EICMA: New Yamaha MT-10

Take the latest-generation Yamaha R1, massage the engine for street work and strip away the bodywork, and you’ve got the new Yamaha MT-10.

Sorting through the MT-10’s press release (“A new kind of dark energy has been harnessed to deliver the ultimate riding emotion” — who comes up with this stuff?), we find the details behind the all-new naked bike.

The focus of any naked bike is the motor, and Yamaha says they’ve taken the 998 cc crossplane motor and tuned it for linear torque in the low-to-mid-range. The press release doesn’t give any horsepower figures, but it does say it has an assist/slipper clutch, re-redesigned crank web, pistons, intake, exhaust and fuelling systems, cruise control for gears 4-6, a modified cooling system, three-mode traction control and three engine running modes.

In other words, they didn’t just take a superbike engine and build a naked bike around it, EBR-style.

Moving on to the chassis, the MT-10 has an upright seating position, with an aluminum Deltabox frame. The wheelbase is 1400 mm.

The MT-10 has KYB suspension, with 43mm USD forks up front. The front brakes are 320 mm discs mated to radially-mounted four-pot opposed piston calipers, with sintered pads. The rear brake has a 220 mm disc. ABS is standard.

The fuel tank has a 17-litre capacity. The wheels are aluminum, and there’s a 12v outlet as standard. A quick-shift system is available as an option, and the bike has LED lighting. It should be available by next May.

VIDEO

GALLERY

Check out all the pics that go with this story! Click on the main sized pic to transition to the next or just press play to show in a slideshow.