My New TMAX

Thanks to the Columbus Day holiday, I was able to pick up my new Yamaha TMAX scooter. It's hard to believe the bike is a scooter. It has sport bike looks, handling and speed. The speed really surprised me. I was riding on Maryland 198 enroute to home and gave it a little gas. The next thing I knew, I was doing over 60 mph. Later, I took it up to 80 mph and, it didn't have any trouble at all with that. I suspect it could've gone a lot faster but, I wasn't up to it as I wasn't use to such speeds.

I did find 2 things that I wasn't thrilled about with the bike. First, it's tricky trying to open the storage compartment on it. I had to work the key repeatedly to try to get the compartment to open. However, I did find the compartment roomy. You can fit a full face helmet in there and a few other items. Also, it has a light the comes on so in the dark you can see what's in there. I thought that was a nice touch. Second, the turn signal doesn't appear to have any kind of clicker on it. The reason that's important is it reminds you have it on and to turn it off once you've made your turn. With it being so quiet, it's easy to forget you used the turn signal.

Overall, the bike is impressive. It has very good suspension which gives it a very smooth ride. It rides over 5 inches off the ground making it easy to pass over objects on the road as well as take tight turns. It has an excellent control panel with speedometer, trip meter, gas gauge, battery gauge and clock. It also offers a tachometer with the speedometer which is useless in my opinion since you don't have to physically change gears on this bike. Interestingly, you don't have to worry about when to get oil changes and other maintenance done. The bike is set up to where it flash various warnings when it's time to get things done like an oil change. That'll be a help. I haven't forgotten that I overlooked the oil change I was supposed to do on my Vino Classic scooter.

Anyone who is interested in a TMAX should see about getting the 2009 model. The 2010 will cost nearly $500 more and from what I've seen, there isn't any noticable difference between the 2 models barring the color offered. The 2009 comes in Dark Blue or Cadmium Yellow (for an extra $100) whereas the 2010 comes in Gray only.