Motorcycle Review: Hyosung GV650/Avitar

All Rights Reserved © 2008 Thomas W. Day

While I was waiting for Garceau's to finish prepping the bike, I walked around the shop and looked at the Hyosung (pronounced "Yo-sung" or "Why-oh-sung") models on their showroom floor. I knew I'd be reviewing the 650, but the bike that really attracted my attention was the GT250 Comet. The Hyosung models use a lot of common parts and the 250 models are not "little bikes," they just have small motors. However, when Jim Debilzan rolled out the 650 Avitar, my heart sunk. Unknown to me, Hyosung makes a cruiser and I would be testing it.

Years ago, a friend was visiting our home and my wife was trying to feed him. She'd made some guacamole dip and salsa and she was shoving it at him, assuming that everyone loved guacamole. He took a scoop and tasted it. Then he said, "I hate avocado, but this is pretty good for what it is." The Hyosung GV650/Avitar is my guacamole. No matter how well this bike was designed and assembled, there was no chance I would like it. I've ridden a bunch of cruisers. The best I can say about any of them is that they were equally unpleasant, "I don't like cruisers, but it's pretty good for a cruiser." I would, honestly, rather ride a mountain bike. With that in mind, off we go.

The Avitar looks a lot like a V-Rod. Two people, both opinions more diverse than mine, said, "It's pretty." The Avitar's function follows its form and "pretty" is not mine to judge. The bike feels large, partially because rider's position perspective is set by the wide tank (4.5 gallons), the chrome tank treatment, and the wide bars. The Avitar is long (95.6", stem to stern); with a 66.9" wheelbase. In town, the long wheelbase provides a huge turning radius. To get out of a parking space, I made several maneuvers for every one I'd need on my V-Strom.

The footpegs are way out in front, but they can be brought in a couple of inches. Moving the pegs to the "short" position wouldn't have done anything for me. If my feet aren't under my butt, they aren't where they belong. I had to fold myself almost in half to find a posture that worked. The seat height is a low 31". The seating positions appear to be designed for a fairly tall rider and an incredibly short passenger. The right passenger peg is directly over and uncomfortably close to the muffler. The footpegs touch ground easily in twisties and I can't move from the center of the seat to do much about the cornering ground clearance.`

The electronic console contains a lot of information: speedo, odometer, two trip odometers, fuel and temperature bar gauges, and idiot lights. The "Select" and "Reset" buttons are small and hard to engage with gloves. The right-and-left turn indicators could be easy to ignore. The ignition key is on the right side of the tank and is almost guaranteed to be sheared off in a parking incident.

From the rear of the bike, the brake light (ten high intensity LEDs) is insanely visible.  The small, close-in turn signals (front and rear) may be too subtle to be noticed. The single round headlamp provides old fashioned illumination with hot spots near the bike and diffuse light a couple dozen feet out.

For maintenance, the tank props up on an included stay, so air filter servicing can be done with the tank in place. The toolkit and owner’s manual are stored under the seat. The seat only requires the removal of a single screw at the back of the seat. The battery is under the seat along with the tank prop and owners' manual. Idle adjustment is easily accessible from the rider’s seated position. The oil change interval is 6,000km (about 3,700 miles) and Hyosung recommends the valve clearances be inspected at that same interval. The bike has an oil filter (on the right side case) and an oil strainer (near the drain plug).

The steel tube frame is rigid enough to provide a stable, confident ride on pavement. The seat and feet-forward position puts a lot of responsibility on the suspension, though. The 43mm upside-down forks have “H-to-S” damping adjustment, but the old-fashioned dual shock rear suspension only allows for spring loading adjustment. Both ends are short travel, which accounts for the low seat height and harsh ride. Vibration is moderate, especially considering the cruiser short-travel suspension. The fact that the mirrors provide a stable rearview image at all speeds proves that the bike is relatively vibration-free. The stock tires are Bridgestone Battleax BT54 radials. The double disk front, single disk rear brakes work, but you don't have to worry about using too much pressure because the brakes are far from aggressive. I couldn't apply enough front brake to approach breaking the front wheel loose.

Hyosung claims 71hp at the rear wheel and my ride gave me no reason to doubt it. The Avitar does not have a tach, so I don't really know where "bottom" is, but the motor pulls strongly from low-midband up. The dual 39mm Mikuni carbs provide enough fuel to the 81.5 x 62mm 647cc V-
2 to give the bike a solid 50mph 5th gear roll-on and plenty of passing power. The Avitar's mild but macho exhaust note, turns into a snarl when you get on the gas. People who appreciate that kind of thing commented that it "sounds cool." At 55, with a constant throttle, I noticed a bit of hesitation that almost felt like fuel starvation. That reappeared any time I was in that RPM range with steady throttle. In my 135 mile test ride, I averaged 40mpg; not great but not bad.

