2016 Bikesales BOTY recap: Yamaha XSR900

In November last year, the Honda Africa Twin was declared the winner of the inaugural Bikesales Bike of the Year (BOTY) award.

The Bike of the Year award recognised excellence outright across 11 separate motorcycling categories, with the Africa Twin judged to be the best ‘Adventure’ bike as well as taking out the top honours from fellow finalists, the BMW S 1000 XR and Yamaha XSR900. You can read all about the Africa Twin's win here, as well as the category winners.

Over the next few months, we'll be taking a closer look at the category winners, and then we'll begin the process all over again for the 2017 BOTY!

This time, let's take a look at the XSR900, which won the Retro category over the BMW RnineT and Ducati Scrambler.

Our Sydney correspondent Sam Maclachlan has this to say about the XSR900 at the Aussie press launch: "All sorts of bikes pass under my butt each year — fast ones, slow ones, off road ones and everything in between. Every so often, though, along comes a bike that just speaks to me, something that just so nails its design brief and target market, that I go to bed dreaming of it. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does…

"You know what this is all leading to — Yamaha has produced such a quality machine in its new XSR900, that I am truly enamoured.

"This wasn’t a result I was expecting looking at the specs. I really like the MT-09 for what it is, so this bike being marketed as a kind of hipster-spec MT-09 led me to think it was all sparkle, lumber jackets and beard.

"It’s much more than something to just parade your love of craft beer with — I honestly reckon the much-lauded MT-10 will have trouble keeping this bike at bay on a bumpy back road.

"But what is amazing is the feel at the bars, seat and pegs — this is where you gather the knowledge that everything is going fine as far as grip and traction go, and the feedback is superb on the XSR.

"Yamaha goes to great lengths to keep your feet close together on the bike, which helps make it feel smaller, though at only 195kg wet it doesn’t need much to feel light. The ride position is on the upright side of “nakedbike”, but this doesn’t detract from feeling what the front axle is doing — it’s often levitating…

"It’s not a perfect bike — the dash is too bright at night, the TC switchability annoys me, the suspension could be more compliant and the Mode switch is hard to get to in winter gloves — but these complaints pale in reference to the asking price.

"$12,999 (plus on-road costs) for a bike this bloody good is a bargain. There simply isn’t anything else that hits so many bullseyes for the money."

Next up we'll take a closer look at the Cruiser-winning Victory Octane.