YAMAHA NIKEN (2018 - on) Review

Pilot a Niken and you’re a celebrity with a ready-made audience. Everywhere people look at you. Kids wave, cyclists nod, pedestrians smile. It can’t help but brighten your day. Non-bikers love it, but strangely, the Austrian bikers we met on the bike’s launch didn’t seem to want to know. Few bikes have split opinion as much.

• Related: Yamaha Niken GT review

First unveiled at the end of 2017, the Niken was joined by the GT, a touring version with panniers, heated grips and a few other extras in 2019.

Yamaha’s LMW (Leaning Multi Wheeler) was received with a combination of fascination and incredulity. It  wasn’t, as some thought, for disabled riders (it’ll fall over when its stationary, just like any other bike) or an easy way for car drivers to become bikers (its track is too narrow to be ridden on a car licence).

Instead, it was all about trying to enhance riding pleasure. Yamaha’s engineers wanted to come up with a bike that gave more front-end confidence and allowed more people to exploit it. Their reckoning was that losing the front was a biker’s biggest fear – and the way to allay those fears was to increase grip.

The key to the Niken is the front parallelogram system that mounts to the pair of fork units. This allows it to pretend it’s a ‘normal’ motorbike and gives 45 degrees of lean. It does add weight though and also increases the bike’s frontal area significantly.

Once you’re rolling, only subtle clues let you know the bike has two front wheels. The first 5mph is a bit wobbly thanks to the amount of weight being carried up high and weave from side to side and there’s slight resistance to your inputs.

Each time you turn the bars you alter the trajectory of two spinning wheels, plus what must be a good few kilos of castings, bearings, linkages and rose joints that all pivot on the Niken’s cast headstock.

Flowing from one 90mph corner to the next on a dream Austrian A-road, the Niken feels great – and you get so much joy from hustling such a bizzare machine.

The gyroscopic effect of those two spinning 15-inch wheels imbue it with peerless stability. On roads that don’t require sudden direction changes there’s a neutrality and accuracy that has you believing the three-wheeled marketing hype. At high speed it shrugs off mid-corner bumps better than most bikes, doesn’t get upset by camber changes and doesn’t tramline over ruts.

⏱️ #60secondswith Yamaha's three-wheeled-wonder, the Niken. @Neevesy33 tries to explain what it's like in a minute. pic.twitter.com/UvfYsCt99Y

— Motor Cycle News (@MCNnews) December 26, 2019

On these roads, the quality of the suspension is obvious – there is little in the way of the weaves and wobbles you’d get on an MT-09 or a Tracer. All of this points to the bike working well when the first demo bikes hit the UK later this year.

With 45 degrees of lean, ground-clearance can become an issue, though. Once you understand the Niken’s capability’s it’s easy to run its lean limits, grinding pegs and toes with impunity.

It’s fun and frustrating in equal measure as you’re still far from the limit. According to Yamaha, the outside wheel will lift at 50-degrees…

Sadly, things unravel a little as the roads get very tight. By now we’re snaking up the kind of single-track, filthy road that is meant to be the Niken’s speciality but it’s easy to lose your way in slow corners.

It starts when you brake. Yamaha opted for a 15-inch in a bid to make the bike more nimble, but the downside is you can only fit small 265mm discs inside them.

The result is less mechanical leverage and bite than normal and while the bike does stop consistently, you do need to apply some lever pressure.

A 20mph first-gear uphill switchback looms, but there is little chassis feel at this speed – you just have to trust there is grip. Sadly, it’s harder to get the bike to turn than you’d wish, too and as I lever on the bars, the Niken isn’t tracking the line I want. This isn’t the corner-carving dream!

When you examine the physics it isn’t that surprising – with so much weight at the front, Yamaha have moved the rider backwards to compensate.

It makes the weight distribution correct at 50/50, but it’s like trying to turn your shopping trolley with a crate of beer at either end – the opposite of mass centralisation.

Slow-speed corner exits aren’t great either. While the front grip is stunning, if you’re cracking on, it’s too easy to unsettle the rear and while the support of the extra wheel at the front means small slides at the rear seems less of a drama than a normal bike, it is disconcerting.

It all points to a poor Bridgestone Adventure 41 tyre – in the wet it’s especially numb and will lose traction too easily, negating the confidence-inspiring front. All this mars an otherwise impressive bike – we’re just glad the UK doesn’t have many super-slow hairpins, as aside from this, it really delivers.

Get on the gas and it responds with refinement and enthusiasm. Compared to the other bikes that share the Niken’s 847cc triple, the crank has 18% more inertia and there’s revised fuel mapping. 

This is enough to significantly change the character of the motor – it’s smoother and slower revving, but you do find yourself on full throttle and waiting for the motor to catch up more often than you’d imagine - especially in higher gears. The quickshifter helps, though.

The build quality of the Niken is very good and the engineering involved in the front end is stunning. In fact, it’s a real shame that you don’t get to see any of it, as it’s hidden behind the bike’s bulbous front end.

The suspension also works well and it doesn’t fade or sag, despite its weight. It’s also littered with quality components, such as switch gear that allows you to seamlessly switch modes and displays without the need to move your hands off the bars.

The quickshifter is also good and while the bike doesn’t come fitted with an autoblipper, the slipper clutch works very well.

The Niken is peerless and in a category all of its own. If you were considering buying one as a sports tourer, it would be going up against the likes of the extremely capable and far cheaper Honda VFR800F.

There's no getting away from the fact the Yamaha Niken is a lot of money – especially when you consider you could buy a brand-new Triumph Tiger 900 GT Pro with all of its performance and quality and have enough left over for an epic road trip.

A two-wheeled Yamaha MT-09SP is more fun and it’s about 30% cheaper. There’s nothing wrong with the Yamaha Niken, but there’s a penalty for having that third wheel - there’s the additional cost, frontal area and the sheer complexity.

We haven't got any owners' reviews for the Niken yet, but if you own one and would like to review it please do so here. You can also visit the owners' group page on Facebook.

What’s most surprising is that the Niken is a closet sports tourer. Wind protection is good enough for 100mph in comfort and the relaxed nature makes it the perfect companion for clocking miles in widescreen scenery.

There’s a 12volt socket for your sat-nav as standard and if I owned one I’d fit the optional top box, find a taller screen and dream of traffic-free runs on the Route Napoleon. The options list is quite extensive, too.