wow!!!

hi GS , congrats sir for getting the MT , I'm quite late on the wish but better late than never ... thanks a lot for letting us in to your world , with the MT ... damn it's a great bike and I own an FZ and you just made my day by saying that someone could actually mistake the MT for an FZ

Shit! 11 pages and all I see this thread now....

AWESOME Gs, Congrats!

Awaiting some awesome triplogs from your end now!

That fairing sure looks quite practical. It will definitely make a LOT of difference in long distance riding.

Now if only the pillion got more comfy! With the bike I mean of course!

MT is not a cruiser,sports nor retro! then Where does it belong?
I think naked street... may be not Yamaha already have FZ there..
Then it might be in some new category called Muscular or Torque Monsters

But there is no second thought about it being Unique... Enjoy your special one GS

Missed it !

Congrats GS ! Awesome Bike and an extremely Entertaining Owner ! Man this thread is gonna be fun !

Sorry to rain on your parade mate but you will find me riding alongside you in Mumbai when ever we decide to meet up

If you love the sound of the stock pipes you HAVE TO, absolutely HAVE TO hear the sound with after market pipes. It's a reenacment of a full blown Shakespearean festival. Rumble, pops, farts, bangs and flames

The Stage I akras look cool and are very bassy n loud without the baffles in but they're so damn expensive. I got them as I desperately wanted the single seat visible mufflers look.

The Stage II kit is highway robbery and a waste of money for our needs in India, for a 5 odd bhp (marketing claims) increase you want to spend that kind of money?

Oh, by the way; Yamaha India don't support any of these but IMO it won't affect the warranty.

Before I got my akra stage I set up I got the loudest slip ons money can buy (save running without mufflers at all); RAASK. These are almost like straight through pipes. Incredibly loud, lots of bangs, spits, pops and flames on the overun and great value for money. If I still have them in a week and if you want you can put them on and try them; if you like 'em you can buy 'em from me.

Don't get that MTOS fairing buddy, it looks shite. If you really want wind protection get an aftermarket screen. Plenty available but all make it look ugly, not as ugly as the MTOS though.

I'm ordering new sprockets and a chain for mine; -1 front and +3 rear with a 116 link chain. Lets see how it alters the bottom end

Congrats on getting the Muscular Naked Street Fighter

eagerly awaiting more pics

I am bit late here but better now than never.

Congrats GS on your grand possession and special thanks to you and Akhil for sharing the passionate experience you had with MT.

Loved it.

Guru and Akhil....
I can see the brotherhood and "Jaan dedoonga tereliye" dosti just oozing out on the first ride video. Seems to have been one heck of a day to make the video....great roads and nice weather. All the stars seemed to have aligned themselves to get this thing done. Great work.

The bike just looks drop dead menacing. It already sounds so good.
I wonder if Yamaha sells the GYTR slip-ons for the MT. They sound pretty good.

@streetfighter...a chain and sprocket kit -1 +3 for the MT? Are you serious man...? How much more bottom end can one ask for after what the MT already has? Holy cow....you will be free-wheeling it every time you take off.

Waiting for more pics!

Yam sells the Akra pipes and headers; these are branded and made only for Yam so you can't buy these from an Akra dealer.

As for the teething; all my riding is in the city so I'm not that bothered about top end. And free wheeling is one of the reasons I wanna try this out. The MT weighs somewhere around 260 kilos with oil and fuel, it's bloody difficult to lift it up and keep it up; one of the other reasons for this is the seriously low rev count. I mean my cars rev higher than this

Ride from Chennai to Mumbai

I've finally managed to complete the RTO procedures in Chennai and ride Thor to Mumbai. Words will come later...but here are some pictures for now!

Picasa Web Albums - Gurushankar - Thor to Mumbai

@GS: The RTO procedures for the MT deserve a whole new thread! Lovely! Now, can't wait for the text to follow. And yes, congratulations.

Does anyone know what RTO stands for?

For me RTO stands for Rectal Terrorist Outfit

Registering Thor was a 4 day affair that started on Monday and ended on Thursday. I was completely drained and buggered by the end of it all. I'd much rather spend a night in a prison cell with hardened criminals than spend another day trying to get things moving at the RTO.

Monday - Take the vehicle and all papers to the RTO. They make me wait from 9:30am to 12:30am only to tell me that I need to pay Entry Tax of 12.5%. Fine...so I go to the Commercial Tax office where the lady takes my papers, calculates a figure of Rs.16000 (relief...I was expecting it to be 1.5L) and asks me to come back after lunch for the Challan. I have a hurried lunch and head back in 30 minutes only to find her just starting her lunch. She makes me wait for another 45 minutes before getting started on the challan. By the time I have the document in my hand...it is 3:00pm and thats when she tells me that I have to pay at an SBI Treasury branch at a location almost 20kms away and nowhere else...and that the branch closes at 2:00pm. I also find that HDFC had not signed the Hypothecation part of the Form-20 so I had to go finish that as well...again another 20km trip into central Chennai!! Since both couldn't be done with the time remaining on Monday - I pushed it to Tuesday.

