I forgot this as a con as I fixed long time before. I will post the pic what I have done to solve the issue.

I forgot this as a con as I fixed long time before. I will post the pic what I have done to solve the issue.

Yamaha R15-S(Dodo 2.0) : Short Term Review

A bit of preface -

All of you who haven't read my Intro post on xBhp, here it is - http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/who-you/...e-himself.html
That post is a piece of legends, exemplary struggle of searching a bike, it has blood, sweat and pain. Also a good amount of Rum and weed might have been involved that time of writing(Also currently)!


Wild Intro appears-

Bought the R15-S on May 18th, 2016, so its been around ~7 months and 6500 KMs so far with 4 free services done. I'm disappointed in less KMs covered myself but coincidentally since the day I bought this bike, I had a work profile change which requires and allows me to work from home. Its more of a requirement than a luxury, thus the office travel is minimum at best and I keep the bike running to daily gym travel and mostly on weekend quick trips ranging anywhere between 100 to 300 KMs. *Also, who the hell wants to ride daily in Pune's traffic to be honest!


About the bike -

I'll divide this short term review in three parts - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. All of you who got the movie reference, have a beer today evening, you deserve it.

The Good :

Engine - The 149.8 CC mill which has been plonked inside this bike doesn't require any validation from a puny human like me. This is what high class engineering feels like right beneath your balls! Its a performance engine, unlike any of our Grandpa's 150 CCs out there. This engine's tales will be told to kids born in 2000's in their mechanical engineering classes.
Its not a smooth engine though, the vibrations are felt, but those aren't your Pulsar's or RTR's brain-coitusing vibes, these are the vibes of a single cylinder mill going into it's power band after 6-7K RPM. Very high frequency vibes(Read: not loud) at 8-10K RPM range though, I personally have grown to like them as part of the package. Couple it with the Deltabox frame, and we've got one exceptional machine here.

Riding Style - Its a committed position which I'm still adjusting to. Very good for not causing any tail bone pain but good for causing a wrist ache in long distance riding. I'm a martial artist and my hands and wrists are trained to take hits after hits, but after a 100 KMs ride, I still have to take a break to do some hand/palm exercises because the hands go numb and palms ache. Nevertheless, its like sitting in a cockpit once you're on rider seat, good feeling.

Riding Ability - Do I? The bike is definitely not made for city riding (see - Traffic), because it will take a toll on wrists(see above). However its not as bad as any other bike in the city. Its a high revving engine and so it shows on highways, tracks and ghats. Its a front heavy bike as far as I'm concerned, standing at a super tall 5'5", I can touch both my feet from this bike easily and can handle this lightweight piece of work. Not highly flickable though, its full fairing for God's sake!

Engine Sound - Till 6K RPM at any gear, the bike sounds like any other 150 CC on road. But once you hit >8K, you start to hear a distinct grunt which sounds like a 2-stroke engine humping a twin cylinder motor violently. legends say if you keep the same RPM band for precisely 42 KMs, you'll hear ancient orgasmic chants coming from the Air filter. You can't un-hear that sound. At least I can't, that's why I always yearn for it.
Interestingly, when I see an R15 2.0 or S, going on a high speed from a spectator's POV, there's no loud exhaust sound, its from the rider's seat you enjoy that aforementioned symphony.

Brakes - Exceptional. In fact, I claim its better than any in its category. Period.

Gearbox - You hear a proper clickity-click sound with every gear change. Gearbox is agile and strong. Though in my bike, I've been hitting false neutrals while going up from gear first to second, 3 out of 10 times at low speeds of < 10KMPH roughly for some reason, not sure its just me or anyone else out there.

Quality - As far as core built, welding, important parts are concerned, the build is 100% high quality. The rubber used on some places though show some cost cutting effects, but meh!

Tyre - The tyres are very good on city and highway tarmac, dry or wet. On gravel/rough surface, tyres slip frequently, thus lack of ABS is missed! I plan to replace the current tyres with the stock again once their life is over.

Liquid cooling : I've driven this bike in scorching heat of May-June-July in city's shitty traffic, cruised with 100+ for 4-5 hours on highways, never did it overheat. This is fantastic for long distance touring. In bumper to bumper traffic though, the fan starts to run quick and keeps the engine heat at bay.


The Bad :

No ABS - While the brakes are awesome, lack of ABS is sorely missed, especially on the gravel/rough surfaces. I've managed to lock rear wheel around 5-6 times so far on tarmac with gravel as well as concrete.

Hard default clutch & front Brake levers - This adds insult to the injury of having a committed riding style. The cables are also tightly bent from the lever's sides, keeping them on the risk of snapping at any given time sooner or later.

Short service interval - For an engine this well engineered and using a Full F*ng synthetic oil, 2 months is ridiculously short period.

Low end torque - My FZ-16 had better low end grunt so I kinda miss that in the city riding. Just a little more would've been less painful for city riding.

Hard suspension - Its not adjustable, that's my complain. A hard suspension might help in cornering and highway stability, but in city's broken roads, the bum refuses to cooperate. The pillion seat is no different.

Seat - Hard seat, bum starts to give up on 100 KMs + rides pretty soon.

Lack of some information in console - Just a clock and gear shift information I miss. Not something I can't live without, but would've been good to have.

Puny 3.5A battery - Why Yamaha, why?


The Ugly :

Headlight throw - This is the only part of this bike which bugs me. From outside the twin cluster is beautiful and on paper we have 2 35W lamps. But, due to the bad reflector design, the light throw especially on low beam sucks donkey balls. The only time I've struggled on this bike is getting a proper light throw and focus.


