Rennie Scaysbrook | September 5, 2021
A few months with the MT-07 and Rennie believes he may have found the perfect day-to-day motorcycle
Updated slightly, but essentially the same. That’s a good thing.
Photography by Rennie Scaysbrook
Give me a bike for a quick single-day test, and it’s difficult to really understand the machine’s character. Like speed dating, single-day bike tests offer only a fleeting glimpse into what makes the bike tick, although, like speed dating, you should be able to decipher pretty quickly if you’re going to get along with this bike or not.
Longer-term tests are different. This is more about relationship building rather than the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am single-bike test/one-night stand. You understand each other more, and little things that didn’t seem a big deal at first begin to get on your nerves. Other things become quirky little pleasantries, and, if you’re lucky, you might find you two are compatible after all.
I’ve had Yamaha’s MT-07 sitting in my garage now for the past four months, more than enough time to really understand it and its personality. Yamaha wanted this bike back two months ago. I told them to go jump and that they may as well sign the papers over to me, for this is a bike I truly love.
Easy, upright riding position means long days are not a problem.
Even though it looks so, the MT-07 is not that different in 2021 spec than it’s been for the previous six years. The throttle has been reworked for smoother low rpm/low-speed openings, there’s a new exhaust and muffler, and the gearbox shift action has been refined via different cut angles for the dog gears.
At the twist grip, it feels pretty much the same, although I’ll admit my memory of my last MT-07 experience is a little shady (it was five years ago, after all). The fact that the engine feels very similar is a good thing, because Yamaha nailed the original design so well back in 2014, there was never any need to change it.
The new face looks a bit boggish, but it illuminates really well at night.
This is not entirely a performance motor, despite various iterations racing in MotoAmerica’s Twins Cup class and it being its own thing in the new R7. The MT-07’s motor is a jack-of-all-trades. My four months of custody were mainly commuter runs—jumping on the MT to grab take out, meeting some mates for a beer (only one, I had to ride home), riding to my kid’s daycare to show the funky orange wheels to the kids (whose minds were absolutely blown away).
You can take off from the lights in third gear and the little 689cc parallel twin will chug you up to speed without you hammering the clutch, and it’ll do wheelies with the absolute best liter bikes out there. In fact, it probably does them better.
Front brakes aren’t the best, but they should be good enough for new riders.
On the engine side, there’s very, very little to fault. The gearbox action is lovely; it’s quiet; the throttle response is excellent—no wonder this thing is such a hit in Tenere 700 form.
When we change over to the chassis, that’s where a few personality traits became slightly annoying. Those 41mm non-adjustable forks are very softly sprung and will plunge to the bottom of the stroke if you push even remotely hard. The plus side is these forks offer a beautifully smooth ride if you’re just cruising sedately, which, as you’ve just read, was where most of my time was spent.
One of Yamaha’s best. The parallel twin is a beautiful little thing.
You can play around a bit with the shock in the preload and rebound damping circuits, and, with a bit of time, you can find a setup that’ll work for you (for me, it was simply more preload). There’s 5.1 inches front and rear of suspension travel, so you’ll have all the travel you need this side of a supermoto track, where I’ve seen a few MT-07s getting thrashed around.
It’s a very utilitarian ride position. The seat gets pretty hard if you’re on it for any longer than an hour, although the 32mm wider and 19mm higher handlebar position makes a big difference if you’re six-feet tall or more.
With absolutely zero wind protection, you’re as much a part of the braking system as the brakes themselves. I’m like a massive windsail on the little MT, much more than I am on something like an Aprilia Tuono or KTM Super Duke. The ride can be a little fatiguing because of this, but it’s a welcome tradeoff for around town comfort.
Speaking of brakes, the front discs have grown 16mm to 298mm, so you get a little more real estate for the admittedly weak calipers to bite on. Being a Yamaha, you can’t switch off the ABS, or even put it on a rear-only mode, and this is a bummer because the ABS kicks in too early for my liking. If you’re a new rider to the game, which the MT-07 is primarily aimed at, you shouldn’t have too many issues with the brakes. However, they could be better.
At a touch over 400 pounds ready to go, the MT is far from intimidating in corners.
Aesthetically, I quite like the new design. I was a fan of the older model with the big single headlight, but the new round LED with the flanking side lights does modernize the look while keeping pretty much the same aesthetic as before. At night they work brilliantly, with a massive range of light beaming from an area about half the size it was before.
One area I really didn’t like is the indicators would just pop out if you just brushed your leg past them in the garage. They’re the kind where you squeeze the rubber mounting in the smaller hole to keep them in place, rather than just a nut-and-bolt setup. No doubt, this is to save cash, but it’s still an annoyance.
The massive seat is great for commuting, but it gets pretty hard after an hour. Passengers are well accommodated, too.
Four months of riding had me wondering what I liked most about the MT. Was it the motor, the chassis, the absolute lack of rider aids aside from ABS? Or was it a combination of all three? Yes, that was it, but I also like the MT for what it stands for. Given Yamaha’s history of trend-setting bikes that stretches back to the 1960s, they have precedence in creating long-lasting legacies that riders buy into. The bike that springs to mind more than anything here is the RD350 two-stroke, a stunning little machine that kickstarted a generation on the wonders of motorcycle riding. For me, the MT-07 is the new RD350. It’s got a similar feel, a similar target audience, just with everything updated for a new era.
Bikes now are so techy that we need machines like the MT to remind us that we can have our cake and eat it, too. I’m yet to find a rider who has ridden an MT-07 and doesn’t at least like, if not love, the experience.
Non-adjustable front suspension is a bummer: Preload adjustment would have been nice.
There are parts of the personality I don’t like. The frame is flexy, the front suspension isn’t great, and the brakes aren’t that amazing. But that engine, the ride position, the looks and the style more than make up for it, in my opinion.
The best compliment I can give the MT is my mom even bought one, and being the momma’s boy that I am, that’s saying something. CN
2021 Yamaha MT-07 Specifications
| MSRP: |
$7,699 |
| Engine: |
4-stroke, parallel twin |
| Valvetrain: |
DOHC, 4-valves per cylinder |
| Cooling System: |
Liquid-cooled |
| Displacement: |
689cc |
| Bore x Stroke: |
80 x 68.6mm |
| Compression Ratio: |
11.5:1 |
| Fuel System: |
EFI |
| Exhaust: |
2-2 |
| Clutch: |
Wet, slipper |
| Transmission: |
6-speed |
| Front Suspension: |
41mm fork, non-adjustable |
| Rear Suspension: |
Monoshock, adjustable preload and rebound damping |
| Front-Wheel Travel: |
5.1 in. |
| Rear-Wheel Travel: |
5.1 in. |
| Front Brake: |
Dual 298mm disc, 4-piston caliper, ABS |
| Rear Brake: |
Single 245mm disc, single piston, ABS |
| Front Tire: |
120/70ZR17 in. |
| Rear Tire: |
180/55ZR17 in. |
| Wheelbase: |
55.1 in. |
| Seat Height: |
31.7 in. |
| Fuel Capacity: |
3.7 gal |
| Weight (wet, no fuel, claimed): |
406 lbs. |
