Yamaha VMX 1200 V-Max

The V-Max does not like corners. Never mind needing a mid-bend pothole to trigger a weave, this machine just requires the rider to think about corners to set it off. Once it's happily weaving away it never actually gets out of hand - if you can cope with the slow steering - but in this age of upside-down forks and impeccable handling, the V-Max comes as a shock.

It was the slow steering that got me. With 29 degrees of rake, an 18 inch front wheel and 4.7 inches of trail it was never going to be top of the class in the chicane department, but with Yamaha building the FZR1000EXUP as well you'd have thought some of the handling would have rubbed off. It hasn't.

But if you accept that V-Max cornering technique is to slow right down, then slow down some more, the bike is actually a laugh to ride. I was having a whale of a time until I crashed...

Coming out of corners you not only hope someone was impressed by all the sparks flying off the footpegs and exhaust cover, but feel as if you've achieved something. After all, it certainly wasn't down to the V-Max you got round OK.

On straights, the V-Max was designed to make you grin. Despite being restricted from 140 to 95hp for the British market, the engine produces fearsome amounts of torque low down, which enables it to go very fast, very quickly, very easily. You just sit there, bolt upright, twist the throttle, and keep a sharp eye out for corners.

From a marketing point of view restricting the power of what is effectively a drag bike seems akin to naming it The Wendy -ie silly. Who wants a bike whose only attraction is awesome power if it isn't awesomely powerful? Not many I'll be bound.

On the road the extra 45hp would obviously make a difference, but the restricted V-Max isn't exactly weedy. For example, the rev counter is stuck on the tank out of glancing range, and I assumed this would be irritating, if not dangerous. Wrong. Who needs a rev counter? Just twist the throttle and watch everyone else try to keep up.

From 2000 it pulls hard enough to have EXUP riders questioning why they should have to rev their bike's nuts off to stay alongside what appears to be a rocket powered armchair. Above 6000 the unrestricted version apparently takes off, thanks to "V-Boost" - a gadget which lets each cylinder suck from two of the carbs at Above 80 the neck straining acceler begins to wane, which is a relief becau then you've got your work cut out stof yourself being blown off the back c bike. The only answer is the trusty on-the-tank technique, but it's diffici maintain that macho air of coolness^{1 you look as if you're riding a moped.}

According to V-Max fan Larry \ (0628 667644 if you want him to fit Boost to your V-max for £800) the d ence between the two versions is dramatic until you're going illegally Which means the restriction is not that a handicap because, unless you have a of Mike Tyson proportions, going f tiresomely strenuous.

Slowing down is an effort. The twin 250mm discs and dual piston calipers are not quite up to the job of stopping 6001bs of motorcycle reaching a corner going too fast for your health. I say 'quite' because with two fingers on the lever it seems to slow rapidly at first. In fact it just dives rapidly, and from then on more fingers are needed to stop the corner being a little too exciting.

Accelerating is much more fun, partly because the gearbox is so smooth. Although first sometimes clunked, the rest were slick, and needed very little foot pressure to get a precise, positive change.

For posing around town the V-Max scores. Apart from the eye-catching styling, below 2000 revs the ground shakes if you try too high a gear. It really does shake -

THE FIRST bike Robert McElnea got after he passed his test on June 26th this year was a V-Max. No messing about on Superdreams until he could afford something decent for racing's burly superhero. But a V- Max???

"I admit, the first time I rode it I thought 'what the bloody hell is this?' But it grows on you," said Rob of the bike with the interesting handling. "I love it now. It's like an almighty piss-take machine. When I ride with my mates on EXUPs and GSXRs I can see them thrashing away to keep up, and all they see is that big fat rear tyre, the big fat exhausts and my big fat arse. It's a laugh to ride."

The comparisons with his race bikes are not all negative. "Sure, the handling isn't up to much. You can go round corners with everything scraping, and if you hit a bump on a corner you're in trouble, but it isn't built to be ridden hard. The torque is superb - if I twist the throttle wide open on my race bike mid-corner it can stall, the V-Max just goes."

An indication of the weight of the V-Max is that even the burly one had trouble with the centrestand -something he had not come across before. "They showed me how to use the stand at the shop, but the first time I tried I tweaked my back. It's a pretty heavy bike."

You wouldn't think so the way he threw it about during the photo session. Spinning it round in the dirt and pulling wheelies at will, he made it seem more like a 125 trials bike.

Rob reckons the V-Max is perfect for him. "I'm not into racer-replica stuff at all. It encourages you to go too fast, and as I ride bikes hard at the track I'm not looking for that. The roads are too dangerous anyway -you have to assume everyone else is a complete idiot."

