Meanwhile, over on the Chopper Channel, millions of people will be eagerly awaiting the steroid family’s next bowel movement, as they tune in for a half hour of dysfunctional motorcycle butchering. 

While the happy family were busy hacking and welding away, to ensure their latest monstrosity handles and stops like a bloated pig on roller skates, Yamaha’s highly trained engineers were hard at work to analysis changes in their chassis that the addition of an inverted fork would cause. Then, as the latest overpaid celeb forked over some disgustingly large wad for their personal art deco nightmare, Yamaha were figuring how to make these changes and more, while still offering the motorcycle to the general public for around 15 grand.

But unfortunately sport bike fans, for some reason good television this does not make. I guess at least when these things get in the hands of Messrs. Gobert, Hacking etc. all the ratings are higher, but even then compared to Europe they are nothing to write home about.

Anyhow, enough of my soapbox and back to the task at hand, discussing the new R6 from Yamaha. I am obviously highly impressed with the beast, hence my prior ranting, but what’s so special about the bike this year? The most noticeable change for ’05 is the new inverted front fork with radial mount brake calipers attached.

The forks are 41mm Kayaba items, multi adjustable in all the usual ways and offering greater rigidity over last years conventional 43mm unit. In discussions with ex Superbike Champion Jamie James he felt they really only pay dividends when being pushed on the track under race conditions, but they certainly add heavily to the bike’s street cred for those of us who don’t ride that hard.

The new forks retain their 120mm of travel, but now use a stronger spring weight and stiffer standard damping settings. This relates to superb control under braking, the bike exhibiting little dive, without being harsh anywhere else on the track. I personally would like a steering damper. Under acceleration over the rise at Willow the front end goes very light and the bars will start a flapping.

The forks are tastefully adorned with some seriously butch looking radial mounted calipers which are the absolute dogs bollocks when it comes to slowing the bike from speed. Partnered in crime by a Brembo design radial pump brake master cylinder, they are at least on par or perhaps even better than anything currently offered as original equipment.