The Power of Change
The Power Of Change
Large-caliber cruisers battle on all fronts
MARK HOYER
SUPER CRUISER shootout
END OF YOUR ROPE? I AM. JUST WHEN A GUY STARTS TO get comfortable with a nice. cozy set of half-baked certitudes—cheeseburgers are healthy, beer is food, the controls fall readily to hand and stock, V-Twin mega-cruisers make SS horsepower—something comes along to shake up the psyche and turn everything upside down.
The first indication that things were getting weird was when J heard this great sucking noise and a huge lowpressure zone was recorded in our area. And I wasn’t even asking the boss for a raise! The cause was, in fact, my first full-throttle blast on Honda's large-lunged VTX1800, its pair of 900cc slugs pounding out power like no Big Twin before. The vacuum was filled by tire smoke and giddy laughter.
Slightly more calming, if only for the fact that it is the closest of any of the bikes here to what we’ve come to expect from the word “cruiser," was Kawasaki’s sweet Mean Streak. Its clean silhouette, great brakes and plush suspension are mated to the most powerful 1470cc Vulcan engine ever, making it one of the nicest cruiser t ides going. That little bout wdth mental comfort didn’t last, though. Harley-Davidson’s dohc, liquid-freakin’-cooled highrevving V-Rod made sure ofthat. Stunning, cool-metallic sty ling and 108 bhp from the world's most successful purveyors of pushrods? Crazy times, my friends!
The final whack on the brain was Yamaha’s Road Star Warrior, an air-cooled. 1670cc V-Tw in that uses H-D’s discarded pushrods to make actual booming blipbone stock-one big. bad combustion event at a time. Add in an aluminum frame disguised to look like steel, and, well, call Nurse Ratchet and please prepare the cuckoo's nest: The cruiser world's gone power mad, and taken us w ith it.
In an attempt to rein in some kind of sanity, we set out to forge new ground in the testing of these new pow ercruisers. Which means that in addition to the usual measures of acceleration and braking performance, Road Test Editor Don Canet also devised a timed Handling Course meant to mimic street-riding speeds and cornering attitudes. Lap times, yes, but ones that will give you some indication how long it w ill take to reach your next cold one, not the checkered flag.
And knowing that you don't always w ish to travel alone to the next whistle-wetting stop, we brought in our favorite covergirl, model Leeann Tweeden, for some backseat time on each bike-a passenger’s eye view of the latest upholstered cruiser software.
Cruisers are as much a visual medium as they are a dynamic one, so in addition to gauging the usual man-inthe-street reaction to the new crop of high-style super-cruisers, we also enlisted the critical eyes of students from the prestigious Art Center College of Design, the very people who’ll be turning out the cars, bikes, toasters and TVs we’ll be buying in years to come.
But before any of this other data gathering and bike testing, we hit the road for three days of intense big-bore cruising to get in touch with the day-to-day ways of each of these machines, from dodging bullets on L.A. freeways to dodging pedestrians on Main Street to dodging deer in the mountains. We went fast, we went slow, we drag raced each other, dragged hard parts and dragged knuckles. We posed for photos and we posed on Main Street as we cruised through small-town California.
But we are riding people, happiest out on the road. Our first morning’s launch almost turned into lunch, so we merged onto the San Diego Freeway in light, late-moming traffic. We just motored along, generally contented looks on our faces. Except there was always this gleam in the eyes, a hint of madness brought on by an excess of horsepower. These really are better motorcycles by virtue of the simple fact that the engines really run. Even the least powerful bike in the group, the Mean Streak and its 64 horsepower, is lively and entertaining to ride. Definitely not the liveliest or most entertaining, though. Ridden by itself, you might never know what you were missing, but back-to-back with the booming Honda and Yamaha, or the strangely screaming Harley, the Streak just felt weak.
Fifteen more horsepower and an equal dose of foot-pounds, and Kawasaki would be right in the hunt. You can get this power in the aftermarket, and as the cheapest bike here by a thousand bucks, you’ll have the money left over to try. But should you have to?
Riding the other three bikes makes you think you shouldn’t. The Yamaha isn’t quite up to the torque-monster Honda at low rpm, but revs more freely. Both are arm-stretchers of the highest order, with awesome, immediate lunge.
The irony here is that both engines slam into their roughly 5000-rpm rev limits before the Harley even starts making real thrust. This 60-degree, VRIOOO-derived powerplant wails! It’s smooth and good running at low rpm (it’s just about perfectly fuel-injected, as are all the bikes), then comes on like a superbike, running vibe-free through the whole rev range. You just can’t believe you’re riding a Harley.
