2025 Yamaha MT07 First Ride and Review!

Howdy folks! Welcome to the review of the 2025 Yamaha MT-07. The darling little parallel twin motorcycle that started it all back in 2014. The spikes are peach and this one in 2025 has been updated quite a bit. You see it looks a little different. They got a new fork, new brakes, updated frame, new spring arm, new shock, new electronics. I mean Yamaha's really gunning for that king of the castle once again. And spoiler, I think they may have succeeded. This is a very, very put together motorcycle. I think it finally stops making as many excuses as it used to, right? This is now a much more refined, much better package. You see here on the frame, look at that. These welds here. This did not used to be like this on this motorcycle. Maybe some reinforcements and we'll see how that translates on the road. I did want to mention first and foremost, this is a giveaway bike on yammynoob.co. You guys know I give away motorcycles here on the channel. I've been doing it for years. I'm up to, I think, 55 motorcycles given away to fans of the channel. And that's how we support everything we do here to the amazing people on yammynoob.co. So become a member today, lock in your chances to win this machine. This is a short sweepstakes folks. This one actually will end on March 28th. You only have like three weeks to get to win this one. And then it's gone. We're doing a new bike every single month, this riding season in 25. So it's going to be a really fun time here on the channel, trying to get you guys the best, latest and greatest and most interesting motorcycles to give away. So head over to the website, become a member. You can also shop every dollar you spend is an entry to win subject to a multiplier as it has been for years. Let's swing a leg and let's get started. So proportionally speaking, the MT07 is very similar to how it always was. It is a very comfortable, upright, naked motorcycle. New for this model are these bars. They kind of come towards you a little bit. Now, I will say I would have preferred a more wider bar, a little bit flatter, a little bit wider. Um, I think the street triple sets the bar, no pun intended on what handlebars should be like. Uh, that's a pretty easy fix though. If you wanted to get some different parts of this thing, it's not a problem. We flick the key on bike. TFT comes to life. This new five inch display they're doing. Uh, I think this one debuted on the 23 models. They started doing this and then it got rolled out to this 25 model. But of course the new thing about this bike is that it has some electronics. It's got some updates and the strangest turn indicator system I have seen in recent memory. What the heck is this? Let's turn the bike on. Shall we? Ooh, burbles to life. Good old tried and true 689CC CP2. Reliable as all hell, baby. This thing does not break. I have never heard anybody having any issues with these CP2s. They're ridiculous. Let's get a quick sound check. It started the trend and it's still pretty damn good, folks. Clicking it down into gear, wanted to note that the, uh, MT07 has a 31.7 inch seat height. It is a very comfortable and approachable bike to sit on. Uh, I'm about 5'11". I weigh roughly 170-ish pounds. So for me, the preload is sitting perfect. I have both of my legs firmly on terra firma here. I can actually raise them up a little bit. I'm not, uh, too, uh, high up in the sky on this bike. This seat has a nice scoop to it. It's very narrow through the tank and you'll notice these little scoops right here. We're going to talk about those later in the ride because these actually add quite a bit to the riding experience. Oh my God, Yam, stop talking. Get to riding. Let's go, people. So before we start talking about this new bike, let's discuss what the MT07 used to be. The MT07, when it debuted, was the little brother to the FZ09. Yamaha was going through a new product cycle launch. They were phasing out the old FZ6. You guys might remember that one. That was a tried and true platform from back in the day. Kind of bringing things back up to snuff, bringing them more in line with what was going on in the late 2010s. Excuse me, early 2010s, not late 2010s. So this bike, not that it was introduced as an afterthought, but it certainly was never the motorcycle that Yamaha focused a lot of its effort and energy on. It was certainly the FZ09 that got all the attention. And you saw that through both their sales and also how many product cycles and updates the FZ09 received, while the humble little MT07 did not receive hardly any love at all. For many years, it was basically unchanged. It had the same LCD screen package. They inverted it for one year. It had the same