Suzuki Volusia 800
SUZUKI VOLUSIA 800
Quick Ride
Cruising on the cheap
IF CHROME WERE PLUTONI-um, Daytona Beach would have reached critical mass
and been blown off the map a long time ago.
But chrome, attached as it is to so many kicked-back cruisers, is in fact quite stable, so Daytona is just fine. Good thing, too, or else Suzuki would have had a hard time introducing its new middleweight cruiser, the Volusia. Why? The bike takes its name from Daytona’s home county, and Hamamatsu wanted to introduce the bike there during Bike Week 2001.
As you can plainly see, the Volusia’s silhouette is Daytona de rigueur in all its retro-look fat-fendered glory. And although the middleweight Suzuki has the overall physical presence of a big V-Twin, it’s big only in image-the Volusia uses essentially the same liquid-cooled, eight-valve, 805cc V-Twin powerplant as its stablemates, the Intruder and Marauder 800s. So, residing in the long, 65.2-inch wheelbase is a snappy, 45-degree Vee-motor, but with altered
cylinder heads (to get the exhausts to exit on the same side) and a single downdraft carburetor rather than the dual mixers fitted to its brothers.
Despite being “tuned for torque,” the Volusia is nonetheless
a vigorous runner that doesn’t wheeze if you ask it to rev. The main complaint is lean carburetion; it’s a long time after cold startup before the engine stops spitting back through the carb. Once warm, the bike runs well, but still with a hint of leanness, although not so bad as to be a true rideability issue.
In fact, overall rideability is quite good. The seating position is comfortable, and the suspension has nicely tuned damping for a decent ride. The singleshock rear setup is plush within the short-travel cruiser realm,
and offers stepped spring-preload adjustment. A single front disc and rear drum slow the 526-pound machine.
On our 130-mile press jaunt, the Volusia go’d and slow’d in a wholly untroubling manner. It even incorporates a few niceties cruisers sometimes don’t, as in a steering-head-mounted ignition switch that incorporates a steering lock (no hassling with separate keys/locks), dual tripmeters and a clock.
Overall, then, a good, functional motorcycle that compares favorably with other manufacturers’ offerings in the class, both in terms of performance and in price. At $6599, the Volusia costs $600 more than Honda’s Shadow ACE 750, but $400 less than Kawasaki’s Vulcan 800 Classic.
To meet that pricepoint, however, the Volusia has many cheap plastic covers, not to mention plastic fenders. In addition to bogus frame sideplates, there’s a black-plastic half-tube on the drive-shaft side meant to mimic a frame member for that hard-tail look. Yikes! Such fakery is not without precedent, and most cruisers have these “beauty panels,” but we’ve seen better execution.
So, cheapness is both the Volusia’s failure and its success. It’s a good motorcycle at a good price, albeit one that’s a little too obscured by what it’s trying to be.
Mark Hoyer