Coming straight from the race track and taking out the V-Max does have its dangers according to Rob. "70mph seems like 30. Last week I went over a level crossing at what I thought was a slow speed. The next thing I knew the V-Max was airborn and was I bounced out of the saddle. In mid-air the petrol cover part of the seat popped up, and I landed on it. Painful."

Rob got his V-Max straight from the crate, and voluteered to put it together himself. Some parts of the bike were more burly than he was. "I reached into the crate and tried to pull the front wheel out, but it seemed to be fixed to the crate. I fiddled around trying to release it, then realised it was just heavy. That bike has the heaviest front wheel I have ever tried to lift. No wonder wheelies are a bit of a struggle."

He's put 800 miles on the V-Max so far, but never having had to run-in a bike before seemed vague about the procedure. "What's running in? This is a loose one." whereas less charasmatic bikes roar away from traffic lights impressing nobody with their screeching, the V-Max chugs away leaving windows rattling and small children bouncing up and down on the pavement. It makes you want to rush out and buy a chest wig.

Used properly the V-four engine is smooth at all revs, and two large silencers make it quiet. Too quiet. It didn't feel right sitting on a machine with the styling screaming "I'm a mean bastard", with the exhaust note politely saying "No I'm not, I'm nice". Which means it's tempting to chug away from traffic lights.

Like the bike itself, the styling grows on you. The sheer size of the engine makes it the centrepiece, but those air intakes run it a close second. From the front they look like loudspeakers, and somehow it would be more fitting if they were used to blast out ZZ Top rather than direct air to the carbs.

People stare at the V-Max. Never mind all the racer-replica nonsense with girly fairings in pretty colours, if you want to attract attention you need a huge black and chrome motorcycle with funny looking air intakes. Of course, you're never sure if people are staring in awe, or because they've never seen such a silly looking bike in all their born days. Ride the V-Max for a few days and you don't care - you just grin.

Once you're used to wrestling the bars from side to side, the decent amount of lock means weaving through traffic is surprisingly easy. But, just as the shaft drive lifts the rear end when power goes on out of corners, so it can make the bike bobble as you accelerate and decelerate in traffic queues. It isn't a worry once you're used to it.

The footpegs are directly above the spot where you naturally want to plant you feet, which is annoying - gracefully pulling up at the lights in the High Street, knowing the eyes of the world are upon you, you casually drop your left foot towards the floor, and everybody hears the loud curse as you scrape the top of your calf on the footpeg for the third time that day.

At all speeds the mirrors are excellent. Besides not vibrating, they are positioned so you can watch what the idiots behind are up to, rather than your elbows. And they're big enough for you not to worry that some idiots may have escaped round the edges.

In their design of an eccentric machine, Yamaha have not cut corners. The speedo sums it up. At first I thought it was calibrated in kilometres; in fact it is in mph, but it's all in fives - 15mph,. 25mph etc. Baffling.

The reserve switch is mounted on the righthand handlebar - and very handy it is. Yamaha were keen to free V-Max riders from all that ungainly groping around the engine as the bike staggers to a stop, I thought, sitting on the bike for the first time. Wrong. The choke lever pokes out from under the left hand ZZ Top speaker.

Next to the rev counter on the tank - or what looks like the tank - is a bank of warning lights, among which is the fuel low warning light. On a sensible bike this would come on with another 20 or 30 miles worth of petrol in the tank before reserve, to give you a chance to look out for garages - and you have to keep an eye out for them almost as keenly as you look out for corners. On the V-Max it came on about one minute before you had to switch to reserve anyway. Bizarre. I suppose I should have been grateful it didn't come on afterwards.

Yamaha's piece de resistance is the petrol tank. Or rather how you get to it. The tank itself is under the saddle, with the filler cap hidden beneath a padded bum rest which stops the rider sliding backWards into the passenger. To release this, you have to pull on two rings - one each side of the bike -behind and underneath the pillion seat.

If you don't know what you're looking for, finding the things is well nigh impossible. Any thief who syphons petrol from a V-Max should immediately apply to go on the Krypton Factor. Once released the bum rest shoots up and forward on a system of levers and springs which make the Tesi front end look straight forward. If the garage staff aren't paying attention to the bike before, they will be after that performance.

It's almost as if the Yamaha engineers had had a bad afternoon trying to sort out the V-Max's handling problems, said "that'll do for now", then spent three weeks working on the bum rest release mechanism.

Character. The V-Max has it. Part of its character is that its handling is crap. Dangerously crap in my opinion, but then I'm biased. If you can accept that in a modern motorcycle and are looking for a bike which is quick in a straight line, turns heads and looks impressive in shop window reflections, this is your one. O