wallowy front suspension, the same bad brakes, the same just kind of everything. And it's like, it's like the FZ09, which later became the MT09 here in America, was the golden boy. It was the chosen son. It got an updated engine, new frame, new design, all this stuff. And the MT07 is just like, yes, father, please, please somebody update me. And in 25, we finally got the update, man. And I'm really happy to report that this motorcycle now has most of what we asked for, man. So the first thing that really sucked on this bike, as I just flick it through some of these very nice little corners here, the first thing that really sucked on this motorcycle, it was never the power delivery. It was never this engine, which sounds just incredible, right? Front end got a little squirrely back there. There was never anything wrong with the engine. What was wrong with this bike for so long was the front suspension. It was wallowy. It was just way too soft and way too uncomposed. Everything was just wrong about it. And you could drop in a cartridge kit, you could adjust it, but, you know, not everyone's going to do that. You know, I think we get kind of lost in the sauce when it comes to motorcycling, where we think, oh, just completely modify the bike, and then it's going to be great. A lot of people barely do a slip on exhaust and call it a day on the motorcycle. So it's important that the bike works properly from the factory. And the front suspension on the MT-07 never worked properly, man. But this one, it's got a new 41 millimeter upside down KYB fork. It feels awesome, man. This suspension is so dialed in. It feels really, really damn good. It's super refined, super capable, much stiffer, much more composed, and it's everything that I wanted from the MT-07 in the first place. Because this bike is rad, dude. This bike works for so many different kinds of riders. It can work as someone's beginner plus bike. It can work as somebody's, you know, maybe a commuter bike if they're a little bit more experienced. Anyone can jump on an MT-07 and have a ton of fun with this thing, right? So that was awesome that they fixed the MT-07, made it so that people could really enjoy it. Anyone could enjoy it, right? It wasn't a motorcycle that had to make excuses now where it's like, oh, it's soft, but, you know, it's for beginners. It's kind of a, it's an entry-level bike. It's okay. It's okay if it's crap. No. Make the bike work well. And now it does. The front suspension works great. But that was not the only weak spot on the old MT-07, unfortunately. The other weak spot was the front braking system. It had these axle-mounted calipers. They were pinching some relatively small discs, if memory serves me correctly. They increased the disc size over time. But you now have on this bike proper radial-mounted brakes and a new upgraded master cylinder. This master cylinder is different than the one that they used to have. It's not radial pull. You guys can see that it pulls that way, right? It doesn't pull directly on the line of pull of the lever. So that's not the greatest, but you can't expect too much out of a bike whose price point is $8599, right? So front brakes are working much better. We'll stab them a little bit here. Plenty of stopping power. And you guys will notice in my first ride on track that's coming out later this week, the braking system did not let me down even on track, which is super impressive. Because that was the thing about the MT-07 that kind of stunk, man. You'd ride it on street and it was a peppy, fun, hooligan bike and all that stuff. And it did wheelies really great. However, like once you started pushing on it, once you started pushing on the bike a teensy bit, not even much, man, not even much, I'm talking like 5 tenths pace, you really started to feel it kind of fall apart. Everything kind of fell apart. Further down on the motorcycle, another thing that Yamaha did was made this frame more rigid. This is a 17% more rigid frame. As you guys saw that I pointed out here, towards the head of the motorcycle, we have some different welding, some different situations going on with the frame. I am not a motorcycle engineer, so I'm not going to be able to pretend like I know all the different frames and the lateral flexibility and the material selected and all that stuff. But I can safely report to you that in combination with this front suspension, the more stiff frame, a new swing arm, and a new rear shock, I can happily, happily report this motorcycle finally handles from the factory the way it always should have handled. I have virtually no complaints about the way the MT-07 handles, virtually none. It does exactly what I want it to do. It's not like, you