Neale has already reviewed the 2005 Kawasaki ZX-6R and Yamaha's YZF-R6 separately with most of his riding taking place on the racetrack and the full technical breakdown on all the relative changes to the models for 2005.  Now ex Fast Bikes editor Colin Schiller gives us the lowdown on what its like to live with these two new machines on the road. So, over to Colin...

I have never subscribed to that arrogant school of road test thought that says you can sum a bike up in the first ten minutes and so don’t need to do 1,000kms to get a handle on it. But I am very much a believer that the unusual, exceptional or just downright idiosyncratic characteristics of a bike do make themselves known in that initial, immediate period, and that as a tester you need to make note of them, because not long after you make adjustments to whatever quirks the particular machine might have and no longer notice them.

At the same time, I’ve got to admit I’ve never been a particular fan of Yamaha’s R6. It’s rude-boy, Johnny-cum-lately throttle-and-brake character has never really sat easily with my more sedate, wide-lined corner speed approach to riding, and I’ve got to say that to me credit I had its fickle front end worked out in within ten minutes in 1999 and have seen little reason to change my opinion since. True, last year in a curious role reversal with Honda when the CBR tried to become an R6 and the R6 tried to become a CBR, it did acquire a more equitable weight distribution and there was some filing off of the notoriously peaky mid-range delivery, but the accompanying growth in overall proportions just made you wonder whether Yamaha hadn’t thrown out the baby with the bath water. So I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about the prospect of collecting the 05 R6 in the barely +2C slime that is the UK’s average winter day, while colleague Rob drew the keys for the 05 Kwak 636, a bike with looks to die for in my opinion and a much more trusty weight distribution to boot.

Pulling away from Yamaha’s UK headquarters in what I can only describe as an earthquake-fleeing gridlock, there was no other fun to be had than some lurid brake slides between the lines of kid carriers, and the R6 obliged with a balance that was an encouraging omen, hardly needing a dab almost when virtually stationary for what seemed like whole seconds.

Even in those first few hundred metres, the motor, too, had given cause for optimism, seeming to have replaced last year’s mid-range gush and then comparative flaccidness with a Firebladesque directness about the drive right from the off. No change in the Dunlop D218 tyres either – sideways on at the first corner, though to be fair just about anything would have been out of shape on the frostbitten surface of the what was once the old Brooklands race track.

Out on the main road, and with a drying line appearing, there was something about the 05 R6 that was begging to be minged. Like the front end, I have always been wary of the R6’s mid-range rush, having witnessed one being flipped in France and, as no wheelie legend myself, having experienced one or two ‘balance-point’ moments on the change up from the short, frenetic first to the more relaxed second ratio. But to my amazement as I pinged out the clutch the front came up so controllably it felt more like a CBR than any Yamaha. In fact, so smooth is the throttle compared to last year that I’d snicked it up into 2nd before I’d even thought about it, and by now was doing about 120kph in the damp, rush-hour traffic of suburban London on one wheel.  Just as she went up, the R6 came down in a beautifully controlled crest and by now we were on the open road of one of London’s main arterial routes.

Suddenly, I felt like I was on a 600 again, that point at which, the build up of power all becomes a bit effete and tedious and you yearn for the unbridled top gear torque of a Gixxer Thou. Still, they were the worst conditions possible and corners were very definitely not in the day’s portfolio.

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