YAMAHA TMAX TECH MAX RIDDEN YZF OF SCOOTERS!

We ride the Tech MAX variant of the Yamaha TMAX, a 560cc twin-cylinder scooter that proves sonot all scooters are made the same!

- SUNDEEP GAJJAR

I have been riding motorcycles for a long time now. In that time, I dipped my feet in the world of performance cars as well. In this pursuit of mine to travel the world and experience all sorts of automotive marvels that our world has to offer, I have travelled to 77 countries. For the most part, my motorcycling journey has consisted of high-performance motorcycles. There have been some anomalies as well. This... the Yamaha TMAX Tech MAX, is one of them.

Now, I have to review this... scooter. Call it Maxi or Mega, it is a scooter... right? Well, you will be forgiven (probably) for thinking that, no matter how big, it is still a scooter. Many motorcycling enthusiasts and self-proclaimed purists often share that point of view. For the most part, scooters are considered slow, boring, and, worst of all, 'not manly enough'. I have even heard one say that they wouldn't be seen dead on one of these things.

Before I say anything else, let me tell you that the TMAX is not slow or boring. And the pace it can maintain needs a bit of... balls to ride at. That hopefully answers the 'man enough' bit. This is a proper performance scooter and one that probably deserves its own category because it not only differs from traditional motorcycles but traditional scooters as well.

The TMAX was introduced by Yamaha in the year 2000. At the time, it was christened a mega-Scooter. Yamaha tried something similar earlier in the 90s- the YP 250, but the TMAX is what made mega-scooter an actual category. The idea behind it was that traditional scooters were not fast enough for the motorways of a fair few European countries. The TMAX was aimed at fixing that... and it did... and in style!