Ten miles from home my hands were tingling, my butt was sore, and I still can’t figure out why my feet are sticking out in front of the rest of me. Usually, I'm good for 100-150 miles between rest stops. Today, 20 miles and I'm ready to look at scenery, on foot. Those aren’t Hyosung complaints, those are cruiser complaints. At 70mph, the wind is trying to blow my feet from the pegs and me from the seat. I'm dangling from the bars. In this seating position, 55mph feels fast and 70 feels out of control. My friend on the Yamaha TDM thinks this is a great road. Every bump, crack, and ripple in the highway drives my tailbone into the middle of my spine. The historic twin-shock rear suspension, long wheelbase and sluggish steering turns some of my favorite letter-roads into work. At about 250 miles, the clutch began making a squawking noise on cold starts and it would grab and lunge forward. That reappeared once in slow moving traffic, when the bike was a little hot. The 5-speed transmission is predictable and well-spaced and shifting is as smooth as you'd expect from a long linkage mechanism. The “poly chain belt” drive, as usual for the genre, sucks up some transmission shock but it isn't elastic enough to disguise some transmission lash.

The GV650 has lots of chrome: engine cases, monster pipe, fork bits, and all of the places cruiser owner's like chrome. The engine case chrome is a little heavy looking, like plastic model plating. The welds, paint, chrome, fit and finish all look up to modern standards, although the finish on the top side of the swingarm was a little crude. Generally, the Avitar looks well built for the price ($6,299 MSRP).

Competition in this style and engine size is fierce. The Avitar is priced $100 above Yamaha's V-Star Classic and $200 over the Custom and Suzuki's Boulevard. The Honda Shadow VLX is $400-800 less expensive than the GV650 and Kawasaki's Vulcan 500 LTD is $1100 cheaper. The Harley Sportster 883 is $400 above the asking price for the Hyosung. It will be hard to make a dent in this market without a substantial cost advantage over the more established competition.

Postscript: This review generated more flame-mail than anything I've done in the last decade. I must have been right, because some of the mail came from owners who claimed I'd devalued their "investment" by describing its faults and failures. In retrospect, I only wish I had been more blunt in my dislike for the Avitar. Even more, the overreaction by the manufacturer and dealer to my exposing the bike's terrible reliability and incompetent design demonstrates exactly how a consumer will be treated with similar complaints. It is, without question, a POS motorcycle that is overpriced, poorly designed and more miserably executed, and belongs in the "cheap Chinese shit" category of motorcycles.

Pick A Grudge

A while back, I wrote about my bias/grudge/allergy to a couple of motorcycle brands (Call Me "Doubting Thomas"). A while back, in a conversation with a group of college students about customer service, consumer awareness, and who has leverage and when, I was reminded of that bias/grudge/allergy. During that conversation, I realized that I have a few more things to say about this issue. More to the point, I discovered that a lot of people have taken strong biases toward brands and people and it appears that more intelligent people seem to hang on to these positions a lot longer than do . . . let's say "less complicated people."

So, for the fun of it, I decided to list a few of my never-do-that-again biases (in no particular order) and see if readers are interested in joining in:

