BETTER ALL ROUND (er)

Yamaha obviously isn’t satisfied with 50,000 MT-09 sales – being hell bent on squeezing every little bit of value possible out of their cross-plane crank triple (CP3) motor. And with an engine so versatile, who can blame them? To some sportsbike fans, 113bhp might sound a little pedestrian, but teamed up with a seriously strong 87.5Nm of torque, you have an engine that will do exactly what you need it to, almost all of the time.

And when 22% of Yamaha’s sales in 2017 were in the growing sports touring segment, it’s no wonder they’re putting so much effort into bikes like the latest Tracer 900 and its GT sibling.

So what we have here is the updated Tracer 900, priced at £9249 and alongside it Yamaha is launching the all new Tracer 900GT. The GT is a spec’d up, slightly more bling model that comes in at £10,649.

For that extra £1400, you’re treated to a sexy full-colour TFT dash (lifted from Yamaha’s flagship sportsbike, the YZF-R1), front and rear adjustable suspension, a quickshifter, cruise control, heated grips and a pair of colour-coded panniers.

Yamaha knows that a growing number of motorcyclists want a bike to do everything from popping to the shops to taking the wife on a tour round Europe, and that’s what the Tracer 900 is designed for. But