Random Bakar :

- In one early morning ride on Pune-Satara highway, while coming back I managed to clock 141 KMPH on the odo. had to slow down due to fleet of truckers changing lanes. Now, usually the bike goes till 131 KMPH in its natural state and me without being crouched at all, but that time I decided to crouch fully and that speed happened. While I'm not at all into high speeds and after that I never tried to replicate this, this little rocket is so tempting on highways, I always have to control myself from trying the feat. I don't think I'll try to do that again.
[Also, I understand the odo readings are not 100% correct, still give the bike a break, will ya?]

- The hissing sound I kept hearing after my 3rd service from below the engine, turned out to be Fuel Pump's sound. I'm kinda surprised the sound is quite loud for any FI bike. In my 4th service, the SVC guy cleaned up the Fuel Injector(charged 250 bucks) and the sound has gone down a notch since then. There were no functional problems to be honest.

*Some random pics to accompany, I don't click much pics on my rides though -

The completion of 6000 KMs 2 weeks ago(KungFu Panda says Hi) -
[ATTACH=CONFIG]225330[/ATTACH]

Somewhere far from the city -
[ATTACH=CONFIG]225331[/ATTACH]

A side profile, okay that's enough -
[ATTACH=CONFIG]225332[/ATTACH]

Upgrades/Modifications I've done so far -

Upgraded the low beam bulb to a 55W some kind of normal OSRAM. The spread is little more intense now but nothing compared to a round reflector's throw. Also changed the pilot lamps and indicators to LED. 10 days ago one pilot LED gave up, so I'm back to the OEM tiny lamps. Will upgrade back only when I'll find some good quality LED pilot lamps.

Seat - Added 0.5 inches foam with a new seat cover.

Upgrades/Modifications Planned -

Clip On handlebar risers - I really NEED some kind of risers to raise the clip on height by around 1/1.5 inches if I want to continue doing long rides with this bike. Any suggestions in this direction will be highly appreciated.

Projector headlamps - I'm not keen on plonking standalone LED lamps as they're super bright and annoy the incoming traffic, some kind of good quality projector setup is definitely on the cards.

Seat change - I'm planning to re-do the seat from scratch for a more comfortable long rides.

Adjustable clutch and brake levers - I'll need some suggestions on this as well from the community, please assist.


To sum it up, so far so good with this tiny rocket. I do not regret my decision to go with this bike among the plethora of bikes available today. I may have forgotten to add a few things in this review but I'll keep contributing to this thread going forward.

Regards.

Very well reviewed. I think battery capacity is 4AH in R15S compared to 3.5AH in V2.0.
Regarding good quality pilot lamps try philips or osram T10 led's but they are pricey.
Handle bar raisers may lead the bike to lose its charecter IMO.
MOXI adjustable levers are common. Some others can be found in aliexpress.

Cheers.

Thanks.

- I stand corrected, the battery is indeed 4AH. I had it confused while writing.

- The OSRAM T10 pilot LEDs don't have favorable reviews on web, but I'll try to see some shops locally in city area here for both of these brands.

- Now this is something I find debatable at this moment. I agree that the "original" character will be lost once the clip ons were raised but that's not to say it will affect R15's handling adversely(or it might). I want to know if someone has actually tried it or know someone who's tried it. I personally think just a little(1-2 inches) raise in its clip ons will make the long distance riding way more comfortable on wrists than it is currently. Also, on a personal level, I'm not taking this bike on track ever, I don't scrap knees on corner, so that's out of question for me. It will always remain a highway cruiser for me. So I need inputs on this idea.

- Thanks for the advise on this. Do you think these are the ones and look genuine? -
Special Edition Black Long Adjustable Brake Clutch Lever Yamaha R15 Ver.1 / 2 | eBay

Also what's the practical difference between short and long lever? Or there isn't any.

Regards.

Yes, please do, as quickly as possible.

Hi, pleased to hear you have had success troubleshooting the annoying vibes.

Looking forward to the suggested fix, Pics would be a great help! Thanks

Happy to see so many bikers taking the highway. I am going for my first long trip (Chennai - Hosur) on my R15s. Just wanted to know from fellow people here, how does the bike pan out on such long journeys. Any insight would be helpful. How often do I need to cool down the bike, 10 mins for an hour of riding ?

Happy to see so many bikers taking the highway. I am going for my first long trip (Chennai - Hosur) on my R15s. Just wanted to know from fellow people here, how does the bike pan out on such long journeys. Any insight would be helpful. How often do I need to cool down the bike, 10 mins for an hour of riding ?

How long is the journey sir. I visit my hometown every month on my bike which is about 4.5 - 5 hours away. No brakes or stops. The bike doesn't show any signs of getting tired even after 4 - 5 hours of constant riding. The engine still revs happily, the gears still engage with a click and the temperature only rises once I reach within my city limits and get stuck in traffic jams, even then the radiator fan does a perfect job.

So from my experience there is no problem till 4-5 hours. The bike needs no breaks. Members who have done more time in a single day might be able to throw light beyond the 5 hour mark.

10 mins after 2-3 hours will be more than enough....

Happy to see so many bikers taking the highway. I am going for my first long trip (Chennai - Hosur) on my R15s. Just wanted to know from fellow people here, how does the bike pan out on such long journeys. Any insight would be helpful. How often do I need to cool down the bike, 10 mins for an hour of riding ?

You can peacefully cruise at 90kph on R15 and reach in about 3.5 hours if you don't get stuck in peak hour traffic. He road upto Wallajahpet sucks, 70-80 kays. After which it opens up to a beautiful 6 lane all the way to Bangalore, where you can push upto 100 kays cruising. My friend and I used to do Bangalore- Chennai every other weekend and we mostly do nonstop or at the most 1 stop for natures call. Ride safe!