The Death Mongers M/c To-Hell-And-Back Tour
THE DEATH MONGERS M/C TO-HELL-AND-BACK TOUR
Eight heavyweight cruisers equipped with windshields and saddlebags through 1400 miles of the Great Southwest
PETER EGAN
AH, HIGH SUMMER IN THE MOJAVE DESERT, WHEN THE GILA monsters are in bloom, sand swirls across the highway like something from the Red Planet and the toothpaste out of your saddlebag is hotter than the reading lamp in your blessedly air-conditioned motel room.
Most folks go to the seashore during this season, but not us. We needed a long road trip to properly w ring out these eight largedisplacement baggers, so we asked ourselves, “What would T. E. Lawrence do?”
The answer, of course, is that he would press forward across the Nefudh Desertyes, the Sun’s Anvil, where no man or camel, has ever survived for more than about 9 minutes and emerge onS the other side, thirstier, yet somehow wiser. r -
And that’s what we did. 1 flew in from Wisconsin to join the OF staff, and we left our Newport Beach digs, crossed the Mojave in 115-degree heat and rode to Las Vegas. After a night of overdosing on the opulent casino life, we struck west via the monumental Hoover Dam to rustic, back-toreality cabins near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
CW COMPARISON
BATTLE OF THE BAGGERS
A third night found us in Prescott, Arizona, at the grand old Hassayampa Hotel, and then we returned home across that same sunny Mojave, where miles of warmth reflected from fresh blacktop saved us from having to use our electric socks.
Not all was furnace-like, however; we actually had some wonderful, endless winding roads through the cool mountains and high desert. We also stopped often to rehydrate at convenience stores, gas stations-and even an excellently airconditioned Harley dealership in Utah, where we acquired a new group identity.
Mark Cernicky was browsing among the accessories, and I noticed him idly examining some sort of do-rag or neckerchief with grinning human skulls all over it.
“Scary stuff, Mark,” I said. “Skulls, crossbones, coffins, bloody daggers.. .you have to admire the people who tempt fate by wearing and selling these things. They must be fearless in the face of danger, with no dread of the afterlife.”
Mark turned to me and narrowed his eyes. “Death mongers!” he said.
After that, our little traveling band of eight naturally became The Death Mongers M/C.
Some of us are closer to death than others, of course. Cernicky and Paul Dean went at it on one downhill mountain stretch near Jerome, Arizona, and Dean proved that you don’t actually need tires to slide through a hairpin corner. You can do it on one floorboard and a motorcycle frame, borne along on a magic carpet of metal sparks.
Meanwhile, I hung back and weighed my options, wondering if I should be a Death Monger at all. Sometimes I do dread the afterlife...
But mostly our staff restrained itself and rode these bikes “as they are meant to be ridden,” laid back, cruising at reasonable speeds and soaking up the scenery. These are baggers, after all-simple motorcycles with visible fenders, two saddlebags and a cop windshield-meant to allow appreciation of one’s surroundings rather than just a terror-filled glimpse of the next apex.
Baggers come in many sizes, but our group here represents the largest of the large-the only exception being the Star. Yamaha wanted us to test the (perhaps more popular?) 1670cc Road Star Silverado S rather than its bigger sibling, the 1854cc Stratoliner S, so we did.
The biggest bike in the group, by a large margin, was the 2294cc Triumph Rocket III Touring, and the smallest was the 1064cc Moto Guzzi
California Vintage. At first glance, the Guzzi appears too “small” to be included in this group of ground-pounders, but it’s by far the least porky bike here, and lightness can work as a great equalizer, as we shall see.
So, without further ado, on to our bikes-listed here in alphabetical order-and our assessment of their useful overthe-road qualities:
HARLEY-DAVIDSON ROAD KING CLASSIC 105TH ANNIVERSARY
Who’d have thought the day would come when a Harley FLH would find itself among the three smallest and most compact bikes in a comparison test? Compared with the gargantuan Rocket III and our four Japanese baggers, the Harley feels positively weightless and delicate. The Guzzi and Victory are both lighter, but the Road King’s light steering, easygoing stability and low center of gravity make it the nimblest of our bunch, like a quarterback in a gang of beefy linemen.
