Review: Yamaha NIKEN GT (2023) | Can three wheels beat two?

Morning! Welcome to Bennett's Bike Social. My name's Simon. Welcome to Sardinia, and welcome to the launch of Yamaha's 2023 Nikon. Here we are, the first few miles on Yamaha's 2023 Nikon, and if you ride one of these things and it doesn't put a smile on your face, regardless of your feelings on the philosophy of it, whether it is a motorcycle or a three-wheeler, if it doesn't make you grin, then I think a little bit of you is dead inside. That's a very different prospect of buying it, which I'm happy to admit is entirely your decision, and my job isn't to tell you whether this is a motorbike or not. My job, I feel, is to tell you what it is and how it feels, which is what hopefully I'm going to do today. So, welcome to the launch of the 2023 Yamaha Nikon, and as usual I shall run through the bike and very quickly, before my voice disappears again, tell you what it is and what it isn't. What it is is fundamentally the same principle as the previous model, but it is now updated with the 890cc inline triple from the 2021 Tracer and XSR900 and MT-09. 890cc up 43cc from the old 847cc motor, courtesy of a longer stroke, which is always a good thing. This is what we want these days in the 21st century. Who needs wider bores and more revs? And Yamaha obliged. This is one of the most sensible, I mean, you know, personally speaking, it's my favourite modern motorcycle engine. It is an absolute belter of a power unit. It has all the bottom end that you could possibly want. It's a beautiful smooth response. It's so lively at places where you really need it on the modern roads, in terms of scooting through traffic, short shifting, not breaking too many speed limits, achieving a reasonable speed in a very, very short space of time, which it is absolutely perfectly tuned for. But anyway, so that's the engine. It has a slightly heavier crank as did the previous Niken than the Tracers and the MT-09s, which gives it a little bit more momentum in terms of the throttle. I think Yamaha just think it makes the Niken slightly easier to ride because there's a bit more crank momentum. And I'll run through the power figures. It's still making 113 horsepower, same as the old one, at 10,000 rpm, but it is making a smidge more torque. I think, off the top of my head, I think it's 67 pound foot of torque and it's making it now at 7,000 rpm, whereas the previous model was, I think, making 65, but at 8,500 rpm. So it's 1500 rpm lower, which again is only peak torque figures. We can't see the shape of the curve because we haven't had the technical presentation for the bike. We've literally ridden it from the airport, which is quite amusing and quite novel on this particular launch. So anyway, but it has got more bottom end. It's a wonderfully juicy unit to use. So the engine, yes, and it's counted forward five degrees in the frames than the previous Niken. I think probably that's as much down to packaging as anything, because I did ask, the weight distribution is still 50-50 between front and rear, and it has got a new radiator to accommodate as well, and it has got new crankcases. So that pretty much is the engine. It is now ride by wire because it is Euro 5. I think this is one of the last sort of conversions from a Euro 4 engine to a Euro 5 engine, and there must have been a little discussion at Yamaha. I'm sure at some point there must have been a decision, do we bother updating this thing to Euro 5, because it's not been the bestseller. But then I don't think Yamaha thought it would be a bestseller. I think there's a philosophical exercise here. I think Yamaha is an engineering exercise, a technological exercise. I think Yamaha have always been pretty good at building slightly wacky stuff and chancing their arm with crazy machinery, and I'm immediately thinking the mind goes back to the 1992, 93, 94 perhaps. I can't remember exactly. Yamaha are always a brave and innovative manufacturer, and maybe it says more about them as a brand. Maybe this is a sort of a brand halo exercise. Look what we can do. So yes, chassis. Let's get into chassis. So the engine sits slightly different in the frame. The frame is slightly different. It still has this massive cast headstock at the front, but now it's got a different centre section with more tubes. It's sort of a steel tube trellis type deal, just to grip the motor in a slightly different way and give it a bit more rigidity, I think. There is a balance between the stiffness of the front end and a bit more flex in the centre section of the frame. We have a completely different rear suspension set up. Well, not set up. It's a different linkage, and it's now alloy rather than steel to save a bit of weight, and they have changed the spring rates and the spring itself and the damping rates. Again, as I say, weight distribution is still 50-50. They were trying to increase ride comfort, but they're also trying to give it more compression when you hit the throttle. The accelerator is not a car. Hit the throttle to give it a bit more mechanical grip, because the old bike was very lively at the back. But again, the wheels are the same size, 1955 at the back. We've got the same 15-inch 120-70s at the front, in plural. We have the same wheelbase, the same steering geometry, and the front end is the same. Fully adjustable suspension, but it's the same internal, same damping. So Yamaha were fairly happy with that. In terms of electronics, well, you can see this fantastic massive screen in front of us, 7-inch TFT. We have lots of different traction control modes and riding modes. We can adjust things. We can now have different cockpit space. We now have, in terms of switch gear, this little joystick here, which I haven't really played with yet. I can see