Yamaha XJ600 N - Between the Hedges

I kept my BMW K100RS for three years. It had run perfectly and had never let me down in any way. It was a faultless machine and long before it got tired, I did. It may sound like a terrible thing to admit but I got bored with its refinement and clinical perfection. I grew unsettled once more and found myself hankering after a "back to basics" bike... something I could hack about on without feeling bad if it got dirty or even scuffed. Then I found this.

It mightn't have been the wisest decision I've made about buying a bike but we've all done things that don't necessarily stand up to examination haven't we? For the latter two years of owning the K100RS I'd been mostly using it as transport to work. Circumstances hadn't allowed me to get much touring or weekend riding done and I felt that it was the wrong bike to be using for that purpose. It was really only getting warmed up when I was parking it again. I guess I was looking for something I didn't really care too much about.

The little yellow Yamaha appealed to me because it was a basic straightforward middleweight with no pretentiousness. In a strange way it was charming and it's lack of all the techno-trappings that the BMW excelled in invoked some sort of inverted snobbery in me. It cost £4300 in Feb.'96 although having sold the Beemer I was left with quite some "equity" in hand. My sureness about my decision wavered a few times after that because every time I met a friend or colleague who saw the bike they either said nothing at all or came outright and told me I was mad. Maybe I was.

So what about the Yamaha? I must preface everything by admitting that my opinion of it might be slightly unfair because I had "stepped down" from the Rolls Royce of motorcycles. That said, I found it to be a pleasant, and reliable bike which I would have probably adored back in the 70's & 80's. Now however it was just transport. It didn't cause me to get up early on a Sunday morning bursting to go out on it. It was all rather bland and anonymous. If it hadn't been bright yellow you wouldn't have noticed it.

The 600cc DOHC Four motor was smooth and highly responsive compared with the BMW which did everything in a much more 'measured' fashion. This rippy little powerplant would have happily revved its head off. It also felt rather gutless to me. I couldn't help noticing that other bikers on various 600cc mounts appeared to be getting more "go" out of their bikes than I was. It made me wonder just how much more pedestrian the "Diversion" variant with its large fairing was. It was however fun to thrash it around, letting it rev freely through the gears. It was also possible to do this without achieving ludicrous speeds. For this reason it made a great city bike as it could be squirted through busy streets with great agility. I've seen quite a few delivery riders using these. On the motorway - well it wasn't great really but then remember what I was comparing it to. I began to realise just how well the RS fairing had been working now that my head and arms were being buffeted at anything over 65mph.

Handling was fine really. I can't complain about it. It went straight when it was supposed to.. it went round bends - both quickly and slowly, it didn't chop about or step sideways under firm acceleration. It was really an OK bike. It just didn't inspire me the way that, say - the Suzuki GS850 had done 15 years earlier. Yet all common sense says that this modern Yamaha must've been a better set-up. I'm puzzled. I think to be honest I'd been spoilt by the BMW.

I did get the opportunity over the following year to go for a number of good long runs if not exactly touring. My favourite type of roads are those "B" & "C" roads through rolling countryside.. the sort you just can't hurry (and why would you?). This is where the Yamaha shone. It was exactly the right size, weight and set-up for ambling "between the hedges" at 30-50mph, looking around you. Never did it give the impression that the bike was in control of the rider. I always felt that it would do what it was told.. and to be fair, it did.

Overall I feel that this wasn't the best move I could have made from the K100RS but it was an interesting and educational one. It gave me a stronger idea of what I really wanted and expected from a motorcycle. This was to be my last motorcycle for a few years. I had decided that what I needed was mundane transport so I would buy a mundane car. I would also look forward to a day when I would buy something special that would only be used as a summer toy. Something that had a pedigree and calibre of its own that didn't have to fit multiple pigeonholes.