Im not what one would call a sensible person. I am the sort of twat that manages to have arguments with himself along the following lines…

"Hmm, CD players sounding a bit shite these days…. Not surprising really, it is about 7 years old. Might as well get a new one. Lets have a look in Richer sounds. Hmm, nice Cambridge for sale, good spec, reasonable price. But look here at this nice Arcam… a bargain at only five hundred notes. And if I get that, Ill be needing the pre-amp, and the power amp…etc.etc"

And then I wonder out of the shop with a top of the range stereo system that I don’t need, and cant appreciate as Im half deaf from being a drummer in my youth and never using ear protection.

And so, about a year ago, I decided that it was time to get my shit together and pass my full bike test, being bored with blatting around on 125’s for the past several years. And when I did, I was Mr Sensible for once and went out and got myself a nice ER5. Which was fine. And then that little voice started up, and I made the mistake of wandering into various bike dealers, and the rest is history…

For a start, this bike is far too powerful for me, and I predict that I will stack it at some point in the near future. So heres my little review of the Yamaha Fazer 1000…

Well, it pulls. Like, a lot. I mean, really. Very hard. The sort of pull that pulls the corners of your lips towards the back of your face in a mixture of abject fear and excitement. But thank god, it also stops. Fast. Really fast. In fact, the brakes are almost too good. I lock the rear up far to regularly to be good. And making the front tyre squeak can be accomplished with two fingers. I use the bike just about every day (unless Im having a CBA [1]) for travelling to clients through the whole of London. And it performs very well in regards to filtering and weaving in and around traffic in the rather psychotic way that you have to if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. In fact it’s a damn site more manoeuvrable in traffic than my old ER5, mainly due to the fact that the ER had a Powerbronze fairing kit, which was shite, it must be said. The fairing on the Fazer is weeny, but it does a fairly good job of throwing the slipstream over your head, though Im thinking of trying out one of the double bubble screens to see if this can be improved any.

So all in all, I love the Fazer. Im far too fat to even think about buying a sports bike, so I was looking for something a bit more sitty uppy when I bought it. I tried out the Bandit 1200, but it just didn’t feel right.. the brakes are nowhere near as good as the Fazers, and it just didn’t feel as tight as the Yamaha.

It also manages to tour fairly well. I took it on a nice little bimble down through France to Limoges in order to run it in nicely, and visit the old man. I took a nice scenic route down, which took about ten hours, and didn’t have any problems at all really. Numb arse only sets in after a couple of hours, and if youre belting it along, that’s about how long a tank of fuel will last anyway (around 140-180 miles before the light comes on, depending on how youre driving it). On the way back, I decided not to take the scenic route (ie I didn’t get lost too often) and took all the fastest roads, toll motorways etc. Made it from Limoges to Dieppe in about 6 hours. Cranked the bike up quite hard on the way back, and it handles quite well at 120 odd… didn’t feel that much different from doing 80 to tell the truth (not that I would ever think of doing that sort of speed on our shite roads)

Criticisms? Not many realy. There aren’t that many places to hook a bungee over. The preload adjusters on the front do some weird shit, but that’s prolly a problem with the operator rather than the bike. Steering is a little slow, but could prolly be sorted with either setting up the suspension properly, me loosing about 8 stone or maybe a different set of tyres. It comes with Metzelers, but Im tempted to give some Bridgestones a try when I need to replace them. The exhaust is a bit wimpy for my liking. Makes a very restrained noise, which doesn’t do a litre machine any justice. So that’s going to be changed when I can afford it. And a hugger is a must buy when someone actually starts making them for this model. But my biggest criticism is THE BASTARD INSURANCE!!! TWO AND A HALF GRAND!!!! And that’s with alarm, immobiliser etc etc.

All in all, I love the bike for its all round usability, and the fact that I can still have loads of fun and scare myself silly when I want to. There should be some decent priced second hand ones on the market within a year or so, and youll end up with a lot of bike for your money.

[1] Cant Be Arsed day. A day when one wakes up, thinks ‘I really cant be arsed today’ and goes back to sleep.