Yamaha TRX850

How cheap is cheap? A brand new TRX850 for £5200 delivered to my doorstep in a crate. How could I refuse such an offer. The local dealer had an immaculate low miler for £6250! I pissed him off no end by turning up on my own machine and telling him I'd bought it for five grand from MCN's ad's!
 
The main problem was that the delivery men dumped the crate on my front doorstep and it needed a couple of mates to pull the beast out. Battery acid, coolant, oil and petrol, plus some spanner wielding - but nothing threatening - were needed.

With a deal of trepidation, and not a little fear, I gave her a whirl on the starter. Big smile when she started up almost immediately which faded a bit when I heard the top end rattle. I didn't fancy having to do a valve check. 15 seconds, or so, later it disappeared, a nice mechanical rustle as the oil circulated fully and the ten valves did their business.

Let her warm up for ten minutes, settled down to a slow tickover, an off-beat note from the exhaust due to the 270 degree crankshaft throw - unique in a production vertical twin, although some old Triumphs and Laverda SF750's have been similarly modded. The theory behind such a crankshaft throw is that it gives the power a better chance to feed through to the back wheel and sounds more like a vee-twin. The latter was certainly true but I don't know why they didn't go the whole way with a 180 degree throw, like all those GS Suzuki twins, alternatively rising and falling pistons having the least amount of vibration and thus needing a relatively simple balancer system.

Even after a 1000 miles of running in the big Yamaha twin was never entirely smooth but it never, ever, reached the vibratory excesses of a 750 Norton Atlas - been there, done that, so don't tell me they didn't vibrate much, cos they did; nasty things! It was the kind of thrumming that largely went into the background the more the bike was used, only really making itself felt when I tried (and failed) to bounce the valves in first or second.

Tender loving care wasn't a concept I ever applied to the TRX, mainly because it was such a mad blast to ride everywhere at ten-tenths. Yes, in these days of 400lb litre bikes, it was ridiculously heavy for a big twin (more than the old Nortons), partly down to the need to tame the vibration that escapes the complex balancer system and partly down to sheer cussedness on the side of the engine's designers who insisted on such antiquities as a separate oil tank. And although the trellis frame was an obvious sop to Italian engineering, the original Deltabox frame looked better and performed no worse.

Despite its excessive mass - at least 50lbs need to be lost - the torque of the 850cc mill was so excessive that when combined with the 80 horses on hand, the Yamaha shifted with brilliant verve that would rear the front end, burn out the back tyre and generally scare me silly. It was one of those bikes that you could not keep off, that insisted on full throttle madness. Though there was plenty of torque below 5000 revs, and if you were particularly perverse would slog along like a Panther single (if the transmission and balancer clacking were ignored) at low revs, the upper end of the rev range offered so much fun that it was but rarely deserted.

As might be expected, fuel, tyres and pads were all in the superbike league. At one point I was getting a back Metz down to its carcass in less than 2000 miles (earning the nickname Smokin' Joe along the way) and fuel economy was around 35mpg. I ran the pads down to the metal but the front ones wouldn't last for more than 3750 miles! This was a month's mileage in the summer, so heavy expense involved but to be honest I didn't give a damn and none of my mates were doing much better.

By the way, running the pads down to the metal does for the discs - big score marks that wreck wet weather riding with enough jerkiness to have the front wheel trying to go walkies. Mine went so bad by 9000 miles that I had to hit the breakers for a prime set and had no end of fun getting the old ones off the wheel. I did try a phone call to the dealer who sold me the crated TRX but he didn't really want to know, quoting something like two hundred notes for replacements. I wasn't surprised!

Riding on worn tyres was even more fun. If you define fun as having the back wheel waggling around a foot either side of the bike under power or having the front wheel flip away without warning. It says a lot for the TRX's basic stability that a quick wrench on the bars always pulled the beast back into line. Mind you, I spent half a decade perfecting my survival manoeuvres on a series of LC's. If you don't know what you're doing make sure there's always 3mm of tread minimum on the rubber.

Then the Yamaha is a peach to ride under almost all conditions. I weigh about 13 stones (all those Mars bars), the suspension, on maximum settings, just about adequate. The rear shock didn't like the additional weight of my babe, whose 15 stones had the bike all light headed and waggling around like some seventies nightmare. She who must be holed every night wasn't too amused at first, until the vibes got to her! Then all was forgiven. By 14000 miles the rear shock was a hopeless mess, though the bad weaves only came in at 110mph and it didn't speed wobble even two up, flat out, at 130mph!

Two hundred quid went west on a slightly used White Power shock. Multiple adjustments and rebuildable, so should last a lifetime. The handling was transformed but no better than when I first had the bike - it was that good originally. The front forks never wore to any great extent, though I always gave the sliders a wipe over after wet weather riding. Despite total neglect, the rear linkages didn't show any sign of looseness.

Riding through the winter sent the fasteners rusty but didn't do for the general finish - as the bike was only eight months old by February there really should not have been any sign of wear, should there? But then modern bikes don't bother with sensible mudguards, do they? And suffer accordingly.

I was less enamoured with the touch of clutch slip coming in at the redline with just over 19000 miles done. It hasn't gotten any worse, probably because I gave up on the wheelies after I broke the original chain which had lasted for an amazing 18,000 miles with only the odd wipe over with old engine oil.

The latter was my one concession to life with the TRX, changed it every 1500 miles. The original filter, though, is still there whilst the carbs and valves haven't been touched by human hand. It still ticks over with a lovely rustle and hurtles through the 120mph pain barrier with no effort whatsoever - it actually feels happier at the ton in top than it does at 70mph, which probably doesn't go down well with the law but I never bother stopping and have an obscured numberplate to take care of the cameras.

The engine's undoubtedly tough, has been around long enough to be well sorted. The chassis, though strange looking from certain angles, handles everything that I can throw at it. All it really lacks is the excessive speed of the 900 and 1000 replicas, though a race two into one exhaust is supposed to be good for an extra 10mph, not to mention blown eardrums! Soon!!

Keith Malling