You might say Harley is the company that invented the bagger class, and the current Road King (about to be replaced with a new FLH generation next year; see page 51) is certainly the end product of much development. A far cry from the clanking and chuffing Electra Glides of yore, the Road King is equaled here only by the Honda in its refinement. It has a light clutch, good brakes, a precise sixspeed transmission and motors down the road with the quiet smoothness of a whisper-jet.
Ergonomically, it’s pretty good, too. The saddle is the best of the bunch-well-shaped, with a small kick-up for lower back support-and aero activity around the big windshield is equaled only by the Triumph Rocket III for serenity of flow. Only the wide handlebars muddy the picture. The grips are a bit too far away, so the rider has to hunch slightly forward. This gave most of us a sensory afterglow like two small stilettos under the shoulder blades. Early Evo Road Kings had a much happier relationship between seat, floorboards and bars, so I hope Harley returns to those halcyon days with the next-generation FLH.
Ride is quite good-though the limited-travel rear shocks can occasionally impart a quick jab over abrupt road bumps-and the steering feels crisp and natural. Those who rode the bike very hard were able to induce mild wallow in high-speed corners and sensed some flexibility in the frame, but one of our most aggressive riders (okay, Cemicky) described it as, “unbeweavably nimble when handled with unwavering hands.”
A much less aggressive rider (yes, yours truly) found the Harley the easiest and most confidence-inspiring bike to ride through both twisties and fast sweepers, closely seconded only by the Guzzi. Matthew Miles noted, “You feel in command bf the Harley, while the heavier Japanese V-Twins make you feel like you’re just along for the ride.”
Overall, the Harley feels like a Complete Package; it has real saddlebags-large and useful-a nearly all-day seat, good wind flow and a tank that isn’t wider than your Frigidaire. You get the impression Harley really thought you might travel somewhere on this bike and didn’t add the windshield and bags as an afterthought.
If there was one big criticism of this bike it was in the power department. At 67.2 hp and 1584cc, the Harley has the second-lowest horsepower of this group, besting the Star by almost 7 ponies, and the second-smallest displacement, just above the 123-pound lighter Guzzi. At $19,195, the Harley also starts out as the most expensive bike in this test, and then you’d have to spend quite a bit of money in your Screamin’ Eagle catalog to give the Road King the same instantaneous kick as, say, the Kawasaki Vulcan 2000.
On the other hand, the Harley is 100 pounds lighter than the Vulcan, which is why it’s more nimble and fun to ride, so there are mitigating factors. But most of these big baggers give you an awful lot of bang for the buck, and the Road King bangs are just not as big.
HARLEY ROAD KING CLASSIC
Price...........$19,195 Dry weight........ 752 lb. Wheelbase........64.1 in. Seat height.......28.9 in. Fuel mileage......42 mpg 0-60 mph.......5.3 sec. 1/4-mile......13.90 sec. @ 91.36 mph Horsepower.......67.2 hp Ups
Ups Descendant of the original bagger Cruise control Comfortable all-day saddle
▼DOWNS Wallowy chassis Most expensive More please power please!
For some of us, it doesn’t matter, and the Harley is just right, a monument to balance rather than excess. Still, twoup with luggage in the mountains, a little extra bang never hurt anyone...
HONDA VTX1800T
Every group of bikes has one all-rounder that generates few complaints, irritates least and earns the sober respect of our test riders for its thorough engineering and general competence in all things. And in this group that bike was the Honda.
Its big, uncannily smooth, three-valve 1795cc V-Twinwith 101.8 peak ft.-lb. of torque on tap at 3250 rpm-proved both docile around town and effortlessly quick on the highway, with spot-on fuel-injection and multiple driveline dampers to calm the savage thumping beast. With strong, linear acceleration from all engine speeds, it posted the third-quickest quarter-mile times, topped only slightly by the Suzuki and Kawasaki. It even outran the 2.3-liter Triumph in 0-60, quarter-mile and top-speed testing.
In typical Honda fashion, brakes, clutch and shifter were all refined to the point of invisibility, and wind flow over the large windshield produced only a moderate amount of buffeting. (At one of our gas stops, Don Canet climbed off the somewhat windy Star and said, “The bike with the least buffeting wins this comparison!”)
