The Yamaha FZR400 is becoming a rare beast, as they were only sold here for three model years and were handily outsold by their bigger siblings. That’s a shame, because the little Yammy was really a higher-spec piece than its 600cc stablemate, with an aluminum chassis instead of the bigger bike’s much less graceful steel…
Update December 2019: This bike has been sold to an RSBFS reader. Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc As we spill countless pixels on aging, air-cooled weapons of yesteryear, bikes that ride on weird anti-dive forks and odd-size tires, it’s easy to forget that machines like the first-generation Yamaha R1 are quickly approaching classic status…
I know that the RSBFS reader loves a good two stroke. And what better to post than a well-kept Yamaha RZ350? The last of the true factory street bike smokers, the RZ was successfully imported into the US – and even California! – for a short while. And so while these are not grey bikes…
Many of the Yamaha-powered Bimotas like today’s YB8 look suspiciously similar, and while I’m sure there are physical differences in the frames and fairings, I’d also bet that many parts are interchangeable between them. The YB8 used an updated YB6 frame, along with Yamaha’s 1002cc, five-valve inline-four and EXUP exhaust system from the FZR1000. During…
The RZ350 is a special sort of machine in the annals of RSBFS. The last of the 50-state factory two strokes, the little parallel twin that could utilized liquid cooling, a computer controlled adjustable exhaust port (YPVS), and catalytic converters. Even with all of this tech it was short lived on US shores, and even…
It’s not every day you see a 1986 Yamaha FZ600 restored to museum quality sporting a fuel tank that has never had gas in it. There are plenty of nice ones around, but their value isn’t commensurate with a full restoration, and most have been ridden enough to just be cool old-school riders. This one…
If you are thinking that you haven’t heard of the 2Moto 2M400R-SP, you are probably correct. But I’m sure you have heard of Yamaha’s wildly successful two-stroke, the TZR-250. And knowing RSBFS readers, you probably wished for something like that – but with more horsepower – for your street ride. I mean, imagine the wild…
In a world obsessed with multi-cylinder madness, the Yamaha SRX was a breath of fresh air. Utilizing a XT600-derived air-cooled single cylinder power plant, the SRX series evoked simpler times of British cafe racers doing the ton. Impossibly light and narrow, the SRX was all about torque – squirting off of corners in a manner…
