When someone says ?Supersport?, most of us think of screaming R6s, CBR 600RRs, ZX-6Rs and the like. Whether you?re riding them on the road, watching them race on the telly, or racing them yourself, 600cc Supersport bikes have been dishing out bucket-loads of excitement for as long as most of us can remember. But times change. And as far as new bikes go, the Supersport class isn?t really a class anymore; not in the UK anyway. Or maybe it is. Maybe we just need to have a rethink. Perhaps the Supersport class is being reinvented by bikes like this; bikes like the new Yamaha R7.

Now, everyone over 40 and some people over 30 will remember the Yamaha YZF-R7 back in 1999. Yamaha made 500 of these homologation specials so they could race them in WSBK. They were very trick and they cost a fortune. But don?t be fooled by the name, that?s not what the new R7 is.
So what is it" Well if you were to imagine an MT-07 with a fairing, you wouldn?t be a million miles away. The Yamaha R7 uses the same four-stroke, inline twin, DOHC, 4-valve, LC CP2 engine as it?s naked brother. It makes the same 73bhp (@ 8,750rpm) and 67Nm (@ 6,500rpm), too. The frame is effectively the same too ? a tubular steel setup with an aluminium backbone. There have been some changes to the geometry to make it feel a little sportier but nothing ground-breaking.

You do get fully adjustable 41mm upside-down KYB forks and a new link-mounted shocker, adjustable for preload and rebound damping. An...