For the Yama-faithful, the Viper’s ergonomics will either freak you out or induce euphoria. Your pick.
With the exception of the Nytro and Phazer, Yamaha’s current fleet of sleds are rider forward compromises.
The Viper is a full-on, built-from-the-ground-up rider forward chassis positioning the rider tall in the seat, knees bent, ready to stand with feet tucked in the stirrups.
This is a comfortable place to work and ranks, in our opinion, as one of 2014’s best cockpits.
We could gripe about the outward curve on the key panels as they make contact with your knees when running bumps but it isn’t really that big a deal.
Handlebar height and bend is perfect with your hands falling nice and level when gripping the integrated hooker bars. Switchgear is clean, simple and lacks only a left side toggle to control instrumentation.
Reverse is pushbutton activated on the throttle block and will likely bring tears to the eyes of Yamaha types frustrated by the recalcitrant mechanical shifter on most other Yamaha sleds.
The gauge package is impressive and offers much more info than any other Yamaha to date.
THE ABOVE IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE UPCOMING ISSUE OF SUPERTAX (AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 4, 2013)
