While the Yamaha’s Fazer family has been a European mainstay since 1998, it’s still relatively new in Canada. For 2011 Yamaha has delivered the FZ8, a bike that owes much to its bigger and more brutish sibling the FZ1, and surprisingly little to the defunct FZ6. That positions the bike to be novice and intermediate rider friendly, so it needs to be both frisky (or even occasionally ferocious) and friendly all at once.

It’s late February. It’s Vancouver.  It snowed briefly this morning.  By late afternoon the temperature “warms” to 5C (41F) allowing for the return of our 2007 Yamaha R1 tester to Pacific Yamaha.  For eight days the …

For a while I owned an ST1100, and every year as Big Red’s new models and updates were announced, the speculation would begin amongst the denizens of the ST1100 mailing list. Half wish list and …