ONE of the biggest news stories of the last 12 months was Kawasaki announcing a return to the 250cc, four-cylinder sports bike arena with the ZX-25R. Now though, it seems that Yamaha may also be working up its own 250cc four-cylinder sports bike, in the form of a YZF-R25M.
Yamaha Tricity video review
There’s no official confirmation of the machine from the factory, although the rumours are beginning in Indonesia, the target country for Kawasaki’s ZX-25R and likely a target for other manufacturers 250cc sports bike offerings.
Yamaha is not the only manufacturer looking to jump on this diminutive bandwagon, with Honda also being reported to be working on a CBR250RR-R featuring a multi-cylinder 250cc engine.
If Yamaha does indeed go ahead and build the bike, it’s likely the machine will be a high spec, track-oriented motorcycle, with the ‘M’ part of the name signifying the top-spec version of the series. It’d also make sense for Yamaha to produce a more street focussed bike once the ‘M’ version is launched.
Where the Yamaha YZF-R25R be sold?
Sadly, for European-based fans of tiddly sports bikes, most of the manufacturers looking to produce them are not eyeing the European market, it’s the lucrative Asian market that is catching their eye. Countries like Indonesia and even New Zealand.
In the case of the ZX-25R, Kawasaki has stated that other markets can and will be added once the initial launch is over. It’d take some pretty meteoric sales over here though for any of the manufacturers to actually go into full-scale production that included UK and EU sales. And given that the arse fell out of the 600cc sports bike market a few years back, the chances of a smaller bike with a weaker engine making headway over here are slim to none.
