Yamaha FZR 400RR EXUP

BMW RIDERS DON'T like the FZR400RR. At least, the one I trying to keep up with me on the Ml didn't. Ten minutes, a few 'yes sir, no sir, three-bags-full sir' and a funny handshake later and I decided I didn't like the FZR400RR either. Bloody thing.

Quicksilver, intense lightweights like this encourage such stupidity, such highs and lows. Their area of excellence is so foc.ussed, so small that the glorious adrenal highs they provide last only about ten minutes every fortnight; the lows fill the rest of the time, the stupidity follows close behind. Traffic is a low. Town is a low. Motorways are a low. And each becomes a time to invent stupid games to relieve the tedium: stoppies at traffic lights; flat-out up the Ml; eagerly-awaited roundabouts; new knee-sliders every morning before breakfast. That's why 400s are so good. That's also why they're so crap. And that's why they're so baffling.

And that's also why the new FZR400RR is different. In short, the RR is the 'practical', basic version of the FZR400RRSP road-and-tongue twister launched by Yamaha last year. A bike that was about as uncompromising a sports bike as you could get, complete with close-ratio gearbox, multi-adjustable suspension, sticky race tyres, single seat, carbon-fibre exhaust can and matching £6500 price tag.

On the road, the SP was ethereal for just two minutes every fortnight and propelled stupid games to extremes of donning back-protector and dog-tag for even the ride into work. On the track was just about the only place people used them and the Yamaha/ Donington race school was where a fair few of the 100 brought into the UK ended up. Which is not that surprising really.

Enter FZR400RR: slightly reworked engine, road gearbox, road tyres, twin seat, tedious paintjob and a £1500 saving. In other words, a poor man's FZR: bound to be a disappointment, what's on the telly? On with the slippers, out with the Horlicks, time for Emmerdale.

Piffle. Don't believe a word of it. Every one of those items above (with the possible exception of tyres) make the RR a better roadbike than the SP. It's more practical (slightly), more fun (surprisingly) and much more affordable.

Let's start with practical: easy - it isn't really. If you're going to buy a sports 400 you obviously have as much consideration for pillions, long distance comfort, decent mirrors and suchlike as your average pen- . sioner has for Kevin Maxwell. So let's not kid ourselves. If you want day-to-day transport you'd be far better off with a decent skateboard.

That said, the RR is a marked improvement over the preceding SP. Although pillion-carrying remains ill-advised, at least it's now possible. While the revised, well-spaced gear-cluster in particular means that pottering around town is no longer an exercise requiring madcap clutch-slipping and red faces at the lights.

Comfortable it isn't. As basic dimensions and riding position are identical to those of the SP, the RR remains a hard, wirey little tyke. This bike is tiny; sitting on it is silly; the obvious likeness is Bernard Manning on a Shetland pony. Elbows tuck over knees, your lid just tucks in under the bubble; the seat is narrow and loooowww. In a nutshell: embarrassing.

Then it's time to shoot off and embarrass everybody else.

As soon as you're tucked behind the screen, staring wild-eyed past exquisite FZR clocks, wailing beyond 10,000rpm with a delicate caress of the child-sized bar grips, everyone and everything is history. SP version or not, no other bike I know engenders that same sense of immortality.

That feeling comes not from power or acceleration, which in excess simply makes you realise your own mortality (ie, it can quite easily scare the poop out of you), it comes from an ample, familiar, thrashable 60bhp housed in a chassis that seems able to handle 6000. It's a cliche, yes, but the RR is light, it's sharp, it's rock-solid and it's fearless. And you become so too.

While on paper, the RR is technically lower spec than the no-expense-spared SP, on the road it wants for nothing. The beefy front teles and single shock rear lack the remote reservoir and adjusters of the SP but retain its sophisticated damping characteristics and spring rates. As they say, if it's right, it's right.

Brakes and wheels, too, are identical to the SP. The twin 298mm discs up front, each with four-piston calipers, are simply the biz. They are better than you. One finger is all it takes whether that's stoppies, slicing off a few mphs or gesturing behind to the GSX-R boys you just outb raked.

