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2005 Yamaha Royal Star Deluxe |
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Thursday, 08 September 2005 |
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2005 Yamaha Royal Star Tour Deluxe.
Historic Buffoonery by Mike Emery ~ Photos by Tom Riles and David Dewhurst
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It seems that for the last five months or so my life has been consumed with the open class segment of our industry. Obviously liter bikes are hot commodity at the moment and I feel I've spent the majority of the year in a head down, arse in the air position that's been good for the track and great for my personal chiropractor.
The fact is though, I've been lusting after some creature comforts these days and Yamaha's Press geezer, Brad Banister, thinks he found something to fit the bill. So a quick hop, skip and jump to historic Charlottesville, VA, and here we are looking at a bike a little alien to the 2Dub faithful, but both a potential and worthy addition to your current stable. |
| This is Yamaha's latest answer to limo-style motorcycling, a vehicle that can take you places, and leave you as fresh at the destination, as you felt at the start. We were shown a bunch of natty looking grafts to show Yamaha's growth in this cruiser/tourer sector, all showing substantial northward swings. This particular bike has been labeled as that do-it-all model that offers around town cruising style and with the addition of a couple of included accessories for the perfect touring package. At 787lbs and a 67.5 inch wheelbase it's an impressively large looking bike. However, seat height is the typically cruiser low and with its low center of gravity and big wide swept back bars, it's pretty easy to maneuver around. |
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Based soundly on the very popular Venture chassis, the new Royal Star deluxe is the Yamaha version of the convertible. This is a motorcycle that was produced to fill a gap in the Yamaha line up and a bike that was dictated by the customer's need to fill that void between the traditional cruiser and a tourer. It's also strikingly similar to the Harley Davidson Road King, not a bad thing methinks. It's long and low and has classic styling lines that disguise its heritage somewhat. It just doesn't look like a metric cruiser - If you are a Harley style fan, that's a good thing, if you like the Japanese quality and reliability, that's a great thing. The bike also has a quite pleasing sound emanating from its long and low four into two exhausts. That exhaust offers some customization too, with adjustable (rotating and slashed) end caps. |
| We got to sample this bike on some of the nicest pavement on the East side of town. Yes, with 98 horsepower and nearly 90lbs of torque - we were on the street, Surely I jest? That sort of power belongs on the race track... After a small demonstration of the cruise control we were let loose and set loose on innocent Virginian Hams. The bike has a nice flat torque curve that produced the goods from around 2000 rpm all the way to the 6K mark. That fat midrange rowed this particular boat in a very effective way with the 4th and 5th gear's labeled as overdrive's. |
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