Yamaha Fz6

The FZ6 Gen 1 is a bike that genuinely surprised me once I got it above 8,000 rpm — the inline-four pulls hard and sounds savage right up to the 12,500 rpm redline, and that half-fairing actually does enough at motorway speeds to stop your chest caving in. But living with those carburetors in cold British mornings was a ritual: choke on, wait, nurse it for five minutes or the thing bogs and spits if you crack the throttle too early. The steel frame gives honest, communicative feedback through corners — it's no sportsbike but it holds its line predictably and builds confidence fast — yet the mid-range torque valley between 4,000 and 7,000 rpm means urban filtering and slow traffic feel more agricultural than a 600 should. It's a bike that rewards riders willing to work it, not one that does the work for you.

The fuel injection fixed the Gen 1's cold-start stumble almost overnight, and throttle response below 6,000 rpm is now smooth enough that you stop dreading city traffic. Push it past 8,000 and the inline-four screams properly, though that meat of the powerband still lives frustratingly high for real-world riding. Suspension is genuinely better than the previous generation — the forks don't dive under hard braking like they used to, and the revised ergonomics split the difference between sportbike crouch and upright fatigue reasonably well for hour-long stretches. The real weakness is the midrange: drop to third in a 60 km/h zone and there's a soggy, almost apologetic response until the revs build, which gets old fast on twisty B-roads where you want to short-shift.