2012 Yamaha V Star 1300 on 2040-motos

Moto blog

And in my front room this evening...

NO IT'S NOT an illusion: you're looking at the 1981 Yamaha OW53, ridden by double World Champion Barry Sheene in the first three rounds of the '81 500GP championship. The bike's owner, aircraft engineering entrepreneur Chris Wilson, has lent the £100,000 GP machine to Visordown for our stand at this year's NEC Motorcycle Show - 27th November to 6th December 2009. Sheene raced the bike in the 1981 championship, where he finished fourth at Salzburgring, sixth at Hockenheim and third at Monza.

R1 noise, bike porn and a quick lap

Trawling the internet for a sound clip of the Crossplane Crank Yamaha R1 on full chatter, I came across this: a few fast laps on board with New Zealand Superbike racer Tony Rees as he works the CABS Throttle Blipper on his 2011 R1. (Skip to 7:35 for the fast ones.) CABS is a system used by Superbike teams that makes use of the R1’s digitally controlled throttle. When you change up a gear, the bike blips in the perfect amount of revs to save time on track and make downshifts as quick and easy as clutch-less upshifts.

Yamaha to Produce PES1 and PED1 Electric Motorcycles by 2016

Yamaha announced plans to release the production versions of its PES1 and PED1 concept models within two years as part of the company’s plans to enter the electric motorcycle segment. The PES1 and PED1 (which stands for “Passion, Electric, Street” and “Passion, Electric, Dirt”) concepts were first revealed at last November’s Tokyo Motor Show. In the company’s newly-published annual report, Yamaha confirmed plans to produce the two models, saying: “In sports motorcycles, we are working to create new value with EV sports motorcycles, which we aim to launch in two years, with the development of the small, on-road sports PES1, as well as the PED1, which are being developed to expand the scope of electric vehicles to the off-road world.