You are reminded of its Harley-ness, however, by the extreme forward footpeg placement. The handlebars, in contrast, feel relatively close. This combination, plus windblast at highway speed (particularly bad for taller testers) made open-road work and longer runs in the saddle a bit of a challenge, as was the case on all the bikes. The Yamaha, too, with its long reach forward to very wide bars and high pegs, made a big parachute out of you. “I felt like a human C-clamp,” remarked one tester after a stint at speed on the Warrior.
The Honda was better, by virtue of its lower footpegs and closer bars, but you’re still catching wind. The Kawasaki, meanwhile, with more narrow-feeling drag-style bars and similar-to-Honda footpeg placement, was the least punishing highway cruiser. “If somebody told me I had to ride to Yuma tonight, this’d be the one,” Editor Edwards remarked of the Kawasaki.
That said, you still won’t want to plan any coast-to-coast trips in this crowd-at least not ones on which you wish to travel faster than 65 mph.
Sub-65 is, of course, these bikes’ element. Actually, they’re all about zero to 65! Although the Kawasaki was the least powerful, it actually was the nicest ride overall. Its light clutch pull (equaled only by the Honda in this group) and sweet-running engine work in concert with a perfectly neutral chassis to make low-speed maneuvers and mild-mannered twisty road riding brainlessly easy. It is the least compromised by its cruisemess in this regard. Bumpy corners taken at a footpeg-scraping pace upset the soft-suspended Kawasaki some, but the otherwise smooth ride makes this seem like a reasonable compromise. Also, the Vulcan is shaft-driven, as is the Honda, and you know it when romping on (or shutting abruptly off) the throttle on either bike. This obviously wasn’t an issue on the belt-drive Yamaha and Harley.
Ultimately, the Mean Streak felt the lightest (even though it’s the second heaviest). The heavyweight Honda, meanwhile, surprised us with how light and near-neutral its steering was, but you never forgot you were riding a big motorcycle. Of course, these all are big motorcycles, only the V-Rod squeaking (barely) under 600 pounds without gas. It is, however, some 130 pounds lighter than the VTX!
One of the biggest revelations of this test was the backroad prowess of the V-Rod. Surprising that it turns so well, considering the bike’s style-conscious front end has a 34degree steering-head angle, made even more extreme by the beautifully polished triple-clamps that hold the fork tubes at 38 degrees. So, the Harley tends to fall into corners at low and high speeds alike. Plus, most complained of a vague feel from the front contact patch. Still, you grow accustomed to sort of letting the bike tip itself into the corner, then using the ample power to pull you back upright on exit. Damping was decent, although the rear shocks are the harshest here. Cornering clearance, meanwhile, was much better than expected.
No match for the Yamaha, though. Even with its higheffort steering and tendency to stand up in turns, the fattired Warrior was the sportiest of the group. The front end feel was excellent, and the bike felt the most rigid and of-apiece. It had the stiffest-feeling springs, and so ride quality suffered a bit, but you could actually corner. It’s a compromise a sporty rider would want to live with. About the only suspension performance complaint was that the single rear shock (the only mono in the group) could have used more rebound damping.
Gas stops revealed two convenience losers: The V-Rod and the VTX. The Harley’s underseat gas tank filler means you
dismount, no matter what, and to make things worse it proved virtually impossible to fill without gas puking out of the filler. The Honda, meanwhile, has a non-hinged gas cap, meaning you must remove it completely and set it aside whilst pumping. Not the end of the world, but what’s wrong with a hinge? The irony here is that it’s these two bikes on which you’ll have to stop for gas most often-low-fuel lights illuminated first on the Harley and Honda every time, often before even 80 miles were on the clock. King of Range was the Kawasaki. Credit its 4.5-gallon tank and its top fuel economy figure of 35-mpg.
Perhaps you’re more concerned with looking cool? Judging by public reaction, the Harley was King of Cool. Young women to old men, regardless of race or creed, the V-Rod was The One. It was as though the other bikes were slathered with invisibility paint. Time will tell whether this is a function of newness, or of greater, more lasting aesthetic properties. Get one now, though, and watch the crowds form.
But this section isn’t about impressing strangers, it’s about satisfying yourself with the bike that is the easiest to live with on a day-to-day basis. So, after hundreds of miles of all kinds of riding, it was agreed that the bike we’d be most comfortable living with was the nicely balanced, albeit underpowered, Mean Streak. It had the most range, the smoothest ride, best seating position and lowest price. How cool is that? Cool enough to take the win here. As for the following sections and 11 pages, well, read on. □
Advantage: Kawasaki
