The love-it-or-hate-it face of the FZ-10 finds its way to the FZ-09 for 2017. Several other changes include, most notably, a new, fully adjustable fork, adjustable traction control (two positions, plus off) and standard ABS brakes. Here is how Yamaha describes all of the changes to the 2017 FZ-09:
- Radical New Styling
From the new LED headlights to sculpted 3D taillight, sleek radiator shrouds to swingarm-mounted license plate mount, the new FZ-09 boasts a more extreme style to push it even further ahead of the naked sportbike class. - Adjustable Traction Control
New for 2017, the FZ-09 now comes standard with a two-position (plus off) traction control system, to reduce wheel spin over changing road conditions. - Fully Adjustable Front Fork
Using new separate-leg fork damping for independent compression, rebound and preload adjustments, the FZ-09’s inverted fork offers enhanced tuneability, from aggressive sport riding to comfortable commuting. - Assist and Slipper Clutch
Yamaha’s assist and slipper clutch reduces lever effort for reduced fatigue in day-to-day riding. At the same time, the slipper system reduces engine back-torque for improved corner entry, even with aggressive downshifting. - Anti-Lock Brakes
The FZ-09 comes standard with ABS for secure braking performance across a wide range of surface conditions.
The 2017 FZ-09 will be in U.S. dealers next February priced at $8,999. Three colors will be available, including Candy Red, Matte Silver and Intensity White. Take a look at Yamaha’s web site for additional details and specifications.
See more of MD’s great photography:
Those headlights might be really cool looking in there, can’t tell, can’t see them. Maybe the cover is removable.
You can’t compare this face to the FZ10. They are worlds apart. The FZ 10 uses those same deformed hexagonal fog lamp style eyes that are also under the R1 or R6 fairing. All of which would be cured if they simply swapped lights from right to left and left to right so the eyes are angled like >:) instead of like <:(
I appreciate that Yamaha is trying new stylistic directions and doing so without adding much superfluous plastic.
As an owner of a FJ-09 with the same engine and another 80lbs or so, I can’t imagine how much fun this bike will be.
Good looking bike.
seeing it in person its quite an improvement.I really like the bike now.adjustable front forks,ABS and trac control all for under $9000.
The new headlight lacks presence IMO like two little beady eyes. Plus, the safety factor of not being as visible. As someone mentioned, adding weight to the rear wheel with the license plate assembly is a “whoops”. Hope they found a better way to manage the cabling behind the headlight than before. The plastic sheathing they have used looks incredibly cheap like the bike is a disposable item to be tossed after a year. Nice bike otherwise.
Love the rear fender.
I do like it, but it’s a tiny little thing. What’s the market target difference between a FZ-9 and FZ-10, or whatever it is?
I think the market in general is similar, but there’s a big price differential. The 9 can be had out the door for well under $10k; the 10 is starting at just under $13k. Add prep, freight, tax and you’re probably looking at $15k total. I’ll bet Yamaha’s “dream customer” would work their way up from the 7 or 9 to the 10, but disposable income is clearly one target difference.
Overall I like the looks of this bike. The license plate location, unsprung weight, etc., in the big picture, has a minuscule effect on performance. The rider and how they gear up has a much bigger impact. The cleaner boomless look as mentioned is nicer. I think the seat/subframe taper to the back of the seat is particularly well done. However, the passenger seat pegs look like they are removable. If so the little unit holding rear brake fluid is poorly located. The area under the front of the seat, where the rear subframe begins, could have been a very useful storage space with a little bit of work and a panel on each side to enclose this wasted area. Same with the area below the instrument panel/behind the head lights. A small enclosure/tiny flyscreen, color coded or black, would go a long way to cleaning up the look of this bike for very little cost or effort. Still, a very good job from my perspective.
that thing don’t look right but if you are into naked bikes probably not a bad choice, i think nakeds are too limiting
As Streetfighters go, I much prefer the appearance of Kawasaki’s Z900 to this garrish effort by Yamaha. At 425lbs wet, it’s certainly light enough though it appears that Yamaha cut some corners to get there. The bolt on headlight assembly looks unbelievably cheap, also way too many exposed screw heads.
I’m close to 60 years old and I like the new headlight much better than the previous version. Being an older rider doesn’t necessarily mean we all drool over retro bikes and hate anything with modern styling.
