| Product: |
Yamaha Fazer FZS600 |
| Date: |
15.01.08 (571 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Great fun, easy to ride, good at most things.
Disadvantages: Seat no good on long distances, clunky gearbox.
All the reviews stated this bike is ideal for just about any type of riding, touring, commuting, fun days out and B road blasting. I bought mine in the Spring of 2004 and have used it for all of these types of riding and have to say it almost, not quite, but almost lives up to the hype. My bike a shiny blue one, R1 Blue I'm told, after scratching it once I found its listed as Deep Purlish Blue Metallic on the Yamaha paint supply lists, how's that for a colour? Still it looks great and is mainly blue but has a nice purple tinge when caught in the right light nice! Mine is a 2003 model with the Fox eye headlights and other improvements over the older model shown in the picture above.
The ride is good with adjustable suspension front and rear, I keep the front wound round to the firmer end of the dials and the rear somewhere towards the middle. Adjusting the dials is by spanner at the top of the fork legs at the front and a special wrench is kept in the tool bag under the seat for quick and easy adjustment of the rear shock. Inspiring and good natured the Fazer can cruise along happily at most speeds with descent mid range power allowing the more sedate rider to enjoy good pull from the lower end of the revs but the old Thundercat 600 4 cylinder still offers a fairly quick motor above 7k on the analogue dials for the quicker riders. Other characteristics of the motor are reasonable levels of viabration even at high revs and seemingly bomb proof mechanics. (So Far!) The gear box is ok but not perfect with a particularly knotchy change in the lower gears, minly with 1st and 2nd around the neutral gear I guess. Apparently thats normal for the box though and doesn't cause any major problems other that making people jump at the lights as it clunks into gear.
The riding position is fairly upright and offers good comfort for up to 2 hours on the road if your going distance but stiff knees a sore seat can be expected beyond that. Brakes are exceptional for a reletively budget bike with the old R1 brakes on the front making stopping quick and reassuring. Instruments are fairly well laid out with everything in close reach of both hands although the dip/high switch for the main lights is slightly to high for me to reach without changing my grip on the bars but maybe thats just me. The lights themselves are good with both the front lights working on dip and full beam, this wasn't the case with older models, giving a good spread of light at night.
The bike seems to do a good 200+ miles on a tank if you ride steadily although higher revs still return a good MPG rate. Luggage space under the seat is enough for spare gloves and a descent lock and your wallet but not much else.
With a passenger the bike bahaves well and is easy to handle and the seat doesn't leave your passenger high in the air and the sissy bar grab handle is a good size.
I think that about covers it for general stuff, my bike has a few extras which I will write seperate reviews for, hope you find this useful, if you want to know anything else about this great alrounder then please feel free to ask.
Summary: A great first 'big' bike, commutor, B road blaster great etc etc etc
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