Yamaha FJR 1300

Designed with European long-travel in mind, I reckon this bike hits the ground running when it comes to what the Aussie market wants. More than reasonable comfort, great pannier space, a high level of refinement and one stomping, earth-moving, (insert your favourite superlative here) engine.

While there is serious top-end go here, the thing that gets your attention - from your first gear selection until you're gazing at it while your increasingly agitated loved one is calling you in for tea - is the torque. How does 12.8kg-m at a leisurely 8500rpm sound? Nice - you're right. This thing has more torque than Stan Zemanek. And it makes a whole lot more sense as well. Not hard really...

WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?
Let's take a look under that fairing shall we?

The cause of all that lovely power is a fuel-injected, 1298cc, in-line four. No surprises there.

The bike is fitted with the now-familiar EXUP valve to optimise fuelling at varied throttle positions and it works very well indeed. The whole deal is very compact, aided by a clever arrangement of the crankshaft and transmission shafts.

There's a five-speed transmisson and top is geared fairly short. More than once I found myself looking for a sixth gear, but longer-term ownership will have you accustomed to this. It is hardly working its ginger off at 120km/h, but a more relaxed lope would be nice on the long highway drone to which this bike is bound to be fairly regularly subjected.

Suspension is more than adequate and it's the other major contributing factor to the bike's impressive ability when pushing on. At the front you get seriously large, fully-adjustable 48mm conventional forks and at the tiller there's a spring rate and rebound adjustable monoshock.

A simple lever adjusts rear spring preload from "soft" to "hard" with the latter setting suiting fully-laden situations. I left it on soft around town and hard when having a bit of a dip. Truth is it all works very well, but only extreme cases of different usages will truly find it out. On the hard setting, be prepared to cop it in the clacker somewhat. So to speak...

TOP FUELLER
The fuel-injection is nice and progressive. No real snatch from right off the bottom and lovely linear delivery when you want to alter the time/space continuum by opening the taps.

It's a shaftie and you do notice it low-down where the bike will spring up and down slightly, but when the business end of the ride is happening you will never know that there's no chain lurking down there. That is, of course, until your mates come at you with the lube (now, now...), and you wave them away with a dismissive glare and the petulant air of a shaftie owner. "Begone grease-devils, this is an FJR" - or something along those lines...

This is a bike that lights my wick. It does most of the things I expect from a sports tourer, but it recognises the compromises. Fact is the very term "sports tourer" is like saying "agile bus". The bike you can sit on all day in luxurious comfort and get your knee down as well is not going to happen. And it hasn't here. How so? Well, the seating position is good, but to get the sort of reasonable clearance the FJR possesses, the pegs are fairly high. That adds up to a degree of knee-ache (admittedly it takes a while to set-in). It has to happen, it's mathematical.

The seat is comfy, (others have disagreed with me on this point in overseas write-ups), and the relationship from seat-to-bar is very good. You're just reminded from time-to-time that you are not on a ‘real' tourer.

But there is a much nicer form of wake-up call telling you just the same thing. And that's the fact that handling is very, very good. Toss in the hugely useable nature of that brilliant donk and you'll be forgetting about your knee-ache as the speed-endorphins flood your senses and the bike propels you to a place you've rarely been. It's simply intoxicating...

Of course you want to be able to pull the substantial beast down from all this supersonic silliness. Some brakes, Sir? How will a set of R1-sourced front stoppers do? Your answer? Very well indeed thank you.

Yep, four-pistons and a 298mm matching set of floating stop-platters pull the handsome thing up a treat. No silly ABS add-on here. Just good brakes. That will do this experienced motorcyclist nicely thank you very much. Horses for courses I s'pose...

Now a whinge. The adjustable screen is not as good as it could be. When fully down the effect is noisy and you get quite strong windblast. Half-way up creates an annoying buffeting and all the way up sucks you forward. This is not the first bike with an adjustable screen to present these problems and I can't help but think that we look far harder for the perfect protection from a screen we can adjust. Bikes that have no adjustability see us simply get on with it without another thought. There is an optional 40mm larger screen available and it's likely that this problem is improved by it. You're looking at an extra $395 here.

YOU'RE TRIPPIN'
Luggage comes standard on the FJR. You get two nicely sized 30 litre panniers and they'll hold a full face helmet. At last we see a locking system that is simple to use and they detach easily from the bike. Well done.

For anyone that reckons panniers are overkill, good luck to you and I understand where you're coming from. Bet you've never had panniers on your bike before though, hey? I suggest you never try them, because I'm willing to wager that, one long trip, where you just unclip the bags and head into your hotel room/tent/pub, will have you eating your words forever.

I'm a huge rap for panniers (less for top-boxes). Soft bags, hard cases (sounds like a description of my friends...) whatever. I'm hooked and if I never see another ocky strap it'll be too soon. In short, the standard-fitment bags on the FJR make it a real plus for mine.

There's an optional top-box which boasts the handy feature of continuing the theme of single-key operation. The adaptor kit for the box fitment is $140 and the box itself is $895.

There's a range of other optional bits and pieces too long to list here, but there is ample scope to personalise the bike to your liking. One option I will talk about however is the adjustable heated grips. Once again, use 'em once and you'll be hooked. I reckon its a great option and the fact that its a factory part rather than a shonky add-on is important. They are not cheap at $487, but I'd be going for them in a big way.

SO...
This is a bike I could own. It's getting up there in price at $21,099, there's no doubt about it, but its main competition in the Honda ST1300 ($22,900) and the BMW R1150 RT ($23,225) are dearer.

That engine is exciting, the bike is comfortable enough to cut out some serious kliks and I like the level of refinement you get.

This is a true sports tourer and that is the category I reckon defines motorcycling best.

It deserves to sell better than it probably will - you won't see 'em everywhere - and if I was in the market for a bike in this category, the big Yam would get my attention. Give it some of yours...