briandk
Ex Member
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Part 3:
One of the areas where the motorcycle technology is moving fastest is suspension. The TR1 front suspension is of the now common type with air supported springs. There is a separate air chamber for each fork leg which makes it troublesome to get the wanted and equal amount of air pressure in each leg, but the fork swallows both small and large bumps excellently at the medium pressure recommended in the manual, so you only seldom need to adjust the pressure.
The rear suspension is in broad strokes build like the RD350LC, with a swingarm connected to a single central shock absorber, but on the TR1 a few enhancements to refine it, in the form of adjustable air support and damping. It's considerably easier adjusting the rear compared to the front as there is only one shock absorber and no problems getting the pressure equal as with the front. The damper has 6 steps and can be adjusted without getting off the bike or stopping it. You adjust it by turning a wheel on the right side under the seat. There isn't a big difference between step 1 and 6 on the adjuster and most of the time we picked a medium setting. If you ride with low air pressure and low dampening the back suspension handles most bumps fine, but the rear feels spongy with a passenger. If you increase the pressure the system struggles dealing with sudden bumps, so just as with the RD350LC, we must conclude that Yamaha's monoshock works fine but it's not revolutionary and there are machines with conventional suspension that function at least just as well. As for the TR1's rideability, there isn't really anything to blame. The machine has really good and stable performance if we ignore bumps parallel to the direction where the machine wiggles it's rear, but which must be attributed to the Japanese tires and especially the almost worn down rear tire, we had to ride really hard to provoke any unsettling in the TR1. Only by a forceful shutoff of the throttle in a curve could we upset the machine. It's probably not possible to ride the TR1 so hard the frame can't keep up with the engine, at least we didn't.
The directional stability is also OK. The only minus we could find with the steering showed up at the racetrack "Jyllands Ringen" where you with less risk than on public roads can go hard into the corners. On the track it turned out being hard positioning the TR1 exactly into the corners, but it was probably caused not so much by the steering as the engine reacting harshly on changes of the throttle and the front brake being hard to dose 100% correctly. In the curves themselves the machine was quite easy to control and steer through.
Riding on a track, the different parts on the side of the bike, set clear limits for how far you can lean over on most street motorcycles. This is also true for the TR1 where both side and center stand hits the road just after the footrests. However on public streets we only had the foot pegs scraping, it happened a few times and was entirely unproblematic as they are hinged and has give.
As mentioned it's hard to dose the front brake precisely, but the brake effect is excellent. The rear is "only" a drum brake but it manages what it should fine. As is known it's the front brake that needs to do the majority of the work. Contrary to other chain driven Japanese bikes on the Danish market, the Yamaha TR1 is blessed with an enclosed chainbox, running in special grease. The manual specifies 50.000 km lifetime and 6000 km adjustment intervals. As usual when it comes to Yamaha the equipment is top class. Both the speedometer and rev counter on the test cycle was only a few percent off. The grips and handlebar is well shaped and the self cancelling blinker system is great, the lighting is also good. Yamaha TR1 is a motorcycle which has the Japanese motorcycles traditional qualities in the form of an easy operated bike, including the clutch and shifter.
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