know, some sort of telepathic race bike that's incredible or whatever, but it is vastly over capable for the majority of riders who are going to be on this motorcycle. Most riders who are going to swing a leg over this thing are intermediate riders, maybe some beginner riders, maybe some, you know, weekend warrior type of guys. This is not a super serious motorcycle, but it actually handles pretty darn well. It actually works pretty darn well. And one of the things Yamaha did on this bike that I was super happy with is keep the weight very, very low. This motorcycle weighs 403 pounds, wet and ready to ride, nearly sub 400 pounds. And I remember when the Tuono 660 and the RS660s came out, one of their biggest things was how lightweight they were, right? This motorcycle weighs about as much as an RS660, a Tuono 660, and it has a super reliable, fun, peppy motor that will happily churn for hundreds of thousands of miles if you really needed it to, easily tens of thousands of miles. That lightweight nature of the MT-07 gives it a totally unique feeling compared to its contemporaries, such as the GSX-8S, for example, right? That's a motorcycle that weighs, I believe, 440. It's a pretty portly motorcycle. And despite the GSX-8S having, you know, a bit more power, a bit more grunt. Yeah, baby. Despite the GSX-8S having a little bit more grunt, because this bike weighs 40 pounds less, everything just feels better about it. It handles better, it stops better, it turns better. And that's a superior feeling than just having a bit more torque or a little bit larger engine. You know, the Suzuki's is a 776cc motor. It's not even 100cc more than this engine. They feel functionally the same. It doesn't feel like the Suzuki is faster, really, than this bike. Now, I mentioned I wanted to talk about the scoops, talk about the engine, talk about the power, all that stuff. The scoops on this motorcycle are awesome. You get this really cool honking intake sound out of the machine. We'll drop down two gears here. We don't have to drop two, but we will anyway, just so you guys can hear it. We'll go between these two corners, let you hear it a little bit. Look at that. You guys hear that honk that it has. It's great. It has this nice, like, muscle car, kind of like, throaty bark to it. These have always sounded so good with the full exhaust, and they still do. They got a lot of character and charm, kind of like a V-twin, and it's certainly one of my favorite engines in motorcycling. It's really, really nice. Ooh, that's a nice sound. The MT-07 always felt playful. It always felt fun. It always felt like a fun, hooligan, playful bike. That character and quality is still here on this motorcycle. It still feels fun. It still feels playful, and I'm really happy they didn't try to make it super grown-up. It still is a fun, playful Yamaha. All right, moving on to some of the other points on this motorcycle. It now has a much more sophisticated suite of electronics. We're not talking 6-axis IMU. We're not talking, you know, super advanced electronics. Like, you might get on a 2006-60 or some other stuff. You have pretty rudimentary traction control via this nice 5-inch TFT display. You can go in in the menu and turn off stability control. You can decide if you want high level of TC, low level of TC. You have three different power modes, Sport, Standard, and Custom, or it's actually Sport, Street, and Custom. Excuse me. You know, this is a bike that, while it makes 75 horsepower and 50 foot-pounds of torque, having the ability to dial down the little bit is good for that beginner plus category, right? If you are the type of rider that is going to be coming at this thing without too much experience, it can be kind of a handful, man. These bikes are always kind of snappy, really torquey, lightweight, very easy to do wheelies with, and a ton of fun to ride if you're an experienced rider. But if you don't have that much experience, it can get a little dicey. A big talking point for me on this machine, because it now has some of these more advanced riding features, TC, traction control, as that's called, you know, different power modes, is the fact that it is now fully ride by wire. The old MC07s were one of the last bikes you could buy in this newer category of motorcycles. It isn't some, like, you know, grandfathered in dinosaur from the 80s or whatever, that has a cable throttle. I personally adore cable throttles. I love having a hard physical connection to the butterfly valve that opens and allows air into the engine. It's legitimately one of my favorite things on a motorcycle is to have that direct connection, and I really, really enjoy it. My Daytona has that direct connection, and it's