HONDA VTX1800T
Price...........$16,449 Dry weight........ 832 lb. Wheelbase........68.0 in. Seat height.......28.1 in. Fuel mileage......41 mpg 0-60 mph.......4.4 sec. 1/4-mile......12.92 sec. @ 100.08 mph Horsepower.......88.3 hp @ 5150 rpm Torque.......101.8 ft.-lb. @ 3250 rpm Top speed.......118 mph
Ups Exceptional fit and finish Great straight-line stability Long-range comfy
Downs Uninspiring exhaust note Most expensive of the Japanese baggers Too seamless?
The Honda’s seat was also.. .not too bad. Not great, but not too bad. All the cruiser-style bikes in this comparison suffer from one basic problem: Their big, cushy catcher’s mitt seats don’t allow you to move around. Your feet are far forward, your knees are splayed and all your weight is right on your tailbone. You are stuck in what photographer Jeff Allen called a “butt-numbing cavern” for the duration. The only relief is to stop for Gatorade. And maybe a Butterfinger, and one of those purple Sno-Cones.. .anything to stand up for a few more minutes.
But the Honda’s seat is not the worst, and the handlebars, floorboards and seat height struck a happy medium for most of our crew.
Handling was also a plus for the big Honda. Straight-line stability was perhaps the best and most planted of all eight bikes, and it stayed on course, as Paul Dean remarked, “as though steered by some sophisticated guidance device.” A good platform for scenery-gazing, in other words. This stability made turn-in just a bit heavy, but the bike took a set in corners and reacted to bumps and pavement waves with minimal upset for such a large, heavy machine. Suspension compliance was good, and the Honda hid its weight well.
Several of our group picked the Honda as the best overall, or as the bike they would be most likely to jump on for a transcontinental odyssey. Others found it just a bit too refined and blandly competent to be entertaining over that distance.
KAWASAKI VULCAN 2000 CLASSIC LT
What we have here is a big motor in a big bike, from, as Editor Edwards put it, the “add-leather, add-windscreen school.” The Kawasaki is an 850-pound bike (but only third heaviest here) with a 2-liter motor that kicks out major torque and the best 0-60 time in this group, and the secondquickest quarter-mile, after the Suzuki.
The Vulcan has a little more edge than the other Japanese V-Twins, and the beat of those two big pistons can be felt through the solidly mounted handlebars a little more distinctly than on the others-what the Japanese engineers, Miles remarked, call “pulse feeling.” Several of our riders said they had numbness in their hands after a 100-mile stint on the Vulcan.
You sit low in the deep-dish saddle on this bike, and the bars do a pretty good job of traveling back to meet you for the ride, but a high level of windshield buffeting was noted by nearly all our test riders. Dean said that he felt like “a human-sized bobble-head doll” on the bike, and that a combination of engine vibration and poor seat design gave him a serious case of numb-butt in about 45 minutes. The opinion was shared by nearly all our riders.
KAWASAKI VULCAN 2000 LT
Price........ . $14,599 Dry weight____ .. 850 lb. Wheelbase____ . .68.4 in. Seat height... . .27.3 in. Fuel mileage.. . .41 mpg 0-60 mph____ . 4.2 sec. 1/4-mile..... 12.81 sec. @ 99.81 mph Horsepower.......93.2 hp @ 4880 rpm Torque.......114.1 ft.-lb. @ 2580 rpm Top speed.......118 mph
Ups Locomotive-class torque Sportbike-quality brakes Mind-meld straight-line performance
Downs Vibrates at road speeds Tush-numbing saddle Too much wind buffeting
Some of the buffeting problems on any of these bikes, of course, is a function of wind direction (we had some very windy days on the road) along with rider height and the height of the windshield itself. As a general rule, those bikes on which you could look over the screen (Harley, Honda, Triumph, Guzzi) produced the least wind noise and turbulence. So an alternate windshield height-or a good bandsaw-might solve some of these problems.
Suspension on the Vulcan is somewhat soft, so the bike dives under braking and chatters over ripples when the brakes are on, and the rear end lacks rebound damping, so it tends to pogo a bit over big bumps. The suspension is soft and comfortable for cruising or casual riding but lacks tautness when the riding heats up. Brakes, however, were among the best of our group-powerful and easily modulated with just two fingers.
Overall, the big Vulcan gets a “V for Virility,” as Cernicky noted, because the torquey, slightly raw engine makes the bike fun to ride when you pull out on the highway and twist that grip. But as the miles wear on, the whole package doesn’t hold together too well as a long-distance mount. It’s a pleasant enough cruiser with a big motor, but it didn’t win any top-four honors in this group.
