Hello and welcome to PowerDrift, today I have the brand new Yamaha YZF-R15M.
This is V4 of the motorcycle and is one of my favourite motorcycles in the Indian market
because we know from history that this motorcycle is extremely forgiving at the racetrack, extremely
thrilling to ride on the road, it's usually been an utterly reliable motorcycle and Yamaha's
quality levels cannot be questioned, we can question a lot of stuff about Yamaha,
but not their quality levels.
So before we get into what's new in V4, let's talk about what's not changed in V4.
So the engine remains the same as the V3 more or less, it's been retuned a little bit, so
you have 0.2PS less on this motorcycle, but you do have 0.1Nm more, the peak torque and
peak power are made at the same revs as before, so that's not changed.
But what that means is, hopefully when you ride this out on the street, this motorcycle
should feel like it picks up a little bit earlier
and we'll hope that the top-end has not changed a lot.
We don't know that there are any gearing changes at all, I'm expecting absolutely no changes
on that front at all.
So in that sense, this should be a familiar package, I don't expect any major changes
to the refinement level, which has always been good or the performance level of this
motorcycle in any major way.
So where are the major changes?
Well, the major changes are in the frame, because as you can see from that angle, you've
got gold-coloured upside down forks now, they're not adjustable and that's okay, we'll find
out what these forks do,
but it should represent a significant upgrade to the handling of the motorcycle and remember
R15s always handled really well, so this is really exciting.
The other major change in V4, obviously is the design of the motorcycle and clearly the
inspiration is the new R7.
What is the R7 like?
That's what I'm hoping to find out at some point in India hopefully, but in the meantime,
we can see what it looks like.
So you can see that the fairing is redesigned, you've got a central projector in the middle
that does the work of the headlight, it cleans up the styling, and it actually looks like
a fresh striking motorcycle.
As I'm filming this, there are V3s parked over there and I can tell you, that those
motorcycles are in the showroom looking older than this one, so they've nailed it.
The tank shape itself has also changed, so the knee recesses were quite a bit more pronounced
on the old motorcycle, this is a much smoother, slimmer tank, it should mean that if you're
exceptionally tall, there is no block in front of your knee or air in front of the knee when
you're trying to hang off or something like that, in that sense, this should have more space.
I'm looking at the two saddles and it does look like there's a little bit more space
here than before, but it's also a little bit narrower looking than before, so again, you
should be able to put your feet down, not really something that the R15 always challenge
you to do, but you should be able to put your feet down and that should be a little bit
easier as well.
So net-net from whatever I can see, this is going to feel like a sharper motorcycle
to sit on and use together with sticky MRF tyres, it's always had good tyres,
I think this will be a smashing package.
Yamaha have also loaded the features up a little bit this time, so this is the M, this
gets a quickshifter as standard, if you buy the blue V4, you also get the quickshifter
as standard, the M also gets this carbon-fibre finish on the seat, they've changed what the
triple clamp looks like and they've mounted the clip-ons differently.
I'm not sure that these clip-ons are higher or lower than before, but they certainly look
more like a racing motorcycle than the old one, where the clip-ons were on top of the
triple clamp, which is more like a street application, so this looks a little bit more serious.
The console has been updated as well, now get two modes, in track mode, there's a lap
timer and all of that.
So in that sense, Yamaha has taken what was one of their focused motorcycles and focused
it a little bit more and that's the promise, so we've not ridden the motorcycle yet, that's
the exciting part that happens next.
Now one of the reasons why the previous Yamaha R15 was such a interesting motorcycle to
ride was that it connected with you, the new one also connects to your phone, because now
it's got Bluetooth.
So what Yamaha has confused is the variant spread a little bit, so you get the base two
models, which they cost about Rs. 10,000 more than the outgoing V3, add Rs. 5000 to that,
you get the blue one, and the blue one has a quickshifter as standard, add another Rs. 5000
to that, you get the R15M, which has the carbon-fibre finished seat, this very
nice silver paint scheme and I have to say, I'm looking at the plastics up close and they
look really, really good to me, you get the quickshifter as a standard and then you add
another, I think about Rs. 1500-2000 to that and then you get the Monster Energy edition
which of course has the famous M logo and you've seen that on Rossi's leathers and all of that.
But in sum, Yamaha has made a fairly serious update to a very, very nice motorcycle, they've
not really changed the engine and honestly I can see why, it's always been a fantastic
engine and like I always say more power would have been welcomed but I'm actually quite
happy with the way this engine makes power, the way it revs out is just beautiful
in a very nice frame which has serious upgrades and that's a very, very promising development,
the brakes, ABS all of those details, nothing has changed at all and now it also has traction
control and you might wonder, why does a motorcycle this small really need traction control?
Then think about it like this, the biggest asset that the R15 brought to the table for
new riders was forgiving handling which means you could make a mistake recover from it and carry on.
The traction control system simply adds to that safety net who makes it even safer to
ride especially when the going is slippery, there's sand on the road and conditions like that.
How does the system work though?
That's what we have to discover, because traction control systems can be extremely crude and
extremely sophisticated.
Sophisticated systems are very, very nice to use, but a crude system can get in your
way a little bit, although I'd still rather have that than not.
So what's the R15 like with traction control?
Well, that's a story for later.
And honestly, I think I should stop talking because I'm really, really excited to take this,
head out into the real world, head out to a racetrack and see what the R15 brings
to the table.
This is one of the best motorcycles in the country and I'm hoping that these updates
makes it even better. But what do you think?
Leave us a comment.
Tell us what Yamaha could have done more with this motorcycle, tell us what you liked the
most about this motorcycle and I will invite you to hit my four favourite buttons in the
world that's subscribe, the bell notification icon, like and share.
Thank you so much for watching, this is PowerDrift.