just so special. It's so special to have a real visceral feel to the butterfly valve opening and closing, right? This bike has done away with that. One of my favorite things on the older MC07s was the initial snap that you got from the throttle. Because it was a cable throttle, it was super direct, super tactile, it was super dialed in. Because this is now a ride by wire system, I would rate it about 90% as good as the old one used to be. You kind of lost that, like, extremely tactile, snappy nature that it had, but it's done a really good job. It still feels really direct, really communicative, as you grab gears down yourself. It still works extremely well. The other interesting thing about the bike, because it now has ride by wire, is Yamaha sells the MT07 in a YAMT configuration. That's their automatic transmission. They're now promoting and pushing, trying to get more riders into the fold. It's just something I didn't really anticipate in the last few years, that so many manufacturers would be trying to pilot out their own automatic transmissions, but Yamaha's certainly trying it. One thing that's quite curious is that on this model, this manual version that I have here, you don't get cruise control. But on the YAMT version, you do get cruise control. One of the funniest things is that if you do the roll-off throttle on the manual version, which you would do to cancel cruise control on the automatic version, you can still do it. So they're obviously sharing parts and stuff, and it makes me think that you could have cruise control on this machine. I don't understand why it's not offered on this bike, necessarily. That may be something that is coming later in the future, but a giant missed opportunity, in my opinion, to make this motorcycle just a little bit better at that everyday kind of commuting vehicle, particularly because we don't get the Tracer 7 here in America, and I would really love if we did, because I think that's such a sweet bike that works really well for a lot of people. As you see here, you can just really flow with this bike, really ride it in such a beautiful way. It just works really nice, man. I guess you can chase down your local GTI on a fun twisty road. But yeah, this motorcycle works really, really well. It's surprising. I do wonder how the YAMT version would work. I guess I'm a curmudgeonly old fella, and I was like, nah, I don't want to get the YAMT, get the manual version to give away to the people on Yammy New. That would not be fun to give away an automatic bike, a purely automatic motorcycle with no clutch lever, right? That's kind of crazy. So cruise control, definitely a miss, in my opinion, to not have it. The other feature, I think, is definitely a miss that this bike doesn't have, is a quick shifter option. I don't remember exactly off the top of my head. It is possible that Yamaha offers a quick shifter option for the MT-07, but I don't think they do. I wish this bike just came with one just normally. I wish it had an up and down quick shifter as it came from the factory. Like, I think the GSX-8S has that, but this is cheaper than the GSX-8S, or maybe it's a similar price. I don't know. Suzuki's pricing's gotten a little crazy since they leased the $9,000 DRZ400, the new one. So who the hell knows what Suzuki's doing? I remember for years, I talked about wanting an MT-07 SP. I was like, give us an MT-07 that has R7 components. Give us the R7 front end, the R7 brakes, just dial in the frame a little bit. I was like, gee, I just think that that would be such a killer motorcycle. And this is about as close to it as we got, and this is really damn good. The fact that this bike gives me a sort of SP feeling over the old MT-07 is a massive improvement. Maybe we can get around this guy because he's going awfully slow. But yeah, you guys can tell here at this more fun street pace, just goofing around a little bit with the MT-07. It works super well, man. I removed the little hero globs on the passenger, or the foot pegs, and no risk of dragging any hard parts, no problems at all, man. Climbing up the hill here, on the brakes, transfer the weight up front, very nice. What's really neat about the MT-07 now is it's actually a very well-rounded motorcycle. I think if you were to get a little windshield on it, maybe put a tank bag on it, a tail bag as well, you could have a bike that you can go do at a track day, you can go take on a weekend trip, and a really nice commuter bike too. This motorcycle has a 3.7 gallon tank with an estimated 57 MPGs. I mean, you could probably see pretty close to 170, 180 miles on a tank, no problems. That's one of the benefits of getting this more little brother MT bike, is that it sips fuel, man. This