Hello, and welcome to PowerDrift. Today is a very special day because it's a retro edition
of PowerDrift and that means that my ironic hipster persona can really come out and play
with the FZX, dude. What up bro? Now, if you haven't, do subscribe because that's like,
like the cool thing to do and ringing the bell, well,
that was the OG cool thing to do. So, why am I dressed like this? Well, first, I'ma occupy,
the couch.
You see today, we are rebelling against the mainstream and that's why the FZX is here.
What has it rebelled against? Well, if you look at it, it's already rebelled against the design
of the XSR900, the design of the XSR155, hell, it didn't even leave its own little brother, the FZ
alone and it rebelled against the musculature of that motorcycle too, and that's cool, right? But I
think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. Let's start at the very beginning dude, because
that's the hipster thing to do.
Under the skin, and we'll come to the skin itself last is the FZ,
all of it, without any significant changes, which means that the well known proven 12bhp,
150cc single, is now pushing roughly four kilos of more weight through time and space. And while
it looks like that, the time is the present, not the past, although it can feel like you're riding
a bike that's slow enough to feel retro sometimes. So what does that mean, dude? Well, Yamaha taking
the FZ back to 150cc, when version 2.0 came out was exactly the hipster thing to do.
Everybody is moving to 160s, but Yamaha went against the flow, against the mainstream,
and in some ways against logic.
But that's done a few good things, because the FZ engine is really really refined and on the FZX,
all Yamaha has done is work on the exhaust note, which has a little bit more character and
there's a little bit more of a B. The refinement levels on this engine have always been excellent
and you only have vibration problems if you're really maxing the FZX out and if you're maxing the
FZX out, you've got the wrong bike, bro, because the beauty of the FZX is evidently mostly to those
who swill organic, cold-brew, decaffeinated, single-origin coffee and it's in their veins,
as in chill. It's got enough performance to keep up with and past most city traffic,
but with the Vbox tested top speed under 100 kilometres an hour, outright speed is not the
FZX's tea. So the frame, it's all FZ and that means this is friendly and responsive, bro,
sort of like hipsters at an Occupy event, but the new handlebar, it has a decent steering feel,
which means, the always happy frame is eager to respond to your inputs. But do remember bros that
cornering is easy, but it's different because you sit upright, thanks to the forward set pegs,
and this new handlebar, ride quality is familiar. The FZ is pretty smooth over most roads and only
the largest bumps really interrupt its flow, very nice. The brakes again, are no surprise,
the front lever feel could be better, but it certainly works. I did feel like the ABS
came in a little too early even when I was being progressive with the effort, but there's nothing
to complain about. And as usual, I continue to rail against the single channel ABS rule,
because that's just silly. Rule makers, my bros, you really thought that through. Where the FZX
feels the nicest is once you're sitting on it, because it's got a wide cushy seat, the tank is a
little bit wider than you expect, so if you're buying skinny jeans, buy the ones with lycra to help you here.
So you sit upright, tall handlebar, a nice clear digital dash, this feels good. One caveat though,
remember a soft seat and long distances are not the best of friends, so if you're going to ride
this a long distance, you're probably going to have a bit more of a butt ache than usual.
Apart from ABS, you can opt to have Yamaha's Y-Connect suite, which means Bluetooth
connectivity. The app store listing itself is a bit confusing because there are other apps called
Y-Connect, but the rest of it is exemplary smooth in terms of pairing, and once paired,
you get the usual set of features, fuel economy tracker, parking location and what have you.
A big miss is push navigation, although it would mean a lot more work on the dash to display the
arrows and distances and stuff, so maybe later. But chill bro, in the days before satellite
navigation, we used paper maps to navigate, right? Just do that. Honestly, as much as I'm
dressed in these duds, and I do love this Pink Floyd tee, I don't really get hipsters or this
silly trend of force retro motorcycles, but that's okay. Design is a personal choice and you're okay
to have a divergent opinion, maybe you're just woke than in I am bro. But, the problem with
the FZX is that it chose form over function and it's caused a whole bunch of fundamental issues,
especially because this form is slightly ungainly and disproportionate from many angles. You see
the XSR900 had the luxury of a large engine and a perimeter frame to mould the retro tank and
panels around, the XSR155 based on the R15 also had a radiator and a perimeter frame for this.
The FZX is air cooled and has a steel cradle, which means, the challenge for the designers to
resolve the retro lines becomes harder because the engine is tiny, but the bike wants to be large.
So distinctive, yes, that blue, love it, the design, not so much, bro, but, let's sum this up. The FZX
is a very pleasant motorcycle to walk around the city on, there's absolutely no doubt about it,
but, when you consider the price increment to the FZ, I find that a little bit hard to digest.
On the other hand, when you think about all the other 160s, they make significantly more power,
that's 12.5bhp and the RTR is making 17, so the FZX as a motorcycle, the proposition,
it's odd at worst and peculiar at best, but what do you think?
Let us know in the comments and stay tuned, that has raised so many questions that we've decided
to make another video about it. So Varun Painter will be here and you're in for a surprise.