Come on baby, hang in there, I muttered to the FZ. A bit of A road swervery I would normally have nervously taken at 70mph, that the good old FZ was zooming through at 90mph with a CBR600 on its tail. Flicking the bike from one side to the other, i had time to marvel at the lack of muscle required and, at the same time, the total stability. This was new territory for me, every day I was learning to ride faster and not being half frightened to death by ponderous, wobbling beasts that I had owned in the past.
The FZ had cost me just two grand with 10000 miles on the clock, the CBR had cost my mate nearly five grand brand new and he was desperate to show me that it was money well spent.
There were a series of sharp bends up ahead that I would normally have braked and prayed hard before I entered them. This time I bunged the Yam over to the wrong side of the road to straighten the first one out and went in with the same 90mph on the clock. I had to lean over so far that my knee almost touched the deck and I thought the whole plot was going to drop me on the tarmac.
By the time I’d flicked it up and applied some brake for the next bend, I was suffering from vertigo, but it didn’t stop me using both sides of the road and an equally outrageous angle of lean on the next band. It went around as if on rails, with 95mph on the clock by the time I hit the exit. This called for extreme braking to take off a lot of speed for the final, sharp bend. A bit of back wheel patter when all the weight was shoved on the forks and the tyre stepped out a couple of inches when it went over some gravel. But a quick flick upright saved the day.
My line slightly put out by the gravel incident, and speed down to mere 60mph in third, I went for the last bend before a long straight. it was one of those rides when everything comes together and the racing crouch, for once, made a great deal of sense.
Man and machine as one we took the curve, halfway home I revved the balls off the engine and got the front wheel off the ground a couple of inches with the bike still leaned over. Fucking hairy. The whole chassis twitched evilly as I quickly backed off and bunged some weight over the front wheel. Both wheels back on the ground I flicked up the box and screamed down the straight.
I managed a quick glance in the mirror and could not see the CBR. The motor revving past the red line in fifth, 130mph on the clock, I knew that to stop the Honda overhauling me on the straight I had needed to come out of the curves well ahead.
Into sixth and 140mph on the clock, the clip-ons vibrating harshly, the exhaust wail lost in the slipstream, my head down on the tank the only way to use the aerodynamics of the slender fairing. I felt rather than saw the Honda gaining on me.
In reality the FZ won't do more than 130mph and the CBR could put at least 15mph on top of that. Yes, there he was, getting larger in my mirror but not before the next series of bends were in sight. I was going to make it into the curves first, I felt sure. I was going to leave my braking late. So late, that with the suspension all used up fighting the brakes I had to haul the Yamaha over still desperately braking to shave off some speed.
The road surface was bumpy as hell and it felt more like an off road ride than tarmac burning, the FZ hopping all over the place but more or less staying on line. The suspension is adjustable but even on the lower settings is quite hard, combined with the sparse seat, meant I was thrown out of the saddle a few times. Despite all that, I still felt like I was going to make it through the corners.
These were tight, almost hairpin bends and I had to flick the FZ every which way at a quite insane speed but it felt so surefooted that all the time I wore this huge grin and drowned any misgivings in the howl of the exhaust as I played tunes on the motor to keep it above 7000rpm, where all the real power lurked.
The next mile I concentrated on the road ahead, and by the time I hit the next straight there was no sign of the poor old Honda rider. Poor chap was more than disgruntled when he finally caught me up after I stopped in a lavby for a fag.
Unlike the Honda, the FZ uses a purely old tech engine based on the XJ600, itself an upgrade on the even more ancient XJ550. An air-cooled four with a mere two valves per cylinder, an hyvoid primary chain and a six speed box. The XJ series was mostly overlooked in favour of GSs and GPzs, but the motor is quite a tough old beast, easily capable of exceeding 50,000 miles without a major overhaul. Even developing well over 70 horses in FZ form, its only sign of stress is the need for frequent valve adjustments.
Power delivery really is excellent. On a highly charged cafe racer you don't expect to be able to pull away strongly from 25mph in top gear. In fact the bike always feels like it could do with an extra gear, and a larger gearbox sprocket would not go amiss. 5500rpm equates to 70mph in top gear. Really fierce acceleration is available from beyond 7000rpm and it requires a very fast foot to keep the rev counter from going into the red in lower gears. It’s possible to do some quite wild wheelies.
The frame is a wraparound rectangular section, tubular affair painted silver that sprouted lots of rust by 20000 miles. Welding is better than some and strength excellent. Mono-shock linkages were worn out at 24000 miles and needed new bushes. The shock was still firm and the forks the best I've ever come across.even the seals failed to leak.
The front pads lasted only 10000 miles, a bit poor to my mind as there are twin discs out there, but it is possible to squeal the tyres, there's no wet weather lag and lots of feedback. The rear pads went for 12500 miles, that brake's reasonably sensitive, the back end not prone to locking up in the wet unless you set out to deliberately scare yourself silly. None of the calipers have shown any sign of seizure. Overall, then, an excellent set of brakes.
The bike is not very sensitive to tyre types and still remains stable with the tread down to the legal limits. I find Metzs give the best grip but the worst wear (4k rear, 12k front) and Roadrunners the best wear (8k rear, 16k front) and quite adequate grip These wear rates are just about acceptable given the speed the bike can do.
Fuel consumption is directly proportional to right hand abuse Ridden like a C90, never going above 50mph, it'll return a credible 70mpg! Ridden flat out — and I mean flat out — it’ll do 30mpg. Overall consumption worked out at between 50 and 55mpg; riding within the legal limits and under mild acceleration it’ll do better than 60mpg.
l foolishly agreed to go on a Continental tour with my CBR600 owning mate. 5000 miles in two weeks was the plan. There was no way I could maintain the frenetic riding pace described earlier for ten hours a day, day after day. That would be a quick way to an early grave. 80mph cruising on good roads was the order of the day, doing at least 500 miles a day. At the end of the first day in France it was the CBR owner who had a big grin on his face. I could hardly walk and was seeing two of everything.
Any illusions I had of the FZ being a practical manner of transport had been shattered. The moat obvious problem was the seat which became a plank after 50 miles and 200 miles later the GRP seemed to be digging grooves into my thighs. I squirmed around trying to find a comfortable position but there wasn't one to find.
Then there was the riding position that only made sense at ton plus speeds. The further I travelled the more spasms I felt in my spine. Similarly, the fairing screen chucks up the air straight into you head unless you try to kiss the tank. A couple of hundred miles at 90mph left me feeling like I'd been thumped about the head by a bunch of skinheads hopped up on glue.
By the time we arrived at our hotel, my posture was more that of an ancient hunchback than the fit young man that had left England. My hands were shaking from the secondary vibes, my eyeballs were all shook up from the fairing produced buffeting and, to cap it all, the crash hat had proved too tight for extended use, leaving two large lumps on my forehead. In the UK my mileage had been limited to not much more than a 100 miles a day, at the most, and I never realised what a bugger the bike was.
Mileage was drastically curtailed for the next few days and we took longer and more obscure routes containing more swervery so that I would have something to concentrate on. The final indignity was having the bike fall over when the sidestand flipped back on its own accord.
The only maintenance either bike needed was to their chains and an oil change, both were much tougher than their riders and would have gone longer and faster than either cared to indulge.
By the time I was back in the UK, the FZ made little sense. It was purgatory in town, only comfortable on motorways at speeds that would result in instant licence confiscation and, with 30000 miles on the clock, and beginning to, lose its edge, I traded the F2 in for a new XJ600, a thoroughly sensible and practical motorcycle, but I will never forget the sheer joy of the FZ out in the back roads.
Wayne Willians