MOTO GUZZI CALIFORNIA VINTAGE
Every time I saw the Guzzi in my rearview mirrors, I flinched and wondered if I should pull over and produce my driver’s license for the man with the big shiny boots and Ray-Bans. The Guzzi’s classy retro styling, like the Harley’s, hearkens back to another era, when a 629-pound bike with hard saddlebags and chromed engine guards was considered huge rather than charmingly minimalist.
The look and sound of the Guzzi goes all the way back to the V700s, Ambassadors and Eldorados of the late Sixties and early Seventies, so you’d expect it to be outclassed in our modern 8-pack. Not only is its engine more than 500cc smaller than the next biggest, but it uses an old transverse, air-cooled, pushrod V-Twin that’s been around for decades. And the Triumph has twice the Guzzi’s displacement.
Nevertheless, the California Vintage seemed to hold its own in the hands of most of the dreaded Death Mongers, and nearly all our group placed it among their three or four favorites. Yes, it is underpowered compared with some of the others, but that just meant the rider had to hold the throttle open a little wider to keep up with the group. And it did keep up, easily, most of the time.
MOTO GUZZI CALIFORNIA VINTAGE
Price...........$14,990 Dry weight........ 629 lb. Wheelbase........61.8 in. Seat height.......30.6 in. Fuel mileage......46 mpg 0-60 mph.......5.5 sec. 1/4-mile......13.79 sec. @ 96.29 mph Horsepower.......69.2 hp @ 6800 rpm Torque........60.3 ft.-lb. @ 5230 rpm Top speed.......110 mph
Ups Sensible size Good cornering clearance Spacious saddlebags old world charm
Downs Hokey foot controls Sweepers not its forté More dealers, please!
All riders seemed pleased with the Guzzi’s ease of handling and cornering, and with its generous cornering clearance. The bike weighs 117 pounds less than the next lightest bike and 237 pounds less than the heaviest, a difference that probably equals the weight of your first motorcycle, or a good modern motocrosser. This simply made it feel more agile than the other seven bikes. And you could back it out of a downhill parking spot without a ground crew. What a concept.
Not that the California didn’t have a few oddities. The vintage-looking seat is a bit hard, but it’s also gratifyingly flat so you can slide back-and-forth and move your weight around. The floorboards are rather high relative to the seat, so your knees point nearly skyward, but they’re far enough back that you can actually stand up on the bike without doing a massive pull-up. I personally felt the floorboards could be about an inch lower, sacrificing a little of the ample cornering clearance for more comfort. This would also allow you to get the toe of your boot under the front half of the rocker-style shift lever, which is now impossible, even with full upward adjustment.
With its excellent Brembo brakes and quick steering, the Guzzi was great for attacking tight corners, but the bike developed a noticeable high-speed weave in the 80-100-mph range. Turning the steering damper to full strength calmed this down to a merely subliminal level. Ride quality, though, was among the best of the bunch, feeling taut but not harsh. Both ends absorbed the brunt of almost all road bumps, making for an excellent ride unhampered by wallow or clown-effect bobbing.
Wind protection was quite good for most riders, though not quite up to Harley or Triumph standards, and the hardshell fiberglass saddlebags, with their clamshell tops and reasonable luggage space, were a big improvement over the leather-bound Pony Express items on some of our stackedpipe bikes.
Perhaps what endeared the Guzzi most to our group was the feeling that this was a “real” motorcycle-light, efficient and no larger than it had to be, the product of logical development rather than an exercise in one-upsmanship. It’s an enthusiast’s bike.
And you’ll have to be an enthusiast to find one-and maintain it. Our main reservation with the Guzzi was its sketchy dealer network. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a shop nearby, you’ll have to do some home-wrenching to own one. But at least you can.
Besides that, it has a cool factor unequaled in this batch of bikes. To this Death Monger, it looks good, rather than just glitzy.
SUZUKI BOULEVARD C109RT
I climbed on the big Suzuki somewhere near Banning Pass, and as we sped rapidly out across the desert, my first thought was, Never in the field of human endeavor has any motorcycle so successfully loafed at 100 mph. Even at high speeds, the 109RT engine sounds like a Continental 220 radial out of a Stearman biplane at idle.
