Motorcycle Mojo – July 2019

ased solely on the Yamaha

Niken GT’s front-end design,

I don’t think there’s any

question that it is the most

controversial motorcycle

release of the year.

Because the Niken is different, there

was a lot of talk about the bike at this

past winter’s motorcycle shows and I

chatted with many riders about what

its pro and cons might be. Some were

worried about the extra weight up

front from all the complicated linkages;

some were concerned about all of the

extra moving parts and the associated

maintenance costs; while others just

asked, “Why.” Why would a company

spend all of the required R&D time and

money on redesigning something when

there was nothing wrong with the

original style of front end?

There have been a lot of different

motorcycle suspension and steering

systems developed over the past

century: springer, girder, leading and

trailing links, telelever and duolever,

Earles, single-sided front swingarm,

hub-centre steering, Fior, Hossack and

telescopic – a pretty good overview of

past and current designs, I think.

Piaggio has its MP3 leaning scooter,

but off the top of my head, Yamaha

is the only other company to offer a

production motorcycle with a two-

wheel leaning front end.

Yamaha isn’t new to introducing

offbeat front ends. Remember the rare

GTS1000 sold in North America for only

two years, from 1993 to 1994? (It sold in

Europe until 1999.) Any improvement it

may have offered didn’t justify the extra

cost to the consumer, and maybe it was

just a little too weird for the masses –

after all, the conventional telescopic fork

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With the Niken, Yamaha is trying

the unconventional again. Maybe it’s

a design exercise like Honda’s Rune,

which enjoyed a limited-time run

and soon became a collector’s item.

The Rune proved that a design team

could overcome the objections of

the engineering department and the

bean-counters. But the Niken’s design is

more practical than an art exercise.

Sure, it’s pricey at a hair under 21 large

for an 847 cc machine, but by all accounts

the front end is superior to a conventional

fork. The Niken still uses telescopic fork

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cornering ability – the basis of which is

two contact patches instead of one.

During some of the winter MMIC

motorcycle shows, Motorcycle Mojo col-

umnist and training guru extraordinaire

Clinton Smout used a Niken GT for his

in-show, slow-speed demonstrations

and told me afterward how impressed

he was with its abilities to handle slow

speeds and its knack to absorb drastic

irregularities of a road’s surface.

This past spring, Costa Mouzouris,

another of our columnists, attended the

North American launch of the Niken

GT and was just as impressed with the

machine as Smout was. The difference

being that Mouzouris rode the bike in

real life situations: on highways and

carving canyon roads and – to add to

the testing – sometimes in heavy rain.

If you’re still wondering why Yamaha

would release something like the Niken

GT, you’ll want to read Mouzouris’

article, which begins on page 18.

The basic motorcycle design hasn’t

changed much since its inception over

120 years ago: one wheel in front of

the other, a handlebar, a saddle and an

engine. My hope is the riding public

will accept the Niken GT as another

alternative to the traditional motorcycle.

Change is inevitable, and hopefully it

leads to improvement. And Yamaha

seems to have done just that.

Oh, and try not to keep up with one

in the twisties.

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by Glenn Roberts

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6 MOTORCYCLE MOJO JULY 2019