1. Hyosung -- Not only was the Hyosung GV650-Avitar I reviewed in 2008 a near-perfect pile of crap, but my reward for holding back my real opinion of that poorly assembled bucket of parts was a hysterical temper tantrum from the company's marketing asshole. I probably won't live long enough to forget that experience. I do react poorly to being burned.
2. Sony -- Way back in the 80's, I owned, my employer owned, and several studios I worked for owned Sony CD players and Sony's inability to build a slide-out drawer that didn't jam up or fall off soured me on all-things-Sony for at least 30 years. Five years ago, I bought a Sony camera on recommendation from a friend. It lasted less than a month before the Mini-DV tape door motor began to fail. I thought the memory stick option would be a backup, but that route only recorded low-res video and is useless. This product models everything I expect from Sony. The company is very good at electronics and absolutely miserable with mechanical devices. This is a really old bias/grudge and I was more than a little surprised to realize that I've hung on to this one so long.The camera experience will extend that bias to the end of my life.
3. General Motors -- My father was a dedicated GM customer his whole life. From the 70's on, I don't think he had a single vehicle that wouldn't have been classified as a "lemon," and he traded for (and got screwed on) a new one every couple of years. Normally, my father was a conservative person, but mechanically he was a radical liberal. I drove a series of company trucks, all GM, for a decade and they were no better than my father's collection of junk. I was almost ready to change my opinion based on a California friend's experience with a leased EV1, when GM's corporate brain-tumor decided to trash the whole project. I haven't taken GM seriously since. 
4. McDonalds -- I do not like bullies. I'm not a big fast food fan, but I am not even close to being a food purist. I have not bought or eaten anything from McDonalds since 1997. The company will never see  a dollar of my money again.
5. Presonus -- Disappointing, really. This company ought to be my kind of people. They make cheap, reasonably well-engineered products that pretty much do what they claim to do. Their engineers are a collection of high-tech wizards who are also true believers. However, Presonus is trying to become the next Peavey and that is a whole 'nother world of customer-hostility. I have been disappointed, repeatedly by their products and their customer service is vicious. Been there, done that, won't go back.
6. Harley Davidson -- I suffered an Italian Harley-labeled 250 in the 60's, but that didn't make a mark on me. Years of experience with HD's customers did that job. There is something about a Harley that appears to lower the IQ of anyone who owns one. If you think I need more evidence to make an opinion, you might be permanently damaged. Look around you and see how many wizards you find riding Harleys. I've ridden at least a dozen HD products (not counting Buells) and there is nothing there for me. I may be old, but I'm not that old.  I don't play golf, either.
7. Polaris/Victory Motorcycles -- I hate having this grudge, but it might be one of my most rationally based biases. Several years ago, I bought a Pure Polaris Electric Scooter directly from the company, through one of Polaris' marketing executives. As you can see from the review, I liked this product a lot. As you can tell from the postscript, Polaris' attempt to disavow any knowledge of the Electric Scooter has put them into the grudge category and I've avoided their products since. In fact, when I was asked to do a review of the Polaris Victory Vision, I blew it off until other victims ended up doing the review. There was simply no chance that I would be able to ride one of Victory's hippobikes without being constantly reminded of the beating I'd taken from the company over my little electric scooter. Polaris/Victory is sort of a Minnesota/Wisconsin company and I'd like to like them. But I don't. Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me. 
8. British Engineering -- This might be my oldest and least rational grudge. I owned an MGA in the 60's and there was nothing competent about that vehicle. It, also, drove me bankrupt the first and only time. Since, I have helped friends overhaul MGs, Triumphs (cars and motorcycles), BSAs, Nortons, and Jags and I have not seen any evidence that it is time for me to change my opinion. In the 1970's, the company I worked for bought a half-million-dollar "high tech, heavy duty gas welding" rig that was controlled by British electronics and was almost by itself the reason the company soon laid off 1200 employees. Everything from Vox to Marshall guitar amps and from Trident to SSL consoles has taught me that the Brits are willing to do anything to stuff electronics into a box and sell it for inflated prices. Finally, I rode some of the way to Alaska with a friend on a Tiger and his problems were familiar sutff. As a side note, I was convinced that Top Gear was a comedy show, until a couple of my students set me straight. A British television show that criticizes automotive engineering? WTF? (Sorry, Paul.) I have not ridden a new Triumph, though. Guess why?
9. FRAM Filters -- For years, I heard other people complain about FRAM's oil filters but I kept using them until one fell apart and nearly killed my V-Strom a couple of years ago. 
10. Non-Stick Cookware -- I've had it with this stuff. Talk about a product that breaks your heart. From the cheapest crap to a $90 omelet pan, the non-stick part starts sticking after about 10 uses. It's enough to drive me back to cooking with lard.

Getting Clean

My editor recently sent a reply to my volunteering to review anything but another cruiser (after the Hyosung POS debacle, I don't think anyone wants more of my opinions of that sort of machine), "I may have to assign a cruiser, every other review, to all parties as that is 50% of what is sold and 50% of what we get to review. Want to to pay your m/c reviewer debt and be 'clean' for your next non-cruiser assignment?" 

Help me out, folks. What does "getting clean" mean in this context? I suspect it means I have to write something nice about something I really dislike. This is the kind of "clean" that has put me off of practically every technical publication in every industry in which I have worked. The fear of irritating advertisers has made impotent every magazine from Cycle World to Mix Magazine to Physics Today. 

It seems like a lifetime ago, but I can barely remember editors like Rick Seiman with Dirt Bike and the old REP (Recording Engineering and Producer) Magazine from the 70s whose writers often trashed products when those designs didn't live up to expectations. There was a time when reading a product review actually provided some information about the product. Not anymore. A "shoot out" among a wide range of products usually results in four winners and an also-ran.

