stop scraping the pegs at slight inclines.

I’m only afraid that all of the above will be done on a freshly purchased device by a completely notorious Yamaha adept. The rest of the future owners should stock up on a fair amount of tolerance, because in terms of the totality of qualities, the FZ1N is head and shoulders above its predecessor, from the design bursting with primitive power to the refined chassis with excellent brakes.

PS Konstantin, who provided the Yamaha FZ1N motorcycle for testing, was not so loyal to the features of the new product that I noticed. Having once again made sure that my vision of the engine’s character coincided with his own, he sold the motorcycle he bought a week ago literally the next day...

Dimensions and weight

The seat height here is 815 mm, which makes the bike suitable only for people of tall and average height. Even without fuel, the weight of the motorcycle exceeds 200 kg, but the tank volume is significant - 18 liters. The average fuel consumption per hundred kilometers for the FZ1 will be about 6 liters, so the capacity of the local gas tank is quite enough for a full trip. But don’t forget that this bike is more designed for short trips on business than for long walks away from civilization.

Specifications [edit]

Chassis and brakes

Both suspensions have 130mm of travel, which is quite a lot for a naked bike. As a result, the bike turns out to be balanced in terms of ride softness and handling, which cannot be said about many of its brothers. On both suspensions, all adjustments are possible, which also adds flexibility.

This model has disc brakes, which is, of course, good. At the front there is a pair of 320 mm discs with four-piston calipers, while at the rear there is a 245 mm disc along with a single-piston caliper.