bike, if you ride it really in more of an eco mode, you can really save yourself a lot of fuel on it. Everything just works really, really well on this bike. Oh, the one downside, I forgot to tell you guys. This has the new suite of electronics and all that. Obviously, one of the killer features of the MT-07 was you could do wheelies with it super easy, and it was super fun to do wheelies with it. This bike now, if you try to wheelie it, it does cut the front end back down if you try to lift the front wheel. You got to go in the settings and turn off the TC to do wheelies. You have to do that every time the bike turns on. If you turn it off, it goes back into a mode where it's going to have the TC or whatever. Something to think about. It's lost a little bit of that hooligan flavor because it no longer has that kind of thing where you're like, oh, you can just wheelie it whenever. You got to do that a little bit with it. Let's get some gas on this thing. We'll go into the menu here. I'll do vehicle function, stability control off. That's how you do it. You got a little TC thing that turns off there. As I mentioned, the turn indicators, one of the strangest I've ever seen on any new motorcycle. Certainly a thing that nobody asked for, but now you get. You get this weird auto-canceling thing where you don't have the little middle button anymore. It's very weird to move your hand and feel something jutting out there. That's your turn indicators. You get used to it. It's not a big deal. They are also self-canceling, which again, nobody really asked for, but Yamaha was like, ah, screw it. We'll just give you Harley-style self-canceling indicators. At least they're on the left side of the cluster and not on one on each side, like Harleys are, because I cannot stand that at all. You go here, you take a right seat, the little turn indicator turns on and then you got to cancel it. You go like that. They're auto-canceling, which is pretty cool too. Not too much to write home about that, but a bit of an odd system. You can change the displays to your heart's content as well. You have a couple of different options. I will say when you go into the display settings, which I can't do right now because I am moving and that makes sense. They just say like theme 1, 2, 3, and 4. There's no space between theme 1, those two words, and there's just like theme and then the number 1. It looks a little jank. This display is a teensy bit jank, if I'm not going to lie. It's not the nicest thing that I've ever seen, to be honest. I've seen displays that are way nicer and smoother and the Yamaha's is okay. In more normal suburban style traffic like this, I think the MT really shines, man. The fueling is really nice on-off throttle, so as I go here off the throttle and then back on the throttle, I get a nice hit of torque from about that 0% to 5% throttle input on it. It has a really nice way of, you know, you crack it back open and you can just feed a little bit more power into it. One of the, genuinely one of the nicest engines in motorcycling. I really love the CP2. The gearbox feels a little different than it used to. This may be because it's cross-platform now with the new automatic transmission, but the engagement on the lever and the way that it shifts down in the first does not feel like the old MT-07s used to feel like. It actually feels a little bit different and not for the better, if I'm not gonna lie. New slip assist clutch on this model as well, too, so if you wanted to slam down some downshifts on this thing while you're riding a little bit more aggressively, if you're not, if you don't perfectly blip the throttle, it will take care of you a little bit. You can let that out a little bit. You guys will see me work that on track quite a bit in the next couple of days. I've got the track video coming out pretty soon. Runs cool as a top, by the way. That's something that's really nice about a Japanese engine that is relatively under-stressed. You will never feel heat on this motorcycle. You'll never feel like it's producing too much heat or it's hopped up in any kind of way. It just runs butter smooth like a top. Front brake lever is adjustable. That's a nice touch that Yamaha gave for you there. I believe I've got it on the number three setting for my hand size right now. Feels really nice. Yeah, newer riders will definitely appreciate the lighter weight nature of this motorcycle. It just feels a little bit more manageable in all situations. Again, a hair over 400 pounds is a fantastic weight for a motorcycle. I really, really appreciate that. Let's go ahead and check out some slow speed manners on the MT-07. That always is important if you're looking at getting this