#update

A few years ago, I took a break from my lovely MO family and decided to get a real job, complete with an actual commute. Without the pick of the litter to choose from anymore, I had to actually buy a bike to get to work on. The pick? A Kawasaki Versys – anecdotally, the number one motorcycle actually owned by motorcycle journalists (or former ones, in this case). When asked, Brad Puetz (pronounced like the Fight Club actor but not nearly as famous), Kawi’s PR guy, spouted off a series of names of folks in this job who own the VERsatile SYStem. 

This news should come as a surprise to nobody, but it’s still equally as exciting to finally get the official confirmation: Yamaha is bringing an updated MT-10 to the US. Maybe more exciting is the announcement that Yamaha is also bringing an MT-10 SP here as well. We reported earlier this month that a new MT-10 was coming, but at the time, the report was only confirmed for Europe. Now the US can rest assured it’s coming here, too.

There’s something about inexpensive twin-cylinder middleweight naked bikes like the Yamaha MT-07 (and former FZ-07) that appeals to us. Their simplicity and practicality, combined with their spirited riding attributes make them hard not to love. Clearly, the riding public feels the same, as other manufacturers are starting to get in on the action, making the choices in this category bigger and bigger. Through it all, the MT-07 has been a mainstay since its introduction in 2015.

Almost two years ago, I reviewed the Healtech Quick Shifter Easy and finished my review with the following sentence: “The HealTech Quick Shifter Easy lives up to its name, and it will bring a smile to your face as you run through the gears, hearing the exhaust note seamlessly change as you snick through the gears.” Well, in the world of electronics, two years is a long time.

Photos of a pre-production 2017 BMW S1000R have hit the interwebz, showing new bodywork, a revised frame and updates to make the bike Euro-4 compliant. The photographs were snapped at the Oschersleben racetrack in Germany by members of the S1000RR.de community.

Motojournalists lined up to heap praises upon Yamaha’s FZ-09 when it appeared as a new model for 2014, and MO was right there on the bandwagon. There wasn’t anything not to like in the all-new 847cc Triple, with all the modern ride-by-wire trimmings in a designer chassis, for a price substantially less than its Euro-competitors.