Yamaha YFM 700R Raptor – Road Legal Quad Bike
I had decided it was time to experience something that little bit special. With no time wasted I set out to try some of the higher end Quad bike and see how they fared both On Road and Off road.
Firstly when trying to decide which one I wanted to try I went and talked to a few of the people who have experienced Quad Bikes for many years. Once I had got all the basics of which ones to look at, off I went with my legal credentials so that I could test drive a couple of bikes to see what they were like.
Yamaha had only recently swapped the old 660 none fuel injection for the 700R fuel injected single overhead cam – and boy how different they would be when tested side by side.
The 660 I tried had done about 2000 miles and sounded like someone had thrown small stones into the exhaust system whilst it sat on tick over. But, as soon as you lifted the revs from the idle 800rpm that small tinkering noise disappeared.
I donned my helmet and gloves and off I went, rolling tamely down the road to get a feel of the response, handling and general road holding of the bike. First impression was that it felt very soft and moved around on the front end a fair bit, but this could be rectified for sure, and for only a few pounds.
Having gone through some lanes and over a couple of fields I found it was great fun, had all the guts needed and did run very well on different surfaces.
Within an hour I was back at the dealership begging for the 700R as my thoughts were very much: “Given the small faults I had found, they would have managed those easily on the new model!”
Wrong!
The engine did sound remarkably different and, had only covered about 300 miles less than the 660 I rode earlier. Again, slid on my lid and off I went taking the same route as earlier.
Oh my god, Yamaha had done something wrong surely – this Quad Bike had the handling like Bambi on Ice!
It was awful to ride in a straight line and needed some serious modifications to keep it from snapping at the front and directing me into the side of the road – surely this had been adjusted wrongly and the apprentice had set the tracking wrong?
It appeared not to be the case. After returning to the dealership I talked seriously with the technical guys and they confirmed the horrible nature of the handling and told me to try a “modified” version to get the true feel.
luckily, one was at hand and within minutes I was back off and testing something which looked the same yet probably looked a little lower – but that was it.
This was so different, you pointed it and it went the direction you wanted it to. How amazingly different from my earlier experience, this bike didn’t leap around and was far more stable on the road plus, you could feel the front end lifting as you accelerated away.
Off road was a complete hoot, you had the feeling of complete stability when pushing the back end out as you turned and with no fear it would lift on one side.
My mind was made up, I returned to the dealer and placed my order that day. These are the modifications that were done to the test bike I took out:
* Both the front and read shocks had been wound in nice and tight so there was very little rebound .
* Two inch spacers had been placed on the back wheels creating the stability
* Both the front and read suspension had been dropped by three inches. This was what stopped the front end from grabbing the tarmac so heavily making it feel like you were going into the ditch>
The total cost of the adaptations was just short of 180GBP – and probably the best money I could have spent on the bike.
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Tags: bikes, helmet, legal quad bike, off road, quad bike, quad bikes, road legal quad, road legal quad bike, wheels, yamaha, yamaha yfm 700r, yfm 700r, yfm 700r raptor