If you look up the word “irrepressible” in the dictionary, you might find a photo of Ed Sorbo. Here Ed explains his post-ride hair, Happy Cheese Cows … and the new Yamaha R3. Have a look.
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The raven color is bitchin’, and the white/red livery looks excellent, too. Put money down today on one for me and one for my girlfriend.
Great write up Ed and a fantastic bike by Yamaha. Unfortunately no one has built the “one size fits all” motorcycle. My 5’4″ wife would love to ride a 1200 cc Adventure tour and I’d love to ride an R3. But stuck at 6’3″ and no immediate chance of shrinking, we’re both left on different sides of the fence admiring each other’s grass. Human nature is to covet the unobtainable. Damn.
Pretty cool for a bargain bike. I’m looking for the dyno graph.???? Would like to compare it to my RD and FZR400.
Also, I find it humorous that they have someone 5’5″ tall giving us opinions on motorcycle ergonomics. Unless you’re in the sixth grade, why would you read that?
Ed is 5’6″ to be exact. Many prospective purchasers of this bike are shorter, including many women (several participated in this multi-day launch, most of them shorter than Ed). Besides all that, you sound like you have the logic skills of a pre-schooler (not quite sixth grade, I’m afraid), so the story should be right on target for you. 😉
The ergonomic opinion of someone 5’5″ tall is as valid as the ergonomic opinion of ANYONE, provided the audience is given a perspective of the observer’s general stature and freedom to extrapolate to their own “situation”. Ergo perspectives of any type are relative to the holder and subject to height, weight, inseam, and personal preference bias. Though 5’10” myself, I found Ed’s observations enlightening, especially the observation about seat width and taper, which is often overlooked yet relevant. A great job by Ed in my view. (ps, sad when “Bargain bikes” cost $5000…)
Ahh yes, freedom to estimate. No need for the big words brian.
I would prefer to forgo the writers conjecture with a statement such as “I have to tippy toe”. Or, “The reach to the bars was quite difficult”.
For those of us ” height challenged” (I’m also 5’6″) it’s as relevant as someone 6’2″ tall telling us about the ergos on an ADV bike with a 35″ or 38″ seat height. If you are not at either end of the height spectrum, you probably wouldn’t understand.
I don’t get that comment either. He’s 5’6″. He says things about the fit of the bike. Most can then relate that to their own size, yes? I’m very tall, if he says, “It’s perfect for me!”, then it’s an easy assumption that it’ll be small for me, yeah?
“wiggily woggoly”… that is a trademark Sorbo term. the only other person I’ve heard use that phrase is his brother Kevin.
Sorry, no brother named Kevin. My brother is not into motorcycles.
What’s going on here, Norm? You making this stuff up?
uhh, yeah…! hellooo…? 🙂
Kevin Sorbo – Actor / Hercules
Its humor people
re: “Its humor people”
see, if it were a black cayman it would’ve bit ya. lol
Kevin Sorbo’s penmanship is as bad as mine but we are not related. I know this because he responded to a letter sent by my uncle, nice guy. I never heard Kevin say wiggily woggoly. Do you know what Bongie-bongie means?
root word is “bong” so we can guess?
Correct.
Wiggily-woggoly is a side to side motion.
Bongie is up and down.
A no B.S. video, Ed. Well done, and I’d like to see you do more of these. Oh yeah, I’ll take my R3 in blue.
Like.
I like it except for that sort of Great White-looking snouty headlight. Have you seen the Ninja 300 though in silver with Kawasaki green accents? Pretty cool.
99.9% of the time this website is not offensive, and that’s saying a lot. I’m old enough to know that much of the language at enthusiast websites is, well, in two words, bah-lonee. It’s nice to read and hear video reports not aimed at adolescents. This site has little to no hyperbole and most or all of the posters seem like great people to meet on the road or elsewhere.
The reports on this lovely Yamaha R3 are more of the same. Mature, enthusiastic, and yet still fun to read, building excitement that hopefully translates to market success for Yamaha’s apparently great small-mid size race replica.
As Spock might say, I find it “interesting” that the smaller is engine displacement the more attractive is overall styling and integration of cosmetic design. I would speculate that the smaller the engine and support systems (clutch, cooling, transmission, etc.), the greater is the cosmetic group’s freedom in fashioning the rest of the bike to fit the human form of the target demographic (not my 6-3 frame, made for KTM’s largest adventure bikes).
Styling wise, at both ends of the engine size category (small R3 and liter size), Yamaha owns the undisputed crown, at least from my perspective. The R3 oozes swoopy sex and smooth curvy lines. The liter bike reminds me of the well-worn out euphemism, “iron fist in a velvet glove,” evoking diesel train and state of the art speed science in the same package, a weird and lovely combination.
I agree. It is a gorgeous little bike – best looking in this segment in my opinion – that offers enough real world performance to be agreeable to an audience beyond beginner.
Thanks Ed!
No, Thank You!
That Ed. Life is never dull when he’s around!
I have to sell my Ducati and the old BMW, maybe a few other bikes, then I’m getting a blue one.
My daughter put cash down on a raven colored one today. We both watched MD closely the last couple of days and she was smitten as all hell. Ed did a great job reporting while fanning a fire. Now I get to pester, beg and whine for the keys to the R3. Paybacks feel so good sometimes!
Ed made me want one of these.
excellent