Though the 109R doesn’t have the largest engine here, it’s still a very big Twin, and it topped all others in quarter-mile acceleration and speed. It also has the highest horsepower (though not the most torque) and tied the Honda for a close second place (after the Vulcan) in 0-60 times. This thing flat moves out, and does it without a lot of high-revving histrionics. It’s like your linebacker friend in high school who used to calm people down by reaching over and giving them a quick squeeze on the back of the neck. Laconic, with no ftiss, it seems not to work very hard to achieve results.
Would that it worked a little harder to get you through a corner. With its considerable heft and big 240mm rear tire, the wide Boulevard resists initial turn-in, then requires firm handgrip pressure to hold it down and avoid “scalloping” your way through corners. But once you learn to make it take a set, it seems to hold its line without any wallowing or other bad behavior. Relatively quick front-end geometry, meant to lighten the steering on this 858-pound monster, makes it a little more susceptible to small steering inputs than the others.
The linked brakes on the Boulevard are strong and powerful but demand a pretty good squeeze on the lever when only the fronts are used, as the rear pedal adds valuable extra caliper pistons-front and rear-to the mix. It’s a good system for beginning riders who rely heavily on the rear pedal.
The soft, cushy seat on the Suzuki seems good when you first get on but starts to feel hard and compressed after about an hour. The footboards, at least, are long enough to allow you to move your legs a little now and then. The big handlebars (emanating from one of the most massive triple-clamps I’ve ever seen) come back to meet your hands in relaxed fashion.
Several riders praised the wind protection from the Boulevard’s tall windscreen, but I had the misfortune to ride
it through about a 3 5-knot crosswind and got so much buffeting I thought my helmet would wear out. In any case, you look through this screen rather than over it, and others claimed it gives you a lot of coverage in normal wind conditions. Saddlebags are of the small, weekender style, somewhat offsetting the longrange usefulness of the passenger backrest.
SUZUKI BOULEVARD C109RT
Price...... .....$14,999 Dry weight.. ...... 858 lb. Wheelbase.. ......69.3 in. Seat height. ......28.6 in. Fuel mileage ......36 mpg 0-60 mph .. .....4.4 sec. 1/4-mile ... ... 12.77 sec. @ 102.06 mph Horsepower. ......96.5 hp @ 5950 rpm Torque..... ... 98.2 ft.-lb. @ 3900 rpm Top speed.. ..... 117 mph
Ups Killer cruiser motor Good wind protection Drag bike with bags
Downs Prefers straights over curves Bags too small and too wide A “1-hour” seat
TRIUMPH ROCKET III TOURING
A small confession here: I was prepared not to like the Triumph because I rode a standard Rocket III cruiser a few years ago and found it long, heavy, wide and reluctant to change direction. These negative factors were mitigated only by the neat engine architecture, which reminded me of a Henderson Four engine I once bought to put in a Pietenpol Air Camper homebuilt airplane. But that’s a story for another day, when someone’s eyes need glazing over.
In any case, I was quite pleased to get on the new Touring version and find that the redesigned frame and narrower tires had turned it into a fine-handling road-burner and perhaps the motorcycle it should have been all along. Also, its stylishly integrated hard bags and superb wind flow past the short, look-over windscreen won me over instantly. As it did most of our gang.
And then there’s the power and torque. The Rocket’s 2.3liter Triple sounds and feels like no other motor here. It has a slightly harsh, industrial-tool whine to it that’s nevertheless engaging for its deep growl, and it produces willing, effortless torque that will pull this big beauty rapidly uphill (Hill? What hill?) any time, in any gear. The Suzuki actually makes three more horsepower, but the Rocket is in a league of its own for torque: 139.1 ft.-lb. at just 1950 rpm. Or 25 more than the next-best Kawasaki’s 114.1.
Yes, you say, but it needs it: This is a seriously heavy bike at 866 pounds. Right you are. You’ll need the help of two boys and a dog to get this thing out of a bad parking spot, but once it’s under way (under weigh?), much of the mass disappears and the Triumph’s engineering excellence begins to surface.
Ride quality is superb, and both ends of the taut-but-compliant suspension work with you to iron out washboard corners and road waves. The brakes have a firm, linear touch, and the bike turns in with quick precision and holds its line effortlessly in corners. After only a few miles of twisties, you realize this is a thoroughly developed chassis from a company that takes handling seriously. The big Triumph can be hustled down a winding road, confidently.
