First Ride - Yamaha Tour Deluxe

No market is more segmented than motorcycling. We've got customs, sport, touring, cruising and sport touring to name a few and now, according to Yamaha's research, we've got cruiser touring.

When I look at the research fed to us by the OEMs I can't help but compare the numbers of people riding to the general population because after every marketing presentation I'm sure that there are more people researching motorcycle trends than there are people buying and riding motorcycles. Regardless, new models are spewed out with the regularity that I wish I still had.

My lack of a high-fiber diet aside, the market research reveals that the older we get the more we ride. It sounds logical; empty nest, full wallet, accrued vacation time/retirement and being too crotchety to let anyone tell us that we can't. My translation of Yamaha's charts indicates that we'll enjoy a 33% increase in miles traveled from age 40 to 64. Just what I needed to know! Now I can budget my gasoline expense for the next decade and a half.

The marketing gurus also inform us that the cruiser segment is the fastest growing, up 500% over the last ten years. The research also says that cruiser riders are different than other riders. They want to 'really' feel the torque and they want engines that rev slow enough to count the RPMs at a stoplight without a tachometer yet leave copious amounts of rubber when the light turns green and the throttle is twisted. Additionally cruiser riders also like to bolt on lots of chromium goodies then buy lots of stuff that lets them wear their marques on their sleeves.

Yamaha's latest segment-chasing machine is the 2005 Road Star Tour Deluxe, a supposed one-bike solution for multi-segment riding, boulevard cruising and touring.

Load up the matching bags, top off the 5.3-gallon tank, fold down the floating passenger floorboards for your better half's heels and hit the highway. Later you can pull off the windscreen and backrest and you're ready for styling down Main Street.

The 1298cc liquid cooled DOHC (counterbalanced) v-four is tuned for true cruising-style laid-back performance, which belies the available power of the 98 ponies stashed inside. The beast is fed by a 32mm Mikuni carb with heated throttle body and puts the power to the road through a 5-speed gearbox and shaft-drive.

If your destination is less that 200 miles away and you've got an iron bladder you'll get there non-stop in luxury style and comfort. Air-adjustable suspension, plush saddle, bar end weights and the floating floorboards see to that.

Settle into your motel then strip her down. (I'm talking the bike; but you do whatever you see fit for the moment.) You'll find that the backrest, which kept your honey's butt from polishing the fender, pops off with ease ditto for the windshield.

In fact the latch mechanism on the windscreen wins my vote for the best innovation. During a previous incarnation as a Rally Rat I rode a bike equipped with a large Plexiglas barn door of a fairing, the mail-order variety. It claimed to be removable and was, at the expense of large chunks of epidermal tissue of the finger and knuckle variety and a little blood. Yamaha's latch is fit, smooth, easy to operate, logically located and positive locking.

Yamaha offers a lined case for the fairing but it's an accessory. As a former detachable owner I offer some advice; you need this bag! Large disembodied motorcycle parts attract objects that scratch. The chain on your wallet, the doorplate to the hotel room, the jack handle in your trunk, need I go on? If you buy the bike buy the bag or at least argue the dealer into tossing it in to close the sale. Years from now you'll thank me, each and every time you polish its scratch-free surface.

I had my first look at the Deluxe in Charlottesville Virginia at the historic Boar's Head Inn on the University of Virginia campus, which happens to be a stone's throw from the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Boar's Head Inn is a typical media launch location, interesting surroundings, great roads and luxurious comfort. Everything needed to distract a journalist from the job at hand.

Regardless of the specs or marketing savvy it's the bike that offers the last word. It's my job is to listen to the bike, to really see what the bike has to say, despite the corrosive influences of plush hotels, bottomless bar tabs, waitresses from a Warren Zevon fantasy and seamless ribbons of asphalt.

Morning arrived and after breakfast all us jaded journalists met at the Yamaha trailer for a rider's meeting. First thing that the 2005 Road Star Tour Deluxe said to me was, "I'm fat!" And the next thing I heard was our photographer barking orders. Which resulted in me spending the next four hours riding the same turns over and over and...

But as it turns out, that's the best way to test a machine. I learned the turns then tried to see how far I could push the bike's envelope.

After the first photo session I tossed the windscreen in to the photo van and the same for the backrest. They just weren't necessary for the local roads we were on.

I gotta tell ya', she may be fat but she's got a great personality. I rode her cruising style, hot-rod style and hooligan style yet she gripped each corner and purred as I twisted the throttle, happy to be in the wind.

As our little cadre of hooligans terrorized the secondary roads surrounding Boar's Head Inn and Blue Ridge Parkway the true colors of the Tour Deluxe emerged.
With a wheelbase of 67 plus inches, shaft drive and a 150/90 15-inch rear tire, highway travel is a cakewalk and the cruise control (standard equipment) is the icing. The gear ratios in fourth and fifth are designed in the overdrive category allowing highway speeds at low RPMs, which adds a thumping cruiser feel to hypersonic speeds. And yes-this puppy can cost you a license if you don't pay attention.

The clutch is hydraulic, adding to the smooth feel of the machine and complimenting the constant-mesh gearbox.

Yamaha's cruiser mantra: Style, Personalization, Performance is evident in the Tour Deluxe. There are enough dedicated accessories available to choke a credit card statement. Over one hundred Official Yamaha Accessories were designed along with the bike from solo seat rails to fender tips and billet floorboards to billet mirrors to stainless hydraulic lines. And undoubtedly there's more to come.

I'd like to see a tachometer that compliments the retro-design of the dash, not that you even need a tach, just keep the motor running slow enough to hear it. The Tour Deluxe offers comfort though not unequalled comfort. She tracks respectably for a heavyweight cruiser and there's certainly enough power but the only outstanding grace is the removable fairing and backrest.

The Deluxe isn't the jack-of-all-trades as no-doubt the marketing materials will expound; its got a definite purpose, a purpose as singular as a dirt-bike or race-bike. It's a long and short of it bike; lock on the fairing and load up the luggage with wife/girlfriend/poodle and head for parts unknown. Later, with you're brood safely nestled in suite 109 at Camp Ramada or the Holiday Caves, unlatch the fairing, lose the backrest, rent the luggage out to an immigrant family and hit the local biker haunts. You won't be disappointed, just remember to buy the fairing bag. Which, as I said before, should be included despite the respectable $13,999 asking price (which includes a five-year unlimited mileage warranty and 24 hour roadside assistance plan).

The 2005 Yamaha Road Star Tour Deluxe should be in showrooms by the time you read this but a really neat exercise would be to sign on to Yamaha's website and build yours first in virtual reality.