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2005 Yamaha Royal Star Deluxe |
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Thursday, 08 September 2005 |
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| Star Treatment |
2005 Yamaha Royal Star Tour Deluxe |
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Power is typically cruiser soggy, but after getting off the steamy open classers, this thing still had enough go to keep me happy. The motor is based on the venerable 1294cc V4 motor lifted from the early eighties Venture Royale (with cheese?) and a motor that's also seen duty in the nuts mad V-Max - obviously this is a calmer and modernized block, but it comes from good stock and I bet there's a healthy performance sector catering for this engine, if you are that type of gear head. It's also liquid cooled and with four 32mm Mikuni carburetors, replete with heaters, it's going to be a good reliable motor regardless of extremes of climate. |
| All the controls are beefy, bordering on butch with both the clutch and brake levers having a solid aftermarket billet feel to them. Further comforts and finish include foot boards with a heel-and-toe shifter to keep your designer boot toes shiny. Shifting was very smooth with no missed gear changes to report even when playing silly buggers in the twisties. The bike is obviously no hotrod but it had enough grunt for cage passing and with seamless fuel inj... I mean carburation too. Of course it was also really shiny and attracted attention from small children and passers by. Another nice styling touch was the clear lens turn signal, small details but big on style points. |
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The retro-style speedometer was groovy in a faux-fifties style. Nicely modernized with a sweeping LCD hand on a stretched out speedometer housed in a chromed err, housing. It showed you how fast you were going, how far you had been, how much gas you've used and what time all this is going on. A small and discreet set of idiot lights informed the idiot on board of oil pressure, water temp, high beam, cruise control and of course, turn sigs and neutral. |
| After doing the photo shoot thang I elected to scoot off on my own to explore the territory and to go find some guy called Monty Chello who I believe works at Thomas Jeff and Sons. Hitting a mixture of roads that included switchbacks and fast sweepers, the bike exhibited no obvious shortcomings. In fact, in both environments the bikes seemed in its element. The pegs drag typically early for the breed but a slight shift in body position was usually enough to stop it getting too noisy or too ugly. The bike has air assisted suspension, front and rear so a little ride height can be dialed in for more clearance and/or two-up touring easily enough. |
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The brakes were good on this bike too, with twin pistons up front grabbing two 298 mm rotors, and a decent four pot wrestling with a big old nasty supermoto style 320 mm rotor on the rear, braking was good, if not excellent. I could grab a handful up front and modulate the wheel lock-up point with ease, and with minimum fork dive too. The rear brake was perfect for tightening up a turn when running in a tad hot, of which I did many times. This thing cashed the checks that I wrote and didn't exhibit any bad manners from those silly inputs I was giving it. Speaking of Supermoto and bad manners, I swear you could back this thing into slow corners... although I never did - honest. |
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