The ride-friendly dynamics are augmented by a pretty good seat and what is probably the best windshield in our group. It looks low and minimal but seems to direct windand wind noise-successfully over your helmet, or perhaps off into outer space where it can do no harm.
What the Triumph offers is a sophisticated completeness. Like those folks from Milwaukee, the Triumph people in Hinckley took your desire for travel seriously and developed a bike to do the job. The Rocket III is a superb motorcycle, torquey, smooth, comfortable and capable.
TRIUMPH ROCKET III TOURING
Price...........$17,299 Dry weight........ 866 lb. Wheelbase........67.1 in. Seat height.......30.0 in. Fuel mileage......45 mpg 0-60 mph ......4.6 sec. 1/4-mile......13.12 sec. @ 98.76 mph Horsepower.......93.5 hp @ 5000 rpm Torque.......139.1 ft.-lb. @ 1950 rpm Top speed.......111 mph
Ups Pavement-wrinkling torque Roomy, locking saddlebags Luxury liner on the highway
Downs Pavement-cracking weight No optional tour trunk Battleship maneuvering into a parking slip
But, yes, it is too big and heavy. Nevertheless, it was picked as best bike by three of our eight riders, and made top three for all the others. A Triumph of engineering over sheer mass.
VICTORY KINGPIN TOUR
We start with a disclaimer here, because our Victory was inadvertently delivered with factory Stage 1 slip-ons, which have a slightly larger core diameter and caused the dealer to re-map the fuel-injection at the time of installation. All the rest of our bikes were dead stock, so we had to remove the Victory from the ratings game in our performance testing and final ranking of the bike.
But we did ride the Kingpin for four days and 1400 milesand virtually everyone liked the bike a lot-so it can’t hurt to give our subjective impressions.
So why was the Victory popular?
Well, mechanical feel. Like the Guzzi, the Kingpin elicited several “feels like a real motorcycle” comments from our discriminating Death Monger staff. Part of the reason was narrowness and lack of bulk. Compared to most of the other big cruiser-based bikes, the Victory feels positively waspwaisted and built on a human scale. At 746 pounds, it is the second-lightest bike here (undercutting the Harley by a mere 6 pounds). That, with a low seat and long fork rake, made it feel almost chopper-like.
This is normally my least favorite type of bike, dynamically speaking, but the Victory has excellent suspension and a solid, precision-machined feel to its steering and chassis that warms the heart. No slop, no excess. That mildly raked-out fork makes the bike just a little floppy at very low speeds in the gas station drive, but it tightens up with speed and rails through fast corners with almost gyroscopic stability.
The low, hard seat promises to be punishing, but after 45 minutes in the saddle, you realize it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the more heavily padded cushions on the big Japanese baggers, leading to the conclusion that shape means more than foam thickness in these matters. A few of our group, however, just found it hard and punishing. The footrests are quite far forward, and when you reach for the rear brake pedal, you say to yourself, “It’s., got.. .to be out here.. .somewhere...”
The engine is very nice too, even if its modifications got it disqualified here. Not the highest horsepower, but third most torquey, with flawless fuel-injection and nice roll-on power at all speeds. Sounds good, too-as it should with those Stage 1 slip-ons. The only driveline anomaly was a strange skiplurch under hard acceleration in first gear, like a slipping damper or a gear jumping a cog.
VICTORY KINGPIN TOUR
Price...........$18,399 Dry weight........ 746 lb. Wheelbase........66.0 in. Seat height.......27.3 in. Fuel mileage......44 mpg 0-60 mph.......4.6 sec. 1/4-mile......13.07 sec. @ 98.52 mph Horsepower.......81.9 hp @ 4650 rpm Torque.......103.4 ft.-lb. @ 3030 rpm Top speed.......111 mph
Ups Solid, of-a-piece feel Modern take on the bagger theme Standard top trunk
Downs Non-stock parts Slop and skip in driveline Cheater pipes and still got smoked
The hard, leather-covered saddlebags are typically small for a stacked-piper, but the Victory also comes with a handy top box that incorporates a passenger backrest, for better tourability. You sit low behind the small windshield, so it does a decent job of keeping the wind off, with only moderate turbulence.