I don’t understand why Yamaha would go with such a polarizing headlight. Some people like it, but I think more people are going to dislike it. I just don’t see it helping sales. Didn’t we learn anything from the B-King?
They’ll mistake sales (because it’s a good bike) as approval of the headlight.
The evidence tells me that the manufacturers learned nothing from the B-King.
I do not like the headlights on the FZ10 why would I like them on the FZ09?
What is wrong with single round headlights?
Nothing…
That headlight, and the lack of passenger accommodations are big negatives for me. Otherwise I’m good with this baby.
I take it they have sorted out the fueling issues. No mention here.
From certain angles I sort of liked the old bike but not enough to want to buy one, even though that motor is fun. The new headlight isn’t doing it for me on this model either. It looks okay on the FZ-10 though. Also, I like the yellow wheels on the Intensity White version but everyone knows you’ll never keep the rear wheel clean.
Ugly… No wait… Its FUGLY…
Ugly as sin… No wait… Ugly as Satan…
Ugly Duckling… No wait… Ugly pig-ling…
Its a Japanese bike… No wait… Its a YAMAHA…
YAMAHA = UGLY…
R1 = Ugly… FZ07 = Ugly… FJ09 = Ugly… FJ07 = Ugly… FZ10 = UGLY AS SH!T…
What’s the matter Yamaha? Can’t let go of Jap Manga…?
Why anyone would want to add some unsprung weight to the rear wheel (fender) is beyond me….
Not a matter of “want”. There are rules in many countries defining placement of the license plate from the manufacturer. They have to do it. Whether the owner can change it depends on where they live.
It’s not required to attach the license plate to the swing arm. I’m pretty sure the convention is to attach it to the rear fender under the seat, just below the tail light. For some reason, Yamaha wanted to put a hole in the top of the rear fender, so much of a hole that the rear of the fender is no longer attached to the front of the rear fender. I gather this is to allow all the dirty water and road grime to get splashed onto the underside of the seat and some partially on the rider’s back. It’s a new trend..
They did it because they believed (know?) that the majority of purchasers of this bike only ride in the rain by accident and prefer the look of the cleaner tail instead of the more common “boom” plate/signal mount.
I’m guessing they a also tested this and found it to be effective enough.
I imagine the “kids” are still going to find a way to get rid of it and stuff the license plate up under the seat somewhere. Can’t imagine them running around with that thing on the back of their bikes.
Nice 850.
Sorry, have to disagree with the experts here but the old FZ09 looked pretty lame and plain. The new styling may be a bit “transformer-esque” but at least its as radical and wild as the bike is now. The first gen looked like an old school Yamaha Fazer. That name needed to die along with the styling!
There are plenty of used ones out there plus dealer stock of non currents if you want to ride the old tech / crusty styling of the first gen. Good on Yamaha for updating a popular and strong selling bike vs. just sitting on the sidelines. And with the numerous updates to the suspension/ TC/ styling at the same low price, this should be more than enough to fend off Triumph when they finally update the Street Triple to an 800 sometime very soon. This would be the no brainer over the Striple…675 or 800… its sure to have issues as with any of the new Triumphs. i.e. Tiger 1200/ Trophy 1200/ Bonnie family/ Thunderbird / Speed Triple 1050 etc etc
Bravo!
Great bike. Great motor. Great updates. Don’t let the comments from the usual nitpickers bother your enthusiasm. They’ll be asleep by 9pm after watching the Golden Girls and dreaming of Gs1000’s or R90’s.
Amen
It’s not nitpicking to bemoan the fact that FZ used to mean a useful half-fairing and now does not.
Really nice bike, I’m just not into Star Wars. Gotta go, Golden Girls is about to start.
What do you dream about Spiderwatts? The Suzuki B King?
Augh !! Are you psychic ??? Now I’m scared. Yes I love the BKing .:)
Fair enough, different strokes for different folks.
I l will take my GS as an 850, with shaft drive. Thanks
I owned and rode more late 70s/early 80s GSs than most dealers had on their floor: ’76 750 2v, 850, 1000S, 1100 4V, ’84 1150, ’82 750 4V 19″ front wheel, ’83 750 4V 16″ F wheel, etc.
Believe it or not, the ’76 750C (spoke wheel) might have been my favorite to ride. Of course the ’79 GS1000S looked best by a wide margin.
