Well Hello There

Yamaha XSR900

Long time readers know that I said goodbye to sold my motorcycles three-ish years ago. Haven't had one since. At one time I owned two very racey bikes that were gathering dust in my garage, as street riding on a racey bike is not at all fun and getting out to the track got to be too much of a pain in the ass. On top of that I was planning on moving and making some other changes so I figured I would catch up with another motorcycle later on that was more street friendly.

I need a bike with an upright seating position because I am old and my back hurts. Fortunately there are more cool bikes that meet this criteria than ever before. Scramblers for the people!

Ducati makes a scrambler, which they introduced to great fanfare. I like this bike! They are selling a 'lifestyle', which I can do without. You have to sell lifestyle to move units in the USA, because motorcycles are a luxury buy. So even if your bike is obviously shit (see: most cruisers) you can sell a lot of them because people 'identify with the brand'. It works!

Deus is the best example of the 'bike as lifestyle' branding. They started out building very cool, very expensive custom bikes in Sydney. They are now an aspirational and lifestyle brand that also happens to sell motorcycles all over the world. Mostly they sell a lot of apparel and "accessories". This is smart, because the volume and margin on apparel/accessories is much better than the actual motorcycles. (Harley Davidson figured this out a long time ago.)

All of which brings us to the new Yamaha XSR900, which is a restyled version of the FZ-09 aimed squarely at lifestyle. Look at the photos from Yamaha and you'll see a hirsute gentleman riding in jeans and boots and motorcycle-style jacket and in gloves that wouldn't protect your hands from a tipover in the parking lot. In other words: you will see a person that looks like a lot of people that buy and ride motorcycles.* I would ride this bike. 

This new XSR900 looks superb and when it comes out in 2016 I will have to go review it in person, maybe get back on a bike. That's assuming Yamaha fixed the fueling and suspension issues that plagued the FZ-09. We'll see.




* This is dumb as hell. You should wear a proper jacket and racing gloves all the time. Your hands are fragile. There are plenty of good jacket options available now. Also some decent options in kevlar jeans to keep your ass from turning to hamburger in a crash. Also plenty of good boot options too. Good gear is cheaper than the hospital.