I'm scrolling through trip functions here. Oh, that's heated grips. It now comes with a standard. Obviously, it has cruise control. Can't really see what else. And of course, you can also integrate this dash with your MyRide app on your phone. I think you can cast maps onto it using Garmin. I think you have to have a Garmin subscription and you also have to have a headset, neither of which I actually have at the moment. So you just have to imagine it. And then in terms of ergonomics, they're slightly different. We have, if we just negotiate this roundabout, look at this thing, so thoughtless. I mean, one of the benefits of this front end that Yamaha say is that your gaze can spend more time looking at things directly in front of you and you don't have to spend as much time looking at what is under the front wheel, which is just as well because you've got no chance of seeing it because this front end is so wide. But I have done some work. There is a video on Bennett's Spike Social YouTube channel somewhere on eye tracking. If you search for eye tracking, you can find it, where we fitted some eye tracking glasses and measured what riders were actually looking at when they rode. And we went on track and then we went out on the road. And one of the things we noticed was that riders on track, their gaze, professional riders and experienced track day riders, were basically, their gaze was fixed at the vanishing point, the furthest point of the track. That's where they looked. But then as you've got road riders, what road riders tend to do, understandably, is look at the furthest point and then their gaze will come back to the front of the bike and check the surface because you've got potholes and gravel and all kinds of rubbish which you don't have on a track. And then your gaze will then flick back to the furthest point so your gaze is constantly altering from one to the other. What Yamaha say with this bike is that really you don't have to worry about what's under the wheels. You can ride this thing up a kerb and it still grips and goes around corners. So now you can spend more time looking ahead. And like everything else about this bike, it is intuitive. You don't have to think, you just feel what this machine is capable of. And as I say, if it doesn't put a smile on your face then you really need to have a word with yourself when you're riding it. But anyway, so we did frame, we did suspension, brakes are the same, we did wheel sizes, they're the same, we're onto electronics, weren't we? And ergonomics, yes. Let's just talk a little bit about this screen which has now got a range of adjustment, 70mm, which when I've gone down a gear and made this overtake, we have an up and down quick shifter as standard. Previously it was just an up shifter, now it's up and down. If I meddle with this screen a bit, see I need my right hand to do it. Thank you Yamaha for putting it on that side. There you go, it's like a little trigger, you can pull it up, pull it down. Let's have it up a little bit, shall we? 70mm range of adjustment, it's not great is it? What else have we got? Seat is different, so it's a little bit thicker I think but it's also a little bit slimmer at the waist so that you've got the same stand over the bike, you can get your feet down a little bit more easily. The seat height has gone up by 5mm from 820mm to 825mm and it doesn't feel unmanageable but it certainly feels like you're riding a bit of a chunk. And in terms of weight, the overall weight figure escapes me, I can't quite remember it but I do know it's seven kilos heavier than the previous model. I'm not sure where that seven kilos has come from because we haven't had the technical briefing yet. We'll get that tonight, which is a strange way to do things but anyway. So yeah, it is heavier. Oh okay, thank you very much, thank you. Unusual for them to wait from then on, I'm very glad they did. This engine is a rocket! It's great fun. Yeah, so where was I? Quickshifters, ergonomics, seats, there we go, yes, and weight. That's where we were, weight. Yeah, can't quite remember the weight but it is heavier than the old bike and you really wouldn't want to be pushing this thing around too much. But it's got to be said, being a Yamaha, it's probably not going to break down to be fair, so I don't think you will have to push it very much. So there we go, let's just quickly mention the price. £16,210, there I've said it. That's a fair bit longer for something that isn't a conventional motorcycle. And as I say, we can talk about the philosophy ourselves, you can chat among yourselves about whether you think it's a motorcycle or not a motorcycle or ludicrous or pointless or a waste of time or I wouldn't even look at it. And I've never ridden one for a long period of time, I've never owned one, so I can't say after six months in the garage whether you open your garage door and wish you had a motorcycle instead of this or whether you look forward to riding it every single time. I can't answer that question. Again, maybe some Niken owners could come on here and and tell us whether they still look forward to riding in the same way they would a motorcycle, a conventional motorcycle shall we say. But there we go, I'm going to enjoy riding a bit longer and I shall come back to you with a bit more of a waffle later on when I've had a day zooming about here in Sardinia. I do hope the roads get a little bit better than this but I'm pretty sure they will. What a day on Yamaha's 2023 Niken. Now imagine a world in which a single track vehicle like a bicycle or a moped or a scooter or a motorcycle had never been invented because let's face it they're fairly unlikely contraptions. They require balancing in the way that a two-track vehicle doesn't like a car or a cart. And I imagine