Performance, in the sportsbike world, is an all-encompassing term. It covers the whole thing, every single aspect of it. A sportsbike must go, must turn, must stop and most crucially of it all, must thrill. That kind of all-round proficiency never comes cheap, so the sportsbike, in most cases, also turns out expensive. Trawl the two-wheeled web and you will come up with numerous displacement-based comparisons, where the sportsbikes lead the price list wildly from the top. Like the man said, you get what you pay for. So, what does Rs 97,425 buy you, really?
Bliss
I’m leaned over as far as I dare – and there are others out here who are braver than me by miles – in the long sweeper that joins the two undulating sides of the circuit at Irungattukottai. The corner is mildly off-camber and open enough to go really, really quickly. Two contact patches are holding an engaging conversation in a language I can understand. I’m expected only to listen in, take confidence, lean it further and roll the throttle open a little more. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the most responsive, most talkative chassis in India today. The contact patch’s voice is clear. Not in the sense of every edge of the stone buried in the tar – it’s not a rock hard racebike, but in the sense of the clarity that will allow you to run embarrassing rings around that rider on the mountain road with the bigger, more powerful machine. The feedback you need to pass him around the outside and raise him a one-handed cheeky goodbye? It’s there. I haven’t road tested this bike. I haven’t even ridden on the street yet. But I’ll tell you this. Spot a half-good rider on a twisty road on one of these, and you might as well look for a place to stop for a cuppa tea. No point embarrassing yourself on a bigger machine, is there?
And it isn’t that sweeper alone. Even in the tight corners, where you are down to second gear, speeds are low, lean angles are transient but deep, the chassis remains an eloquent, encouraging voice. It says, over and over, ‘Try harder, I’ve got your back.’ The same character goes for the brakes too. Discs front and rear may be considered normal, but the way they work is far beyond that appearance. Power is there, of course, but there is feedback and the chassis is intensely stable on the brakes, which means that running it deep into corners and trailing the brakes into the apex (yeah, I left it too late more than once) all produce good braking and a non-scary satisfaction. On the brakes when leaned over, the R15 is light enough to not sit up and yes, I again must say these are some of best brakes overall on an Indian motorcycle. Ride quality should prove sporty-good too, though the street ride will probably reveal a lot more. I have only two indications to this. The first is the utter composure into the bumpy first corner, where high speeds and bumps come together. And the second is my unerring ability to run the R15 over the sole bad patch on all of the 3.6 km of the track, on every single lap. A patch that arrives when I’m heeled right over on an even throttle; a patch the R15 gives me intimate knowledge of without ever shifting its line the slightest inch. As I told a friend within hours of getting off the motorcycle, this is the bike to go for track days on, and to learn more about the nuances about riding faster, riding neater and riding harder.
The spec sheet, of course, is impressive in itself. One of India’s fattest front forks, India’s first genuine twin spar frame, in steel for the moment. India’s third monoshock bike, complete with the underslung link. It had to be good, right? Yamaha say that doing a double cradle or diamond frame wouldn’t be all that hard. But the minor extra weight of the Deltabox was worth it over and over again in what it brought to the handling. R15, sportsbike? Oh yes, this claim is the real thing.
Thrill
And while I did say the engine’s no earthshakingly powerful monster, I also have to say that it’s a great motor. Let’s start with the spec. It’s easily the most advanced motor we’ve had the pleasure of bouncing off the redline yet (yeah, I was too busy fumbling with the controls to be in the right gear a couple of times). India’s second four-valve motor still has a single overhead camshaft, but it is liquid-cooled for power with, um, staying power. It has fuel injection – you know the benefits already. It has India’s second 6-speed gearbox. And for Yamaha, it has proven reliability – the Indonesian V-Ixion has a nearly identical motor (different exhaust and gearbox) and they’re bulletproof, evidently.
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