Yamaha Fzr1000

When Yamaha dropped the FZR1000 in '87, it made everything else on the road feel agricultural — that Genesis 20-valve motor pulls with a ferocity that still surprises you mid-corner, and the Deltabox frame turns in with a precision that embarrasses bikes half its weight. I rode mine hard through two Welsh winters and it never felt vague, though the stock suspension is embarrassingly underdamped for anything beyond smooth tarmac — you'll be shopping for cartridge emulators within six months. The pre-EXUP bikes have a frustrating flat spot between 4,000 and 6,500 rpm that'll make you think something's wrong until you crack it past 7k and the thing lunges forward like a scalded animal. Ergonomics are aggressive without being cruel, but clip-ons load your wrists on long runs, and that 209kg wet weight becomes very real when you're threading through a car park.

The EXUP system transformed what was already a fast motorcycle into a genuinely usable one — that flat spot around 4,000–6,000 rpm that plagued the Gen 1 is largely gone, and the power now builds with real authority rather than arriving all at once like a slap in the face. Above 8,000 rpm this thing is savage in the best possible way; you're hanging on and trusting the revised suspension to keep the front wheel honest through sweeping bends. The brakes are a meaningful upgrade over the first generation, though by 1989 standards they still demand respect in the wet — progressive is not a word I'd use. Living with it daily is tolerable if you're under six feet, but the fairing pockets heat onto your knees in traffic and the fueling, while improved, still stumbles when you're cold-starting on a damp morning.

That 1002cc five-valve motor pulls like a freight train from 6,000 rpm and doesn't stop screaming until the rev limiter slaps you at the top — 140 horsepower in 1991 was genuinely terrifying, and it still feels fast today. The revised geometry over the Gen 2 tightened up mid-corner stability noticeably; you can hold a line with real confidence where the older bike would get nervous. Fuel delivery is crisper off idle than you'd expect for carbs of this era, though the flat spot around 4,500 rpm in cool weather never fully went away no matter how many times I jetted it. It's heavy enough that you feel every kilogram in slow-speed parking lots and tight hairpins, but get above 80 km/h and that weight disappears into a planted, predictable chassis that rewards aggressive riding.

I put 14,000 kilometres on a '94 FZR1000 and it never stopped feeling like a reward you had to earn. That 20-valve Genesis motor pulls hard from 6,000 rpm and turns savage past 9,000 — the power is physical, like something grabbing your jacket. Yamaha's revised suspension for this final gen genuinely helped; the front end stopped the mid-corner float that plagued earlier models, though the rear shock goes soft under hard braking and needs a preload wind-up if you're serious about corner entry. It's wide, it's heavy by modern standards, and urban traffic is a proper chore — but get it on an open mountain road and the FZR1000 reminds you why a whole generation of riders still talk about it like a lost religion.