IMAGES: ADRIAN MYERS PHILIPPA GEDGE NEIL JONES JEFF TURNER
The excitement of buying a new Yamaha YZF- R1M is naturally all encompassing – so perhaps it’s understandable that the little baubles that come with the bike are forgotten about when you’ve got a shiny new machine to play with.
For a start, the process of buying an R1 with the subtle suffix is a little out of the ordinary. To order one you had to go onto a special website to register your interest, before your local dealer rolled out the red carpet and invited you to come in and sign on the dotted line. That’s what 85 or so customers did in the UK last year, within hours of the website going live, easily fulfilling the UK’s quota of bikes – and leaving many of Yamaha’s more minted fans disappointed with no R1M to show for their efforts.