Just before the end of the '90s I bought a brand new Yamaha R6. Manufacturer stamped designation and date on the chassis was 1998 YZF-R6, but in Australia it was sold to me and registered/insured as a 1999 Yamaha YZF600 R.
My first YZF-R6
This bike was brilliant. It was a rocket ship, accelerating almost as quickly as the previous generation of litre bikes, yet out-handling and out-braking them... it was the start of a love affair with the little Yam. It took me a year to work out how to tune the suspension, and another year to work out that Dunlop tyres were terrible.
Roll on several bikes and 14 years later I was looking for a bike that would get me to work and be a bit of fun on the weekends. I had a budget of $5,000 Aussie dollars and it had to be a quality bike that I wouldn't hate after a few weeks. I found a gem of a bike for sale, advertised for $5,200. I would negotiate the price to $4,900.
Instagrammy photo of the new bike the day I took delivery
But what was so attractive about the 2005 R6? It's a strange beast indeed.
The fact the 2005 R6 is a bitsa (bitsa this, bitsa that), is a double edged sword. On one hand it shares ergonomics with the more comfortable earlier R6s* with clip-ons mounted above the triple clamp, and shares many of the performance features of the '06 R6 (USD forks, radial brakes, stiffer chassis, larger throttle bodies). On the other hand, many parts suppliers seem gun shy when it comes to listing the 2005 R6 in their compatibility charts, despite their parts often working perfectly fine on this bike. Buying after market parts requires a little research and planning... an example of this is the Givi/Kappa Tanklock line of tank bags. The 2005 R6 is not listed, but given Yamaha use many of the same parts across multiple bikes, I ordered the BF-05 tank ring for my bike because that ring fits other 5-bolt tank filler assemblies in the Yamaha range. It fits perfectly.
2004 R6
2005 R6
2006 R6
In the USA Yamaha offered the YZF-R6S alongside the YZF-R6 from 2006. Perhaps Yamaha USA considered the 2006+ R6 too track focused, and so they continued the commuter friendly R6S. It could be generalised that the 2006 - 2009 R6S is the continued manufacture of the 2004 R6, since the R6S shares it's parts list with the 2004 R6.
2006 R6S
In any case, I have long considered the 2005 R6 as the best 600 Yamaha ever made. Comfortable enough to be a realistic street bike yet modern enough to offer decent performance.
* Plural of R6, as opposed to R6S.
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