Motorcycle tests at motorradtest.de

Test: Yamaha SCR 950 (Baujahr 2020)

Kleiner Rabauke

04.03.2020

Photos: Motorradtest.de

Yamaha also wants to get a piece of the cake: In order to benefit from the trendy, heavily sold scramblers, the Japanese sent the SCR 950 into the race. With an unusual announcement, because the Yamaha is by far the weakest scambler in the field. Can this work?

Nothing for the terrain

But this is not the only special feature of the SCR: Scramblers are the early form of the road-approved enduros, and as such the French (yes, sometimes not the Amis) screwed a wide handlebar, longer spring travels and stud tires to the bike in the 60s. The SCR has all this, but actually a Scrambler also includes a high-end exhaust system – Yamaha does not do that for whatever reason. Still, it looks good.

It is not a complete new construction, because it is based on a cruiser, the XV 950 R. This is also unusual, because it entails two things: a high weight of 252 kilos, which is obstructive at the latest in off-road. After all, Yamaha doesn't even claim that its model is capable of heroics off paved roads. The second gift of the Cruiser lineage is the low engine power of only 54 hp.

The SCR eludes a scheme

If you would like to ride motorcycles with proper schmackes, this is wrong. This is astonishing because the competition from Ducati Scrambler has at least 75 hp, BMW puts a whole on it with the R NineT Scrambler and 110 hp.

Sure, the BMW stands for over 13,000 at the dealership, while the Yamaha costs only 9,895 euros. Only? Well, the Ducati with 75 hp does not cost eight thousand.

Astonishing is an inappropriate style element of the Yamaha: most competitors also pull the retro look through in the cockpit and install instruments that look at least older. Yamaha has chosen a mixed form: the classic round central element has a small rectangular LC display. What this is supposed to do has eluded our knowledge.

So there is little of the paper form, which really excites. But the decisive factor is, as we know, on the street, so let's exchange theory for practice .

Driving fun despite low performance

It is quite astonishing: Even if the author of these lines never objected to much and even more PS, the SCR does not necessarily have the desire for more steam. So far, there has only been one motorcycle that was the same: the cute Honda CMX 500 Rebel with 46 hp. The Yamaha has two reasons for performance satisfaction: On the one hand, the large V2 produces a hefty 97.5 Newton metres at 3,000 rpm, which pushes the whole car forward decently. And secondly, it's just not a motorcycle that encourages fast-driving. But not at all. Although you sit a whopping 14 centimetres higher than the Cruiser XV 950 R (seat height: 830 millimeters), this does not lead to an animating driving style. If you want to let it crash, you will leave a lot of scratches in the asphalt, as the SCR sets up very early with the footrests, which is uncritical.

In short, the Yamaha brakes and steers and flashes and springs neatly, but basically it is a cruiser in half a Scrambler look. You would attest to her the appropriate proper driving comfort if, yes, the seat were not so hard. Slightly more sporty than the starting point is the SCR yes, but please not too much.

It's a cruiser

Last but not least, You can believe Yamaha 100 percent – in the off-road it can do almost nothing better than normal bikes. The tyres (Bridgestone TW 101 in front and TW 152 in the rear) are already facing greater ambitions.

What remains: The Yamaha SCR 950 is a Scrambler-style cruiser. That's not a bad thing, but most of the extra goes into optics – and it must be worth it.

Vergleiche die
Yamaha SCR 950
mit anderen Motorrädern