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I think Yamaha were still sulking about two strokes being phased out but deciding it was better to be seen in the game rather than be forgotten. I seem to remember that both the 250 and 500 twins tended to be a bit heavy and vibey?
And the 2 strokes still had more than a decade of astonishing development and exciting biking in them before finally being phased out... starting with the iconic LC and then it’s YPVS derivatives before finally bowing out with the parallel twin TZR’s in the UK... By that time the R1 was in the pipeline so not much reason for Yamaha to be sulking as far as producing exciting performance motorcycles is concerned
It's one of those bikes that seems to be missed in terms of appreciation as game changer. The motor is absolutely jewel like inside, a real masterpiece. It's not generally known that Yamaha consulted on 4 stroke cylinder head design for quite a few of the mainstream motor manufacturers in bringing aluminium multi valve heads through r&d stages.