Issue 130 : August - September 2003
Farmyard 03
Magna Carta
Road Star Warrior
India by Enfield
H-D 100th in Spain
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Farmyard 03
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Warrior
Yamaha Road Star Warrior Following massive levels of interest generated by its launch in the USA, Yamaha have now launched the Road Star Warrior into the UK. By using sophisticated sportsbike chassis technology and blending it with the most powerful air-cooled V-twin engine ever built by them, they hope they have created yet another new category-the 'Power Cruiser'. Although its is fair to say that this remarkable machine is one of the most original developments from a Japanese company in the traditional Harley segment, it actually comes in against the like of the V-Rod, very much a power cruiser itself despite its smaller capacity! However, Yamaha are really going head to head with it, thanks to belt drive and an engine that manages to shake like a Harley at tickover speeds, not to mention an exhaust note that actually makes it sound right! The UK launch was at The Ace Cafe on London's North Circular Road, the scene of some seriously loud bikes in the past during its 'Rocker' days. Here the clientele seemed to approve of the sound that came from the massive 'rocket launcher' single silencer that dominates the right hand side of the bike. The long, low all-aluminium double cradle frame with a box section swinging arm is supported by 41mm inverted forks at the front and rolls along on an eighteen-inch front and seventeen-inch rear cast wheel. It is long, the wheelbase being 1,665mm and its overall length being over two metres. In profile it reminds you of a juggernaut, despite sitting low to the ground, the seat height being just 715mm. Apart from the silencer, it is the engine that dominates the bike, the bodywork being black in colour and minimal in execution. The new 1,670 OHV 48 degree V-twin engine is based on the existing 'Wild Star' unit and runs with bore and stroke dimensions of 97mm x 113mm. Numerous changes have been made to the powerplant and it has not just been a case of adding 2mm to the bore size. Most of these are in the head area and there are new camshafts. Fuel injection working through massive 40mm throttle bodies also helps give the bike its massive low down punch and excellent mid range torque.  The five-speed transmission has been developed to match the engine's spread of power, delivering it by belt to a massive 200-section rear tyre. Slowing things down at the front are dual 298mm floating discs gripped by lightweight one-piece calipers taken straight off the first generation R1 sports bike. A single sliding caliper grips the solitary rear disc that is more than capable of locking the rear wheel as I found out! The bike is quite a mismatch of items such as the sophisticated instrumentation that could easily have come from a modern car. It is a mixture of analogue speedometer mounted on the top triple clamp, while a separate digital rev counter sits in the top of the multi-reflector headlight. They both glow blue at night in true custom bike fashion and do look very cool! So in looks and specification it certainly has the right attributes and with a price of £10,349 it undercuts the Harley V-Rod by a massive £4,000. But does it deliver the goods in a way that will tempt people to abandon the cache of the Harley name on the petrol tank? Well the answer is yes it delivers the goods exactly as it promises, but it is still not a Harley! Despite being the length of a goods train, it deals with country lanes in a way no other cruiser does, despite the relatively limited ground clearance. Even when everything is scrapping, the bike feels stable and you still feel secure and planted in the stepped seat. In traffic it is well balanced and the low c of g helps low speed manoeuvrability. The lock is not that bad either and some heavy traffic on the test route showed that it is quite a good town bike and attracts lots of admiring glances as you slip by.
It is the spread of it that is impressive though and the total usability of the bike without recourse to constant cog swapping through the five-speed box. In some situations you can short shift all the way through and then just ride the bike on the throttle just as if it were an automatic! Should the mood take you can out drag most sports bikes away from the lights and keep ahead well past the magic ton before they start to make ground. Despite the wide-open riding position it is not too much of a struggle to ride in excess of three figures, although I am sure that most of the 100 Warriors that are being brought into the UK will stay around the seventy to eighty mark. Apart from cameras and radar, there is nothing to fear from high speeds thanks to the predictable sure-footed handling and the decent stopping power of the sports bike braking system on the Yamaha. It is more than up to the task of hauling 275 kg down to rest without too much effort being needed! Nearly one hundred miles of mixed going showed that the Road Warrior is everything it is claimed to be. You can easily see yourself heading out on the open road in true 'Steppenwolf' fashion! Opinion at the Ace Cafe was mixed on the styling, conservative in many ways, but dominated by the silencer whatever people's likes/dislikes were! Yamaha have definitely created a sports cruiser with decent handling, stopping power and a motor that reminds you very much of their own V-Max. By putting it all together and giving it a belt drive rear it is very much in Harley V-Rod territory. You'll probably have more fun on the Yamaha than you would on a V-Rod and be financially a lot better off. But, the bottom line is it lacks 100 years of tradition and Yamaha is not a designer label in the world's fashion stores. Maybe one day it will be but until then the Road Warrior will be in a class of one, which is certainly no reason to ignore it if you like to be different! Ian Kerr 
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It it looks like a dog and smells like a dog and barks like a dog, what is it but.....a Warrior Bandana man, Ian Kerr explores Yamaha's excursion into the realm of the latest bike niche of the power cruiser...
Out on the open road a quick flick of the wrist from very low revs has the bike rocketing forward in a way that the V-Rod does but with over 5,000 rpm on its clock. The Yamaha has just short of 100ft lbs of torque with full 85 bhp being delivered at 4,500rpm.