Well, had to show off my (actually!) new girl: 2018 MT07

So, finally got to pick up my new girl, and damn, am I excited. I love my XJ and already miss it's much more comfortable seat, but the 150lb weight difference is HUGE. Feels absolutely weightless, and pulls damn hard. Overall comparable power to my XJ750, but a lot more down low torque in addition to the high end power.
Zero! Zero km's on the odometer! I can't even. I've never had a new vehicle of any kind before, not one with NO mileage. I'm over the moon about this alone

Some random dude photobombing. Loving the white and red - the white has a strong metallic/pearlescent sheen in sunlight, looks awesome.
The exhaust is probably my favourite part of these bikes (the CP2 engines and CP3 in the 900 class); love how they wrap around the oil filter.
Aaaand a fender eliminator is probably going to be my first (and likely largely only) project with this. I hate these weird fenders.


Overall, I'm really happy with this. Got about 100kms on it on the first day, and I'm really pleased with how it has everything I loved with my XJ in spades, with the added fun of monstrous torque at lower RPMs. It's actually a bit challenging to NOT wheelie.

Physically, it's pretty much exactly the same size as the XJ, with a very similar seating position - a *tiny* bit more forward due to the handlebars having a smidge less pullback than my XJ's bars. I actually briefly considered swapping the handlebars as I *really* like the Daytona Touring bars, but meh. They're only $25, if I still want them in a month or two I'll just order new ones.

Sound wise, it's substantially quieter - actually a very quiet bike unless you open it up, then it's got a really unique, throaty growl. I think I actually prefer the sound of the XJ, but this certainly isn't bad, and I'm sure my neighbors will appreciate the quieter low speed travel when I'm coming and going at all hours of the night.

So, there she is. Aside from the fender eliminator, I'm going to keep it stock, so while I'm riding this I'll finally have time to build the Seca, and do it right.

 

Nice, the 270 degree crank should give great tourque without the horrible vibes from 360 twins.
Congrats on your new ride.

 

Sweet bike with a 6 speed gear box . Must just loaf along at 60 mph.
But you have to buy chain lube now!

 

Dude in the picture with arms folded is thinking... bastard got a new bike !

 

It's a stupid fun engine. For all it's rough throaty growl, there's no more vibration than my XJ had (very little).

Yeah, gets insanely good gas mileage if you're running at 60mph/100kph in 6th, around 3800 RPM's.

 

Smashing bike you got there Wintersdark.

 

i hear those get along real well with pods

 

http://www.motorcycledaily.com/2018...id-tour-precedes-production-launch-this-fall/

I like the hype for this one. Same sweet 700 mill in a true light-weight adventure chassis.

 

It'd be a great ride. The engine is fantastic, definitely the star here. I wonder what they'll price it like? And how light that bike will be?

 

I am tons of jealousy. I have spent a lot of time studying that bike. I like the xsr, but can't understand the BIG price increase. I also checked out the sv650, and it's tons cheaper than the xsr too! What's up with that?!

I agree about the weird rear fender. It looks like it was designed to make you want to take it off. I would suggest another mod: that odd space above the headlight with the 4 bolts is begging for a fly screen.

 

Yeah. It's too bad, as the XSR is so purdy, but is fundamentally the same bike aside from the styling differences. There's really no reason for the (huge) price difference at all. But all the functional parts are identical otherwise.

The SV650 is a bit cheaper than the MT07 ($500ish?) but also comes up short in pretty much every test in comparison reviews (although only by a little). A very good bike, though; I rode an earlier model last summer, and while it was a good bike, it lacked the awesome grunt the CP2 engine has. The Z650 looked pretty neat, too, and while it was priced like the SV650, I thought the MT07 was just purdier, edged it out in HP and torque... and my time with my XJ750 really pushed me to sticking with Yamaha

Basically everything has the same weird rear fender. I assume there's some regulation somewhere in the world forcing that, as all three of those above have the same thing. As to the flyscreen, yeah, that's why those bolts are there. There's a few, and I was going to get one right away, but honestly the airflow around the MT07 is really amazing as it is, and everything I've heard is most of them actually make it worse by redirecting air into your head.