Tuesday - I had to get the HDFC and SBI work done in the morning and then rush back to the RTO by 11:00am to complete the registration. This was always going to be a challenge but luckily for me, the SBI work went smoothly and then the HDFC work was even quicker thanks to some calls made by the Mumbai branch. I've always had a great experience dealing with HDFC and the staff are generally ultra-courteous. I was then headed to the RTO at which point of time I got the news that my agent was tied up somewhere else and would reach the RTO late. He showed up at 1:30 and I wasn't ready with the Road-Tax etc. because I had no idea how much I had to pay. We found out the amount and selected my vehicles number before the counters closed for the day. Nothing further could be done today Needless to say...I was F*****G pissed off. Another day wasted!

Wednesday - On Wednesday I went to the RTO by 9:30am with the promise that the vehicle inspection would be done at 10:00am and I could leave to Bangalore. as luck would have it, the entire RTO was packed into two cars and shipped off to the CM's residence to do the registration for two vehicles he had picked up. I was left standing at the RTO like a Chutiya for 4 hours until the counters closed. Again...ZERO progress. I was losing my mind by this time How hard can it be to get a f*****g vehicle registered??

Thursday - I had to leave for Bangalore today as I had to report for work in bangalore on Friday. By this time I was supposed to be waking up in Kolhapur to ride to Mumbai as per my original plan. Instead, I was waking up in Chennai for another RTO buggering session. My ass was properly sore by this time and I guarantee you...I was harboring thoughts of resorting to terrorism to get my work done. How far can these bastards push the public before they fight back? I was SO MAD! I was even more upset when the vehicle inspection was done in 5 minutes, registration, road tax etc. done in another 10 minutes and I was free to go within 20 minutes. WHY did they make me waste 4 days for 20 minutes of work? How f****d up is this country?
Registration done, I asked my cousin to go pack up the Bolero while I went to Nachiappan sticker shop to get the numbering done. Headed back home for lunch and took off to Bangalore around 1:00pm from Adayar.

1:45pm - Poonamalee crossed (horrid traffic and bike was heating up)
6:45pm - Reached Electronics City
8:00pm - Reached Akhil's house tired, grimy and not in the mood for anything but a full night's rest.

Friday - Woke up still in pain...showered and took Thor for it's first service at Orion yamaha. Since I didn't know the way and Akhil was leaving for Pune, I met up with the service engineer and followed him through the MENTAL bangalore traffic. Delivered the bike for service and then headed to my office while my cousin walked around Bangalore to understand how things had gone so wrong for this once beautiful city. He had multiple theories by the time I finished work and headed back to the service center to pick up the bike.

There are NO FREE services for CBU bikes and my bill was as follows:

1. Labor Charges - Rs.3000
2. Oil - Rs. 2500
3. Tank Pad - Rs. 900
4. Double Hella Horn - Rs.1350

Phew...at least the bike was thoroughly cleaned up because I had delivered it looking like it had been dragged through a construction site. I am not happy that they filled up Full-Synthetic oil so early in the run-in period without advising me on it properly. I feel that the service center put "Making Money" ahead of "Doing what is right for the customer". I plan to switch back to Mineral oil in 2nd service unless someone advises me that this is a stupid thing to do.

Service done, we headed back home, tanked up and filled up the fuel cans and went to sleep because on Saturday...we would be riding to Kolhapur!

Saturday and Sunday - The ride to Kolhapur and from there on to Mumbai was largely wet...and uneventful. I discovered that the MT-01 is NOT suitable for long distances on motorways. Even the Zma has more wind protection. Also, the Zma manages the same cruising speeds of the MT-01 without stress and still delivers incredible mileage per tank of gas so the stoppage time is also less.

Bangalore - Kolhapur on the Zma took me 9 hours
Bangalore - Kolhapur on the MT-01 too me 12 hours
Kolhapur - Mumbai on the Zma took me 6 hours
Kolhapur - Mumbai on the MT-01 took me 8 hours

I know the MT-01 isn't intended for touring but the magnitude of the suckage left me feeling rather disappointed. The MT-01 is unwieldy in traffic so it is awful to ride around in the city. It is not suited for the motorways. It needs clean and high-octane fuel which you don't find everywhere. It has a range of 225kms per full tank of gasoline which doesn't take you very far.

It is a fantastic motorcycle but is more suited for showboating and short rides than any meaningful touring...at least in India. The seat, while comfortable up to 200kms, gets painful after that and decidedly uncomfortable by 300kms.

I still love the MT-01 but I might be taking my Zma off the market again