It seems like the MT-09 is only a couple of years old, but it turns out it’s ready for an update already. The sweet triple gets a new fork for next year, which will be good for riders, but bad for the cottage industry that’s sprung up to rectify the poor performance of the stock setup. The new fork has separate damping in each leg – compression in the left leg, rebound in the right.
The engine is unchanged, but gets a quickshifter and slipper clutch to sauce up the transmission. Headlights are now LED units, the bodywork is a bit sleeker, and there’s a new silencer too.
The MT-10 isn’t quite due for an update, but an SP version is just as exciting, Yamaha’s bolted on the Ohlins electronically adjusted semi-active suspension from the R1M, giving the wild naked bike a massive update in the suspending department.
While they were rifling the parts bin for leccy forks and shock, the engineers also snaffled a load of TFT colour displays, so the SP gets the same flash screen as the R1M.
The base bike also has a couple of updates that are shared with the SP – a QSS quickshifter system, and, again, a slipper clutch.