I started to ride this now ultra-rare but still loved by hundreds of riders all over the world, “Yamaha SRX” six months ago, and found out that there was a solid reason why this bike is still so timelessly beautiful.
It was designed by Mr. Ichijo@ GK Design. That's why.
Thanks to Facebook, (yes, there is still something to thank Facebook every now and then) and Mr. Takita who owns a red one, I had a chance to hang out with the creator of my amazing bike over the weekend.
Story was simple enough. He and his team set out to built a bike they wanted to buy and ride themselves. NO compromise. Not a copy of British single-piston bike design and had to reflect the art of Japanese sensibility. In a nutshell, It had to be new, original yet beautiful in a sense that will become a future single-cylinder sports bike heritage originated in Japan.
All this against the backdrop of the usual Japanese corporate bureaucracy, and the racer-replica craze that was going around that time, It is simply amazing that Mr. Ichijo managed to convince people at Yamaha by his vision and design that this bike HAD to be made.
Here is a short clip I made from the trip. Didn’t have much time to shoot and it rained all day the next day so couldn’t shoot much but I decided to add the phrases from the original Japanese catalogue, along with the principles they had when they were working on this project. Some of the sentences were bit tricky to translate not just because of the language, but because it is so 80s😝,
I personally like the last line from the catalogue, “ For the few who feel the same...” 😊
Shot on Osmo Pocket and Edited on Luma Fusion on my iPad mini.