Mincehead wrote:You really want to know?
In my opinion by fitting cheap forks,seriously undersprung and underdamped.Although the TRX package couldn`t possibly be termed `wrong` it was compromised by Yamaha`s penny pinching.
Why they couldn`t have fitted the YZF forks and possibly brakes too as stock must only be down to budgets,after all I can`t imagine the cost differences to the factory being massively different.I think the design team and engineers were given too stringent a budget to work with myself,a little more free reign would have produced a TRX stunning in every aspect,a Ducati beater on all points.
It's just JDM syndrome. Japanese vehicle manufacturing relies to some significant degree on high implicit barriers to imports combined with import substitution. When foreign vehicle manufacturers produce a desirable piece of design or engineering, Japanese consumers are not able to buy it due to the huge barriers to entry into the market. If demand warrants it, a rip-off will be produced. So in the last ten or fifteen years, to take but three examples, they've done Volvo 850s (90s touring cars), new Minis and new Beetles.
This sort of makes sense given that the Japanese are the ultimate commodity fetishists - fashions and fads spring up somewhere near Harajuku and last about 20 minutes, during which time they're ruthlessly commercially exploited (usually because the people selling the product created the fashion or fad in the first place).
If we set the OVER bikes aside, the TRX was designed at a time when Ducati was newly-resurgent after the 4-valvers Raymond Roche and the 888, there was a corresponding interest in twins 'period' due to the spanking 4s were getting in WSB and there was a burgeoning interest in retro biking. If you look at the JDM TRX in profile (red *cough*), you can clearly see 851 and 900SS CR. Unlike the VTR or the TL (or TL-R, or RC51), which were machines for the speed-addled export markets of the US and UK (and western Europe, to some degree) the TRX was designed to sell Japanese consumers pseudo-eyetie twin-cylinder retro-framed motoring to suit the tastes of the moment.
IOW, the TRX wasn't designed to succeed as a bike, it was simply a place filler for the 851s and 900SSs that the Japanese couldn't get hold of (for less than a fortune). Which explains why things like suspension, brakes and tyres were left out of the equation. And arguably the engine, since they simply robbed a design based on the 80s-tastic XTZ. OVER again notwithstanding. It was then thrown into the export market because Yamaha couldn't or wouldn't invest time and money in a performance twin (having just started out with the YZF750), but needed to have something to sell when the UK market was mad for twins.
Obviously, modern engines burn fuel much more efficiently though...