the first time anybody built a bicycle, I think it was in Germany, I think it was in the 1800s and I think it was called the Laufs machine. It didn't have any steering, it was just a wooden bike with wooden wheels and people used it to get around instead of horses because they were in short supply at the time. And it must have been hellish to steer because it didn't. You'd be falling off the whole time anyway without going into the evolution and the history of bicycles and motorcycles. Just imagine that that had never been invented. Somebody had fallen off it and said I'm not doing that again and instead they'd taken two wheels at the front and one wheel at the back. And the history of motorcycling had been based around the idea that you have an unlimited, almost unlimited, amount of grip at the front. And then imagine how weird it would be now to ride a motorcycle because you'd have this thing where you have to balance it and you have to brake with some consideration to the surface and you have to steer with some consideration to what's going on under the wheels. It would be an alien concept. You think well that's crazy, people are just going to crash the whole time. That world doesn't exist and instead we've got a world in which everyone rides motorcycles and Yamaha have invented or developed, because other people have done it, the idea of two wheels at the front. But without going into the whole philosophy of the Niken and as I said in the commentary, whether you think it should exist or whether it's an abomination and should never have been built, you have to praise Yamaha for doing it, putting the money in. They knew this wasn't going to be a massive seller. Their motivation may have been to train some engineers. It's a great project to bring up some some youth engineering. It may have been an experiment to see what you can do with scooters with a similar sort of concept like the But anyway, it exists for better or for worse and for this year, as I say, Yamaha have redeveloped it with the Euro 5 engine. They've tweaked the chassis a little bit and given it a few more gizmos just to try and make it better. So have they succeeded? I suppose is the question. Well, clearly the engine, I mean, you know, if you haven't tried the 2021 Tracer engine in the Tracer 9 and the Tracer 9 GT and the XSL 900 and the MT-09, wow, it's a riot of a thing. It is so good to ride. It's got so much, as I said, it's got so much grunt and so much fizz. It really is an outstanding unit and now it's in the Niken even better. Great. You do notice it's not quite as fizzy as it is in the lighter bikes. This thing does weigh a good old chunk. It's a bit of weight that you're throwing around and so that performance, that 113 horsepower and that extra torque is tempered a little bit. You do have to gun the engine a little bit more than you do in something like the Tracer, but it's a good thing. It's better than it was before. It's got more bottom end. It's got more mid-range. It's a healthier unit and it's cleaner. It's Euro 5 now with the ride-by-wire throttle. Throttle control is peachy. You have three riding modes, street, sport, and rain. Certainly between street and sport, it is a milder throttle response. It's quite aggressive in sport, but not overly aggressive. It just gives you so much more when you first get on the gas. It's great. Engine, good thing. No backward step there. Chassis, the rear shock, the front end is the same as it was. The new rear shock, it's definitely got more mechanical grip. You can definitely wind it on coming out of corners and you do still tend to tease it. Because you've got so much intuitive front end grip, it's so tempting to get on the gas and just go, go on, go on. Is it going to let go? It doesn't. It's much better than it was. There is more mechanical grip, but it's a bit weird. It's quite soft in the first part of the strokes. You do get a better ride quality, but then when it does hit bumps, you do get a sudden increase in compression damping, which I suppose is something to give it more mechanical grip. When you get on the gas and it doesn't squat so much at the back, you get more drive. The downside to that is that when you do hit a big bump, you do feel it quite a bit. It's not crashy, but you do feel the bumps and the undulations in the road. Suspension, overall, it's a good thing. It's better. Then you get down to the little fripperies like the clocks. The clocks are great. 7-inch TFT, it's bright, it's colourful. It says it's got three customisable screens. To be honest, they look very similar, so they're not really that customisable, but it's a good looking thing. It's got loads of information. Now it's got heated grips as standard. It's got the up and down quick shifter as standard. It's now got much more of a Bluetooth integration, which I haven't been able to try because I haven't had a headset. You need a headset, you need a Garmin subscription, so you need a few bits and bobs. You need a MyRide app from Yamaha. Once you get all that stuff, then you can record your lean angle and your acceleration and I don't know, God knows what else, braking probably, all kinds of factors. So yes, it has that functionality if you want it. And the switchgear layout, it's not particularly intuitive, but then there are a lot of functions to get through with this little joystick that you wiggle around with your finger. Once you get the hang of it, it's always got a home button. Get me back home in case you get lost in a menu somewhere. And then we get on to the riding position, the ergonomics, the new seat. It kind of feels lower actually because it is narrower. Several guys were saying that you can get your, on the launch, were saying you can get your feet on the ground more squarely now for them, which