A Naked Version Of The R3 Is Coming And It's Going To Be Amazing

Hold the presses, Yamaha is coming out with a naked bike based on the R3?! For anyone who follows the motorcycle industry or new model releases, the only surprise here should be that this hadn't actually been confirmed yet. For those of you who this is news for, let me tell you about an amazing little sportbike that's about to have a more comfortable sibling.

Picture all of this awesomeness...but naked. No, not me, the bike.

The Yamaha R3 is a 320 cc, parallel twin motorcyle that was released by Yamaha earlier this year. I did an in-depth review, but the jist of my findings was basically that it was an awesome motorcycle for n00bz and experts alike. The twin engine means it has low vibrations compared to the Honda or KTM. The slight bump in size means it feels like it makes significantly more power than the Kawasaki. It has all the best qualities of the Honda and the Kawasaki, while also having the best finish of the bunch and roughly the same price. Sounds like a winner, right?

In addition to coming out with the R3 last year, Yamaha has been on a tear of releasing naked bikes. The FZ-09 and FZ-07 have both been massive hits, and Yamaha recently announced they'd be releasing a MT-25 (Yamaha use the moniker MT in the rest of the world for what we here call the FZ) in emerging markets.

Now, with the MT-03 confirmed, the only thing left to see is if Yamaha will bring this bike to the U.S....which they will. Honda's CB300F does well here, and the KTM Duke 390 has received exceptional reviews. Yamaha already has a chassis and engine that have passed even California's standards – it just has to happen. It will likely cost several hundred dollars less than the fully faired R3, and hopefully be announced next month at EICMA.