No more Yamaha R1 & R1M's after 2025

[SteRB5138]

Looks like Yamaha are following Suzuki with no more 1L sportbikes, sad times

https://www.visordown.com/news/general/yamaha-r1-a...

[Crudeoink]

Sales must have been low for years, and I'm not surprised. The latest iteration started at over £18k, with a slip-on and a few extra bits its well over 20k on the configurator, madness. I remember buying an MT-10 for £9999 on the road.

[Skeptisk]

What does that mean for Ducati, Kawasaki, BMW and Aprilia? Will they follow suit?

I do fancy owning an R1 but to be honest it would be one from the later 90s or early 2000s.

[Krikkit]

Seems daft given how well they've always sold - relatively speaking there's loads of R1s out there... Presumably they don't want to put the effort in to catch up with people like BMW, Aprilia, Ducati etc?

[stang65]

Says no UK rather than no R1s so I guess they'll carry on making them for other markets. It will be interesting to see if the MT10 engine gets emission revisions.

Whilst I don't doubt sales have fallen since the late '90s/early '00s it's because they've become more extreme as the 600s did. It's odd that they're discontinuing whilst the ZX6R and CBR600RR are coming back.

Ducati and BMW seem to be selling reasonable volumes of sportsbikes but I guess that it's a premium market and the Japanese brands are not considered premium. Also the BMW is often reported as the most comfortable of the 1 litre sportsbikes....coincidence on the sales?

Sportsbikes seems to be gaining popularity again e.g. R7, forthcoming R9, GSX8R, etc, but only when street focused.

[Biker's Nemesis]

Hmm, I think I'll hang onto my R1M, only 75 brought into the UK in 2015/6. I have no idea if that is still the case or they imported more.

[Biker9090]

Not really suprised. I was intent on getting a 2017 ish Fireblade until the insurance came back at triple the price of an adventure bike (£1700 vs £500). Not exactly justifiable for something that's a bit of a one trick pony.....

[TimmyWimmyWoo]

From what I can work out they sold 51 R1s in the whole of 2023 in the UK... not terribly surprised.

[Skeptisk]

Biker9090 said:

Not really suprised. I was intent on getting a 2017 ish Fireblade until the insurance came back at triple the price of an adventure bike (£1700 vs £500). Not exactly justifiable for something that's a bit of a one trick pony.....

There must be reasons for the different insurance quotes but it seems a bit odd. When I didn’t have any NCB as just got back onto bikes I looked at buying a secondhand RSV. Insurance was a lot. I ended up with a S1000R, which was definitely as quick, yet the insurance was much less.

[Biker9090]

Skeptisk said:

There must be reasons for the different insurance quotes but it seems a bit odd. When I didn’t have any NCB as just got back onto bikes I looked at buying a secondhand RSV. Insurance was a lot. I ended up with a S1000R, which was definitely as quick, yet the insurance was much less.

Not sure really.
KTM 1290GT, 1290S, Multistrada, BMW S1000XR all about £500 for me

KTM 1290R, BMW S1000R, Fireblade, GSXR, R1 etc all between 1700 and 2k!

I'm 33 and continually riding since 16. Just bloody annoying. I can afford it but absolutely can't justify it.

[graeme4130]

You can see why though as 1000cc sports bike sales are terrible globally, whereas Supersport style bikes still have a reasonable market, especially in the US and Asia where the markets are much bigger then Europe
Most manufacturers only now days make 1000cc sports bikes to homologate for racing, and even those only have a few year's left before WSBK/BSB go to smaller capacity in 2028
As much as it sucks, I would expect to see Honda, BMW, Kawasaki etc to follow in the next few years and not revamp their various litre sports bikes

[Steve_H80]

It seems a shame to be losing something this iconic, but if they aren't selling many why bother investingin further updates?
The original R1 was a road bike that raced, as were they all, now they are race bikes with token road legality.
I expect the new Yamaha R9 will be a closer match to the original R1 as a road bike and the current R1 will continue as a track bike (like the R6).

[Birky_41]

Will follow as Suzuki have. Be available in non EU regulated emission countries which include UK

EU really causing havoc with a lot of this. I get the differences between emissions of 1990s Euro 2 and Euro 3 of the 2000s but bikes are efficient and there isn't exactly loads to cause a problem vs cars. Manufacturers are giving up with it is how it looks to me

[podman]

The demise of the sportsbike is well read but this reads as no different to my H2, Kawasaki stopped bring them into Europe in 2020/21 due to the Euro 5 complaince but you can still order them in the states and other countries.

Still a sad read thou.

[Triaguar]

We were having this conversation in the pub last week. The current owners of modern sports bikes are in the historical position of being at the absolute zenith of a product. As you all say it just seems downhill development wise from here

[five50]

Yeah that is kind of true and a bit sad - but I wouldn’t be depressed. As above, not many people are buying the r1 to ride on the road. How many people are properly gunning a 200bhp Sportsbike on the road?
Saying this as a hopeless petrolhead.
If you look at it other ways, the golden age continues. The reviews on the latest range of slightly less extreme bikes are brilliant - BMW GS1300, KTM 990 Duke, Street triple Rs etc etc
The development and improvements continue it’s just that the focus of the market changes a little bit.
Yamaha’s slightly more accessible road bikes - XSR 900 / MT09 / incoming R9, Tracer 9 etc are all reviewed as brilliant.
Is this actually democratising motorcycling rather than just the top dog being good and the rest a bit crap?

Edited by five50 on Thursday 22 February 21:08

[Bob_Defly]

podman said:

The demise of the sportsbike is well read but this reads as no different to my H2, Kawasaki stopped bring them into Europe in 2020/21 due to the Euro 5 complaince but you can still order them in the states and other countries.

Still a sad read thou.

Seeing as Britain isn't in the EU, why can't they sell a different spec one in Britain?

[black-k1]

Bob_Defly said:

podman said:

The demise of the sportsbike is well read but this reads as no different to my H2, Kawasaki stopped bring them into Europe in 2020/21 due to the Euro 5 complaince but you can still order them in the states and other countries.

Still a sad read thou.

Seeing as Britain isn't in the EU, why can't they sell a different spec one in Britain?

I think the UK standards still align with the EU standards on things like emissions. We could do our own but the can of worms that might open when we wanted to take UK vehicles to the EU would likely be huge.

[rodericb]

Biker9090 said:

Not really suprised. I was intent on getting a 2017 ish Fireblade until the insurance came back at triple the price of an adventure bike (£1700 vs £500). Not exactly justifiable for something that's a bit of a one trick pony.....

I think the number of tricks each pony can do is about equal. People, in Western countries, who pursue motorcycles as a hobby are getting older and are also going a bit "buy an SUV" to boot for their creaking hips, painful wrists and aching backs. The growth area for motorcycles is in developing countries and very very few people can afford big bikes - in some of those countries the imported (read big) bikes cost more there than in the UK plus the people have much less money to begin with.

Something like the ZX4RR in Jakarta, Indonesia, costs IDR244,800,000 - which is £12,377 and is around two years of an engineers salary. A ZX10R, or a R1 for that matter, is something for the extremely wealthy and will sell in miniscule numbers. Hence the global sales of sportsbikes are dropping. But I trust everyone in Europe and the UK won't be gasping for breath when they go outside as there's no more R1's being sold!

[Steve_H80]

If anyone was desperate enough to have a new R1 on the road could they convert a track only or other market version using the MSVA process?

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-approval/motorcycle-sin...