On my XJ (without it's windshield) after 140kph, the wind pressure on me was intense enough that I didn't really want to go any faster. I've accidentally caught myself doing 185kph on the MT07, without realizing I was going anywhere near that fast. You wouldn't think so looking at it, but it's aerodynamics are really impressive as it is.

 

I sat on the MT07 at this past year's NYC International MC show... so good!

Congrats!

 

Back in 02 bought my first new bike a Buel Blast 500 (half a harley) my first thumper single . It was cheap 4500$ added a Kerker pipe , soft bags , wind shield . It had zero miles to ride over 11000 , had it for several years . A guy I worked with had never rode before, I showed him how after 30 min riding around a parking lot, he asked if I'd sell it to him 1500$ later it was his. He is now a long term biker . I miss the bike even if it was a chick bike with only about 37hp it would hit 90 even with me on it. Congratulations on your new bike looks great.

 

Hee hee, your "half a Harley" "chick bike" (a term I definitely do not approve of) had around TWICE the horsepower of a 250 Rebel twin.

 

I had no idea the lil Rebel was that low in horsepower. Pretty damn good fuel economy on the other hand, but 16hp? That must really struggle even at our somewhat lower highway speeds.

 

I was actually quite interested in a 690 KTM Duke, as I've never had a single cylinder bike, let alone one with a thumper that big. How was the Blast? I'd expect a lot of low end torque. Buell's have always interested me, but I've never even seen one in person.

As a 300lb guy, I always feel bad for smaller bikes, though, as they really struggle hauling my backside around. My old KZ440LTD got points for being my first bike, but it struggled racing old (unmodified) 80's Civic's. With that said, I'd *love* to test ride a Grom.

 

I rode my cousin's, one lung 650 savage. Not impressed... Thot, thot, thot sounding...

I took it for a spin and got a few miles away from his house and couldn't wait to get back and get the heck off the darn thing... Really low seat hight and the grips seemed really close together... I felt like G.I. Joe with Kung Fu Grip!

 

Just for completeness:

I've finished the break in period. It was hard. It was really, really hard to keep the bike below 5000rpm (as much as possible anyways), as that enforced a 120kph speed cap, and basically taunted me the whole time as you're just coming close to peak torque but not quite getting there. Thankfully, the bike's got a lot of low end grunt; doing this on my XJ would have had me convinced it was utter garbage.

Now, though, being able to really push the bike? It's a lot of fun. I'd never gone WOT during the break in, and now it's pretty much right at about how fast I want to accelerate at. Around 6500 rpm, it feels much like a much lighter XJ750, but below that it's got oodles more power. Kind of breathless at higher RPM's - a bit less than the XJ in terms of raw power output at 8000 rpm for example but I expect an aftermarket intake and exhaust would fix that. Having 6 speeds though allows it to get to higher speeds faster, and hold them more comfortably.

It's a wheelie machine if you want to do that. A bit, even if you don't - even with me at 300lbs, it'll wheelie into third without much effort. I'm glad I went with the 07, to be honest, as I'm less a hooligan than I used to be and I figure the MT 09 would be a straight up unicycle. For a ~200lb or littler guy, even the 07 would be on one wheel pretty much any time you opened the throttle all the way.

 

I've heard that the 900 on setting#3 is insane, almost dangerously uncontrollable, and that the 700 is the smart choice, with enough power for anything that anyone would ever need. Supposedly, the 1000 is a better, more controllable ride, but I have a very hard time with the Transformer/space bug styling. Still super jealous.
As for the Rebel on the highway, it's doesn't feel safe. At 120kph, it has almost nothing left. That's the speed almost everyone here drives at, so you have no way to escape anything weird behind you. I only took it on the 401 once, took me literally 3 minutes to pass a Corolla. It's fun in the city, and ok on the back roads, but you are always looking for more. 78ish mpg has it's perks, though.

 

This made me curious as to what exactly I was getting, so I popped the gauge over to fuel economy to see what the 07 is actually getting overall with me riding like me, and did a few "riding like a normal person" tests, to compare.

My overall average is 20km/l = 47mpg, but to be fair that's including a lot of hard acceleration and 160-180kph riding. Riding like a normal person, doing a constant 80kph in 6th, I get 32km/l or 75mpg. That's... A lot better than I expected. Getting up to 120kph takes it down to 24km/l or 56mpg though.