Dark Side Of The Hoon

THE R15 IS A GREAT MOTORCYCLE, there’s no denying that. It brought highend tech like the GP-derived Deltabox frame, liquid-cooling and VVT into a package that won’t cost your child her education.

But it is a proper, committed supersport. Not the ideal machine to spend time hunched over in traffic. Well, that’s about to change.

This sinister-looking motorcycle you see here is the Yamaha MT-15, and it is essentially an R15 (well, almost) in streetfighter clothing. It shares the 155cc, liquid-cooled motor and makes the same 19bhp and 14.7Nm. The frame is identical too – the Deltabox, a design that was first used on Yamaha’s GP bikes in the 80s and was so good that it’s still around. It gets the same forks as the R15, but there are a few changes. The cast aluminium swingarm is replaced by a box type one and the MT only gets single-channel ABS where the R15 is dual.