is good. And it's really comfortable. I've been riding around, we've done about 120 miles today, 110, 120 miles, not a twinge. It's been perfectly fine. It feels a bit like a, I hate to say this, but it feels like a bit like a FZ1 Fazer, to be honest, the riding position. These bars are fairly familiar and you have a kind of fairly sporty leg position. And then it's a kind of a slightly naked stroke adventure bike thing up here because the bars are pretty wide. You do get a lot of leverage, but it's not uncomfortable. It does feel nicely plugged in. Like I say, after all day riding it, it feels fine. The screen's a bit rubbish. This lever is on the wrong side. Should be on the left-hand side. You have to take your hand off the throttle to adjust it. Yamaha have said that that's a safety feature. I'm not quite sure how they figure that out because you have to roll off to put your hand on it. And also the range of adjustment, as you can see, it's 70 mil. Seven centimetres? It's not going to make a huge difference. Maybe when there's a bigger screen on there. But the wind blast is acceptable. There's no buffeting. It's a pretty good sporty sort of wind blast. And what else can we say? So the riding position is good. Tank range is still pretty lousy, to be perfectly honest. It's an 18 litre tank. We've done, like I say, when we got to about 100, I think it was about 100 or 110 miles, it was down to the reserve. It was showing an orange bar on the fuel gauge. That's not brilliant. It was showing 42 miles to the gallon. They claim 49. And that was with some fairly lairy riding, to be fair. So maybe you could eke a bit more out of it. Maybe with sensible riding, you get to 130, 140, maybe 150. And if you're really sensible, a bit beyond that. But to be honest, on a bike like this, you could spend all day behind this thing. I'd want a bit more of a tank range. And what else can we say? Yes, it is fully kitted with, as I say, the heated grips. It's got a centre stand. It's got the panniers that come as standard now, and they're pretty large, standard Yamaha sort of panniers. Pillion riding position, don't get a chance to test pillion riding positions. There's nobody on the launch that can do that sort of thing. Most of us are riders. We've never ridden pillions, so our opinions on what it's like back there would be pointless. Occasionally, the manufacturer supplies somebody to sit on the back, but they're in the employ of the manufacturer. What are they going to say? It's terrible? No, not really. So unfortunately, pillions don't get a look in when it comes to a launch. Not much I can do about that. And then we get down to the price. £16,210. It's actually not that bad, because you are getting a hell of a lot of thing. You're getting a lot of stuff for your money. And so considering the actual quantity of metal you're getting, it's not bad actually. And again, if you think of other rival tourers, to spec up something like a GS to have this level of equipment, you'd probably be not far shy of that kind of money. And then we get into the whole philosophy of this three-wheeler. Is it a motorcycle? Isn't it a motorcycle? What I can tell you about the riding experience is that it is so different and yet so familiar. And it's so intuitive. The fact that you can fire it into corners without any worry about what the grip levels are going to be. Maybe you might say, well, I don't worry about that anyway. I don't know. It just feels different. For me, it's hilarious to ride. It's so entertaining. I'm not saying I can live with it for the rest of my life. That's a choice that you guys have got to make, because I haven't ridden one for a year. I haven't had it in my garage for that length of time. I do know people who have owned these for a substantial length of time, and they do make the comment, or one person who I know specifically has made the comment that he really wanted to open his garage door and see a motorbike there. But I'd look forward to riding this every day because it is so easy to ride. You can concentrate on riding rather than not falling off, if that makes any sense. It's going to be interesting because we're here in Sardinia on this launch. Tomorrow, we're going to be riding the new Tracer 9 GT Plus with its radar-assisted gib gubbins. And to be honest, I'm thinking I'm going to have to readjust to what it's like to ride on these Sardinian roads on a bike that hasn't got this kind of grip and stability at the front. It's going to be a really interesting comparison. I'm thinking Yamaha should have got this the other way around and let us ride the Tracer first, and then let us ride this. But anyway, whether you want to ride it and whether you want to be invested in it is up to you. But for me, it is so unique and so different and so entertaining that you really should give it a try, just in case. You never know. You might be converted, or you might not, but you won't know until you try it. And yeah, it's good fun. Trust me, it's fun. Anyway, that's enough of me rambling on. As usual, I've left out loads of stuff, so please leave a comment down below. Don't forget to like and subscribe and tell your friends about the channel. I'll get back and answer questions and queries if I can. But in the meantime, check out bikesocial.co.uk, please. I spend ages writing very considered words on this, which will make a lot more sense than this kind of rambling. And some of the questions you're going to leave, if you visit the website and actually read the feature, then you'll get the answers that you seek. Anyway, enough of that. Thank you very much for putting up with me and watching. Morning, my name's Simon. Welcome to Bennett's Bike Social. Welcome to sunny Sardinia, and welcome to the launch of Yamaha's nearly said Honda.