Our love affair with the admittedly uncool Yamaha XV has come to an amicable end. I don’t see us buying up any more of them for Classification, but the last few in the line have been kind of a blast. Like this one. Built for Kristian Niemi — an amazing chef and owner of BOURBON (bourboncolumbia.com) and ROSSO TRATTORIA (rossocolumbia.com) in Columbia, South Carolina, the old 920R got the Level 3 treatment and is ready for adventures on or off the road. We took our standard front end swap a step further and fitted spoked supermoto wheels front and rear. The stock XV swing arm is retained, but we upgraded to a tasty Progressive Suspension 465 shock with Remote Adjustable Preload. Some chunky tires, a cool old leather seat and a repurposed cargo basket complete the vibe. Look for Kristian running his culinary errands on this beast down south.
