MOTORCYCLE MONDAY

Hello ladies and gents today we have a great post about motorcycles this week we are talking about.

YAMAHA

Yamaha Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate with a very wide range of products and services, predominantly musical instruments, electronics and power sports equipment. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest piano manufacturing company. The former motorcycle division became independent from the main company in 1955, forming Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd, although Yamaha Corporation is still the largest shareholder

Yamaha was established in 1887 as a piano and reed organ manufacturer by Torakusu Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture and was incorporated on October 12, 1897. The company's origins as a musical instrument manufacturer are still reflected today in the group's logo—a trio of interlocking tuning forks.

After World War II, company president Genichi Kawakami repurposed the remains of the company's war-time production machinery and the company's expertise in metallurgical technologies to the manufacture of motorcycles. The YA-1 (AKA Akatombo, the "Red Dragonfly"), of which 125 were built in the first year of production (1954), was named in honour of the founder. It was a 125cc, single cylinder, two-stroke, street bike patterned after the German DKW RT125 (which the British munitions firm, BSA, had also copied in the post-war era and manufactured as the Bantam and Harley-Davidson as the Hummer). In 1955, the success of the YA-1 resulted in the founding of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

Yamaha has grown to become the world's largest manufacturer of musical instruments (including pianos, "silent" pianos, drums, guitars, brass instruments, woodwinds, violins, violas, celli, and vibraphones), as well as a leading manufacturer of semiconductors, audio/visual, computer related products, sporting goods, home appliances, specialty metals and industrial robots.

In 1988, Yamaha shipped the world's first CD recorder. Yamaha purchased Sequential Circuits in 1988. It bought a majority stake (51%) of competitor Korg in 1987, which was bought out by Korg in 1993. In the late 1990s, Yamaha released a series of portable battery operated keyboards under the PSS and the PSR range of keyboards. The Yamaha PSS-14 and PSS-15 keyboards were upgrades to the Yamaha PSS-7 and were notable for their short demo songs, short selectable phrases, funny sound effects and distortion and crackly sounds progressing on many volume levels when battery power is low.

In 2002, Yamaha closed down its archery product business that was started in 1959. Six archers in five different Olympic Games won gold medals using their products.

It acquired German audio software manufacturers Steinberg in January 2005, from Pinnacle Systems.

In July, 2007, Yamaha bought out the minority shareholding of the Kemble family in Yamaha-Kemble Music (UK) Ltd, Yamaha's UK import and musical instrument and professional audio equipment sales arm, the company being renamed Yamaha Music U.K. Ltd in autumn 2007. Kemble & Co. Ltd, the UK piano sales & manufacturing arm was unaffected.

On December 20, 2007, Yamaha made an agreement with the Austrian Bank BAWAG P.S.K. Group BAWAG to purchase all the shares of Bösendorfer, intended to take place in early 2008. Yamaha intends to continue manufacturing at the Bösendorfer facilities in Austria. The acquisition of Bösendorfer was announced after the NAMM Show in Los Angeles, on January 28, 2008. As of February 1, 2008, Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH operates as a subsidiary of Yamaha Corp.

BEST MODEL.

YZF-R1 (1998)

Yamaha launched the YZF-R1 after redesigning the Genesis engine to create a more compact engine by raising the gearbox input shaft and allowing the gearbox output shaft to be placed beneath it. This design feature was revolutionary, called a 'stacked gearbox', it has set a precedent for other manufacturers to follow. This "compacting" of the engine made the total engine length much shorter overall, thereby, allowing the wheelbase of the motorcycle to be shortened significantly. This, in turn, allowed the frame design to place the weight of the engine in the frame to aid handling because of an optimized center of gravity. 

The swingarm was able to be made longer without compromising the overall wheelbase, which was a short 1385mm. Four 40mm Kehin CV carburetors fed fuel to the engine; 140 bhp was claimed by the factory. USD 41mm front forks supplied by KYB mounted 300mm semi-floating disk brakes. The instrument panel was electrical with a self diagnosis system and digital speed readout. The exhaust system utilized an EXUP valve, which controlled the exhaust gas flow to maximize engine power production at all revs. This created a high powered and high torque engine. The Yamaha YZF-R6 was introduced in 1999 as the 600 cc version of the R1 super bike.

The 1999 R1 saw only minor changes, apart from paint and graphics. More improvements were a redesigned gear change linkage and the gear change shaft length being increased. Fuel tank reserve capacity was reduced from 5.5 to 4.0 litres (1.2 to 0.9 imp gal or 1.5 to 1.1 US gal), while the total fuel tank capacity was unchanged at 18 l (4.0 imp gal; 4.8 US gal).

Motorcycle Consumer News tests of the 1998 model year YZF-R1 yielded a 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 km/h) time of 2.96 seconds and 0 to 100 mph (0 to 161 km/h) of 5.93 seconds, a ​1⁄4-mile (400 m) time of 10.19 seconds at 131.40 mph (211.47 km/h), and a top speed of 168 mph (270 km/h), with deceleration from 60 to 0 mph (97 to 0 km/h) of 113.9 ft (34.7 m).[1] For the 1999 model year, Cycle World tests found a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.0 seconds, ​1⁄4-mile time of 10.31 seconds at 139.55 mph (224.58 km/h), and a top speed of 170 mph (270 km/h).