Few other bikes released for 2018 are as intriguing as the Yamaha Niken. The three-wheeled enigma is in uncharted waters, combining its leaning trike layout with performance that would have been class-leading for a superbike not so long ago.
What we can expect to pay for the MT-09-based three-wheeler? Uk price is £13,499.
Normally, it’s easy enough to guess a ballpark figure for a new bike’s list price before it is announced. Simply look at the competition. But the Niken has no competitors – at least not yet.
Will it mimic the MT-09, and come in at a surprisingly reasonable cost? Or will Yamaha be forced to price it high to recoup development costs from its sales?
We now have a hint that the latter option might be more likely, as Yamaha’s distributor in Hong Kong has put a price of $HK168,800 on the Niken over there. In Australian money, that’s $28,426.
While that seems a lot, it’s worth mentioning that bike prices in Hong Kong are always high, so we don’t expect the Niken to cost quite that much in Australia.
For example, in Hong Kong a Yamaha R1 costs $HK198,000 – equivalent to $A33,344 – but over here it is priced 28 per cent lower at $23,990.
Even if the Niken’s cost in Australia is 20 per cent less than the Hong Kong figure, we might expect a price of around $23,000.
However, even with that knowledge, it’s hard to know whether the Niken is cheap or expensive.
By Ben Purvis