motorcycle as part of perhaps your first bike or you just want to know how it's going to feel in parking lots and maybe tighter urban conditions. We'll come up here, see what the lock-to-lock is like on this bad boy. Over here, super, super tight. Look at that. Yeah, you can really get super tight on this bike. It's got a very generous lock-to-lock, honestly. Very, very generous. Let's see, I'll put it full lock for you guys. That's full lock right there. Yeah, it's got a really generous sweep to it. You guys see here, right there, it's right there. The MT-09 actually has a pretty shallow steering sweep. It's really not the nicest to use. Cable pull clutch, by the way, not a hydraulic system, but feels really good in combination with the throttle, new electronic throttle. Doesn't feel weird, doesn't feel bad at low speeds, man. It just feels just right. It's exactly what you'd want. You can feather the rear brake a little bit. All good, baby. Look at that. You could just dip this thing anywhere you need to go. We'll counter lean it a little bit. We'll do it like a police style. And we'll just crack a very tiny little wheelie. Yeah, tons of fun with this bike, man. It's just such a fun bike to lift the front wheel on. Super enjoyable. One of my favorite things to do with this bike is if you're on a nice, tight, twisty road and you're in second gear, if you have two corners you can link through, all you got to do is when you pick the bike up, you just flick the clutch, the front wheel comes up a little bit, you set it back down, you take the next corner. Oh man, it's so much fun just cracking the front wheel open a little bit, take the next corner. Super, super fun, man. All right, we'll pull in here, end the ride, stand up on the MT, slide the rear a little bit. I guess you could be a dirt bike if you wanted to, but I'd recommend the Tenere 700 for that if you're really looking at that. All righty, boys, wrapping up our thoughts on the venerable MT-07 here. What do I make of it? Damn fine little motorcycle, man. Damn fine bike. I think Yamaha really listened to the customers. I think they gave us what we want. It still has that peppy, effervescent flavor and character that the MT-07 always had, and it's just a riot to ride, man. I think it no longer really gives up much of anything, really. It handles well, it stops well, it's great around town, it's great on the twisty road. Put a little windshield on it, you could easily do a big weekend trip with it. What a flexible, fun bike. Tried and true platform right here, folks. This thing's never going to break. Yeah, dude, I mean, it's hard to say that this isn't just a fantastic motorcycle. I'm going to gather my thoughts and compare it thoroughly to all the competition. There's a lot of bikes this thing competes against, the Trident 660 being its number one competitor for sure, GSX-8S as well, number one competitor. But in a vacuum, riding it here around Austin, in nice hills, a nice day, a little bit of suburb action, a little bit of city, a little bit of street, a little bit of hill country. Dude, it's so good. It's really, really, really fantastic. Yeah, chapeau Yamaha. Definitely chapeau. This is just a sweet bike, man. I mean, you can't go wrong. I've said this for years about the MT-07. I'm like, you can't go wrong. And now I'm just going to recommend this thing even more because I don't even have to make any excuses for it. It now works so much better too with the MT-09 and the MT-07. They feel much more similar and part of the same family because the handling is so much closer. It's not like this is the weird forgotten little brother anymore. This thing has been properly brought up to snuff. I'd rate it a hard nine out of 10, man. It's a great bike. Really, really solid machine. Really fun to ride. So folks, that's going to wrap up the riding review. Remember, giveaway bike on Yamanoob Backhill. Come on, you already know the deal. If you made it this far in the video, I'll give you a pitch here, all right? Yamanoob is an independent media outlet. We are powered by the people on our website. We have thousands of members that allow us to give away so many bikes and keep doing what we do. We are not bought or owned by any corporations here, folks. No Rurak shilling, no Chinese e-bike reviews, no DGI camera reviews, baby. We do things the way we want to do it because we're powered by the people. So lock in at yamanoob.co, become a member, get your chances locked and loaded to win this bike. We're giving away a new motorcycle every single month this year. You're not going to want to miss it. Thank you so much for checking out today's video. I truly appreciate it. We'll catch you in the next one. See you later.