Not that you need to use them that often. The danger on the RR (and SP alike) isn't going too fast into corners — it's going too slow. The cornering and braking potential of400s such as these is so far ahead of other multis it takes time and an awful lot of swear-words before you approach anywhere near what they can do.

In short, you never slow down. Throttle off, dab the brakes, snick down one and you'll find yourself rounding a corner virtually upright realising you could've done it 20mph faster. The bike's so light, so compact that for a given speed you don't have to be leant over as far as it's larger FZR brethren. So you go faster.

In fact the only limit is the tyres, which in this case means the limit'.s not quite as far off as on the SP. The SP wears top of the range Michelin Hi Sports which are sticky enough to glue posters to walls. The RR gets more the 'practical', street-able, cheaper Dunlop Sports Radials which, though good, run out of grip and squirm much earlier.

But what the RR does have over the SP (and, to my mind, over all other 400s too) is a much more usable engine — usable for the road. Apart from a slightly modified valve-lift arrangement, the major, brilliant difference over the SP is the RR's gearbox. Where the SP's close-ratio racing cluster may be ideal for a flying lap of the TT circuit, on proper roads it's about as much use as a Get Out of Jail Free card to the Yorkshire Ripper.

The RR's gearbox, by comparison, is a delight. Gearing is lower overall (so dropping top speed a touch) but the ratios themselves are perfectly spaced for less than ultimate performance — which is what you need. Fourth is 2000rpm from third; fifth 1500rpm from fourth; sixth is lOOOrpm from fifth. Each time it's just right to keep the RR on the boil above 9000rpm in a relaxed sort of way rather than the every-thing-tucked-in manicness of the SP. But, like the SP, the party finishes promptly at 12, which is a fair do, really, because a few miles of holding it up there sent my right hand to sleep.

At the other end, bottom gear is now short and usable. Standing starts are vastly improved, slicing almost a full second off the SP's standing quarter mile time. Whee-lies, for the first time on a 400, are a doddle all the way through the first two gears. And, what's more, it helps make the RR practical from 3000rpm. If you don't want to scream it you CAN merely travel, even if you do end up a tad cramped.

And it's that aspect of the RR which is still likely to put many people off. If you do need some creature comforts, however minor, the RR version of Yamaha's FZR400 still hasn't got any. Detailing and build is good, but the riding position is cramped, the seat hard and the mirrors about as much use as a Durex in a convent. But then this is the sort of bike which, when you get on, you should promptly snap the mirrors off, lob 'em over your shoulder and say, with an Italian accent: "Whatsa issa behind, eet doesn'ta matter."

In that context the RR excels. It's less irritating, quicker on the road and £1500 cheaper than the FZR400RRSP - and think how many pairs of Hi Sports you can get for that. It may be slightly more uncomfortable and arguably not as attractive as the ZXR400, but it's sharper, better suspended and somehow more 'special'.

When you've ridden an FZR400RR, when you've had one of those golden rides, it's the best. You feel life can't get any better. The sticky bar grips leave little black marks on your glove palms. It has chunky, pukka little racing bike bar levers. It smells, feels, looks and sounds (at the top end it's absolutely exquisite) like a racer. Yow! That's its forte. That's its whole reason for being, really, and that's its problem too.

The FZR400RR is so good at just one thing it's massively tempting, but, realistically, could never, really, be your only bike. Apart from the CBR900RR it's the bike I wanted more than any other; the bike I could wheelie at will; the bike that'd out-brake anything; the bike I knew would kill any other. This is the bike that'd hit 120mph and stay there — corners aside, police aside - and the bike I stupidly thought I could nail at 120mph all the way up the Ml. Stupid, fantastically so. That's the RR.

This is the bike I got nicked on. Not the FireBlade. Not the EXUP, GSX-R11 or ZZ-R11. On this, the FZR400RR. Bloody thing. O