Deus SR400 TT

Super Expensive Retro

WHAT IS IT?
Yamaha's venerable SR 400/500 series of singles has spawned far more specials than it has any right to, given its humble spec and relatively modest production numbers. This one is put together by café and café-racer specialist Deus ex Machina, out of Sydney.

WHAT'S IT LIKE?
Simple, down-to-earth good fun, but at a huge price. Very easy on the eye.

THE BIKE
Pull on the welding goggles for your first look at a gleaming Deus SR400 TT café racer. The potent combo of polished alloy, stainless steel and chrome dazzles you with reflected light. Oh, and there's a dash of colour - the cool metallic gold of the piggyback nitrogen canisters on the rear Ohlins shocks.

STYLING
Deus has crafted a minimalist interpretation of a traditional four-stroke single sports bike. The polished alloy tank is a beautiful example of the metalworker's art. There are handsome spoked alloy wheels and lovely billet rearsets. Details like braided lines, the tiny "racer" speedo and the quirky little idiot-light mounts complete the pretty package. The upswept megaphone at the end of a long curving pipe completes the classic '50s - '60s racer illusion.

RIDING IT
This single is a snack to start. Every cold start (with choke) was a first kick success story. Warm starts were first kick, three out of four times. Two at most.

It's light and lithe and a pleasure to ride. The ergos were just fine for me - the riding position is a non-severe, racer crouch.

Being almost 17mm shorter in the stroke than its SR500 sibling, the 400 donk doesn't do much torque-wise until it hits around 4000rpm. Then the response comes on clean and strong (you wouldn't call it a "rush" but it certainly starts to haul for a 400). The short-stroker doesn't vibrate as much as an SR500 either.

It stops and handles well. Time constraints and rainy weather combined to deny me the chance to sample its handling at speed through some quick twisties. But with Ohlins rears and the simple, but effective Yamaha forks, this modestly powered light package shouldn't disappoint.

The mirrors look lovely but aren't high-value functionally.

Re the sexy megaphone: It's noisier than my old SRX600 racebike. It set off a couple of alarms on parked cars as I passed. Presumably Deus will be trimming a few dB off the output on customer bikes without killing the lovely fruity note.

LOOK AT ME
Whenever you stop, people wander over for a chat. As you ride along there's much staring. One guy, after the stare and the thumbs up salute as I rode beside him along Rick Damelian Road, even wound his ute window down for a chat at the lights in Annandale.

THE IDEA
The bikes come from Japan as standard, recent model, very low kays SR400s. They're then stripped, checked and dressed up in various custom guises, drawing parts and accessories from a catalogue that lists heaps of specialty aftermarket Japanese parts.

Deus clients take home as-new boutique custom bikes. They come in café racer, flat-tracker and chopper styles. Each can be a one-off, tailored individually to a buyer's preferences and priced according to the options chosen. For the TT's $16,990 (plus ORC) price you could get a couple of new Enfields or a new Thruxton and a bagful of change. But you couldn't get a restored Manx or Gold Star.

Deus sees its custom bikes competing with other top-end lifestyle accessories, rather than with conventional motorcycles.

To me this TT is an exquisite sunny Sunday bike, a "collectable" that's fun to ride, with the practical benefit of easy parts and service availability. 

NOTES: THE SINGLES SCENE
The quintessential motorcycling experience is already happening as you fire up a four-stroke single. With a physical linkage between your foot and the piston, you can feel the inertia of the crank and then the meaty four-stroke compression, as you bring it up to top-dead-centre. Ease it over compression and then go for the big prod. It's special every time you hear it fire then bark into life. And you know you did it. You're feeling good even before you slip it into gear.

Then, as you ride, you hear the thing breathing in through its carby and exhaling the hot exhaust gases. There's the smell of the fuel that's being converted to motion and heat. And you can hear the quality of the firing impulses - you can even feel them.

When you punch it up to the next gear you can hear the note change as it takes up the extra load - not the drop in revs; it's the deepening of the tone. A single really talks to you personally, in subtle ways. Multi-cylinders just chatter away amongst themselves, indifferent to your presence.

Try the singles thing. You might like it.