To look at this bike, you might have guessed it would be among the least comfortable, but no one was anxious to give it up at the end of our 100-mile rotations. It has those rarest of things, simplicity and charm.
YAMAHA STAR ROAD STAR SILVERADO S
And now to the Road Star, a perfectly nice bike that worked well enough but failed to excel in any one area and won few raves or accolades-except for its low price, which is never to be dismissed.
The Star’s amiable but low-key 1670cc engine is larger than that of the Guzzi, Harley and Victory, yet it was the slowest bike in our group by a large margin. In almost every aspect of performance, the Star gets blown into the weeds, thanks to its making almost seven less horsepower than the smaller-engined, lighter Harley. Its quarter-mile and 0-60 times are both more than a half-second slower than the nextslowest bike, with the slowest top speed as well.
Seating position is comfortable, with bars that reach back to the rider, but the windshield seemed to produce more buffeting than any other bike-and it bothered riders of all sizes, regardless of windshield height adjustment or wind conditions. Controls, however, are refined, and the Star has a nice clutch and throttle feel and clicks through the gears quietly and succinctly.
Ride is good, though the bike shares the Kawasaki’s tendency to rebound too quickly at the rear when hustling over dips in the road. Cornering clearance is just adequate-but probably no worse than the other cruiser-based bikes in this group. Floorboards drag early on both sides, but especially on the left.
On our hotter segments (and there were many), the Silverado S put out considerable heat, and the chromed triangular air-cleaner housing became so hot several of us had to ride with the right knee splayed out, as if setting up for a non-existent comer. In all fairness, however, we rode in heat that would send a saner bunch of tourists to an air-conditioned motel until sundown. Your temperatures may vary.
STAR ROAD STAR SILVERADO
Price...........$14,099 Dry weight........ 772 lb. Wheelbase........66.8 in. Seat height.......28.5 in. Fuel mileage......42mpg 0'60 mPh.......6-1sec1/4-mile......14.53 sec. @ 88.98 mph Horsepower.......60.5 hp @ 3930 rpm Torque........92.6 ft.-lb. @ 2880 rpm Topspeed.......100 mph
Ups Lightest of the Japanese bikes shifts smoothly, quietly, easily More compact than most here
Downs Uninspired styling Too much engine heat Lackluster performance
On the plus side, the Star has a certain charm in that it doesn’t seem as large or cumbersome as several of the Japanese baggers (or the Triumph). It’s the lightest of that lot, with the shortest wheelbase, and the fork feels close enough to the rider that you don’t seem to be shouting orders to the remote front end with a bullhorn. It’s a humane-and humansized bike that will please a lot of riders because it feels userfriendly and manageable. It also has a good-looking engine (if you’re into that radial aircraft thing), and we mustn’t forget the $1000-to-$6000 savings over the rest of this mob.
The Star is a bargain that-when ridden in isolation-is a very nice motorcycle that will please most who buy it. But subjected to the close scrutiny of a comparison test like this one, it falls short.
CONCLUSION
As this ride evolved over four days, the bikes seemed to separate themselves into two groups.
Group A included those bikes where your desire to ride hard, fast and long was appreciated by the engineers who designed your windshield, saddle, suspension and luggage. Group B took in the Weekenders-more laid back, with smaller bags, so-so seats, softer ride and only a vague idea of the distance between our two
American coasts. Some seemed to follow a generic template filled in with weight.
Curiously, the Group A bikes all had more of that hardcore quality we sometimes call “character.” Others might use a less charitable word, but there’s no doubt that a distinct mechanical personality-along with permanence of value and lasting garage appeal-plays a large part in all our preferences and buying habits.
A winner?
The Triumph Rocket III Touring won going away, picked as number one by three riders and making everyone else’s top-three list. The Harley Road King-despite being a lameduck model that gets replaced next year-finished second, followed by the Moto Guzzi California, which just edged out the fourth-place Honda VTX1800T. The Victory Kingpin
Tour-though DQ’d for its big pipes-still floated into a popular fifth.
As author of this test (or at least the dogged transcriber of others’ notes), I have to put in my own 2 cents. For my own money, in my own garage, it would have to be the Harley, which combines authenticity, comfort, reasonable size, real luggage, a good dealer network and surprising refinement.
A Guzzi dealership within 100 miles might change things, however. And I must say that the Triumph is a fine motorcycle, for such a big thing.