My imaginary best rider is this bolt-together hybrid: GS750 2V frame/bottom end/body parts (I like the up-curve at the end of the tail piece), OEM 850 cylinders/pistons/cams, 1100 alloy swing arm, ’82 1100 straight forks w/adjustable pre-load and rebound damping, 1000 spoke hubs w/F/R matched 19″ or 18″ alloy rims), 1000S graphics and fairing (but possibly red/black on white vs. blue/black on white).
The 850 is almost glass smooth (maybe smoother than the 750), much smoother than the 1000 (which is smoother than the 1100), and almost matches the 1000s power except for the topmost RPM.
I also had a 1000 w/Wiseco forged 1100cc kit, which made torque like it was going out of style. OEM 850 and 1000 cams are matched and tuned for mid range. Stock 1000 cams +10% displacement practically pulls the bars from your hands in the first two gears, but of course, w/huge noise and vibration penalty.
Man I loved my GS-850. I think it was an 82, but that was a long time ago. Rode it all over the east coast from Maine to Key West, but at around 50K she started to fade quickly, and I actually blew a hole through one of the exhaust valves. Was able to replace that valve but she was just getting old in too many places. What I often think of when someone says ‘motorcycle’.
I also had a GS850G. 81 Root Beer brown. Very competent motorcycle. Shaft drive, 5.8 gal tank, comfy ergos and seat. I thought it was just about the perfect size motorcycle. Those cheap chrome strips on the edge of the seat had a tendency to break off, but no biggie.
I’d buy a modern version of that bike so quick the ink wouldnt have time to dry on the check.
Also had an 83 GS1100E. Heck of a bike. Ended up giving it to my son when he turned 19. Now he rides an FJ-09 Yamaha.
That rear fender sub-assembly looks like socks on a rooster.
Bwahaha. Ok, I’m stealing this.
add an exhaust that will handle greater height, remove the headlight and go with a more traditional round look, get rid of that stupid looking rear tail section, and add a normal fender, not that plastic thing that looks like it doesn’t belong there and we might have a winner as long as the weight is kept sub 450. Besides the abs and the slipper clutch, I see very little.
I wonder if the lizard look is lighting up the sales charts for Kawasaki? At the risk of sounding like a proper geezer – YUCK! Kawasaki wrecked a nice bike like the Z1000 with these hideous headlights and now Yam has done the same to the FZ9. The new MT10 has the cross-plane engine (yeah) but they made it look like Wall-E. It’s really hard to believe that this is the direction styling is going for naked bikes….
Royal Enfield where are when we need you?
Bruce, that ex Kwaka Designer obviously got another job down at Yamaha but he has blown his cover wide open now.
As all “modern” naked, U-G-L-Y
Nice improvement,,, adjustable compression ,, rebound,, damping..preload..
ABS
Price will be higher but what do you expect. More for less money,, NOT going to happen.
I like it.
It’s a small step in the right direction.
Not a huge fan of the headlight assembly, but it does work better on this bike than the FZ10.
Looks like the headlight is cracking a smile from the side. They are going a little crazy with the angular stuff…..very transformer….ish.
It was already ugly as f**k, so this won’t be much worse. No word of lengthening the swingarm as per XSR900, to place more weight on the front end, improve rear suspension performance, and reduce inadvertent wheelies. This is a modern sporty style bike out of synch with the current hipster trend towards classic styling, wheezy engines and an aged appearance.
Lengthening the swing arm also give more acceleration. You’d think that would be more important than power wheelies that come on way too soon – Buellish.
That rear mudguard/plate holder thing is just as goofy on this bike as it is on the others I’ve seen it on. But better than an enormous thing dangling down from the tail, I suppose.
I don’t know why they don’t have a half-faired sport-touring version of this bike. I know, they have the FJ09, but I don’t really care for the look of it all that much, either from off the bike or sitting on it.
I’m not swapping out my FZ6 for any of these variants anytime soon. Maybe if they did what you describe.
FZ6 was the best out of them all for styling and ergonomics. Too bad reviewers down played them so much compared to the “more beginner-friendly” SV650 and Ninja 650.
Yep. I could use more/better power/suspension, but for the day to day it’s fast enough and suspended enough. I’m tall so I finally had a custom seat built up to take some kink out of the knees.
The FJ09 is a bit like the V-Strom 650. More fun to ride than to look at, I’ll agree.