A friend of mine writes for a live sound magazine, FOH, he's their technical editor. I once complained that I couldn't tell a quality difference between a Midas console and a Peavey console, based on his comments in reviews. His response was, "You have to read between the lines. The truth is in there, you just have to know how to look for it."

My response was, "Between the lines is white space. If that's the truth, why do I need to read your words?"

Success breeds contempt, I guess. Or success breeds fear of failure? When an industry is in the infant stage, competition is fierce, passions are high, and "the truth" is a valuable thing. Once an industry becomes mainstream, there is more to lose, less to gain, and the result is the definition of "conservative."

In my long, meandering life, I've managed to become something of a Jack of Many Trades. The downside to that is, I don't have anything resembling expertise in any area. The upside is I don't have all of my chips invested in any one game. So, I don't have much to gain from any of the many things I do for profit, entertainment, and employment and I don't have much to lose if one of those activities becomes impractical. My habits are modest. My interests are diverse. I get pissed off easily. I'm naturally solitary, so it doesn't bother me much if others are offended by my opinions. In fact, if 99.99...% of the population decided to move to another planet, that would be more reason for me to stay here. Top it all off, I'm old. I'm not "building a business," here. I have a business that I'd be happy to be rid of. I don't want another. The beauty of something as pointless as a blog is that I can say what I want to say without worrying about who I disappoint or offend.

All of that makes me cranky, opinionated, a little distant from the pack, and unlikely to collect a bunch of loyal advertisers on this blog. Weirdly, with all this attitude the blog site has attracted 1,400 visitors this month. I appreciate your interest, whoever you are. I'm going to keep adding product and motorcycle reviews to this site and I won't always be fond of the things I'm reviewing. That means I pay for what I review, or borrow it and return it in sad condition. The high price of being able to say what I think.

Hyosung GV650 Avatar stuff

The review is out, last month in fact. As of this writing, it's not on the Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly webpage, but I'll update this blog when it is. I'm getting a fair number of email comments about the article and it has been interesting. The guys on the TC-DualSport list had some interesting things to say and one of the spurred a response from me: --- In TC_Dualsport@yahoogroups.com, pdstreeter@... wrote: > > I read that review, it seems to me Tom would have panned any cruiser, the > Hyosung just happened to be the one he was reviewing at the time. It's true that it would be impossible for me to love a cruiser. I wrote the intro to make it clear that "love" wasn't in the cards. It was a lame attempt to lighten up the otherwise panning of the bike. However, I think the Hyosung GV650 is a POS. Everything about the design screams "unfamilair with the concept" of motorcycle design. From the dumbass ignition key location to the goofy riding position, to the pitiful suspension, to the cobbly finish, to the godawful and unpredictable clutch just reeked "made in Korea without Japanese supervision." The motor had power, but I wouldn't trust it out of town. It was clattering like a tractor at the end of the most miserable 140 miles I've ever spent on a motorcycle. That history includes 150 miles of the 1973 Canadian River X-Country on a 1971 Kawasaki Bighorn that finished with 2 working gears (1 & 2) and a seized front fork and one busted rear shock and a hole in the right side case that sucked sand through the motor for 20 miles. I miss the Bighorn, I would set fire to the Avatar, if it were mine. The manufacturer (Hyosung) already banned Cycle World from ever riding one of their POS bikes. Now, MMM is in that fine company. The Hyosung marketing goof went ballastic when he saw the review. I'm going to post his letter, soon, on my blog. If you think Paul thinks I'm evil, you ain't seen nothing yet. ;-)

The Repercussions of Having an Opinion

This summer, I reviewed a bike that put me in an ethical bind. I really liked the folks at the dealership, although they were clearly not motorcycle people. The dealership was a hardware store trying to get into the exciting, high-profile, profitable scooter and motorcycle market. Yes, I'm joking about the characteristics of our market but I'm not joking about their expectations for that same business. They were almost childishly anticipating a flood of cash from their entry into American motorcycling. I thought they should have been a little more cautious, since they had only recently dropped Polaris' and were still trying to offload their inventory (two bikes) of last years' It turned out that the bike was, largely, junk. 

 You can read the review linked to this column for a mild-mannered opinion of that motorcycle. Not only was the quality and design short of modern standards, it was overpriced, unreliable (based on my short and uncomfortable experience), and possibly dangerous. For example, the clutch grabbed so severely that it would intermittently yank the bike several yards on engagement and disengaged a fair distance from the misnamed "friction zone." The dealer admitted they had experienced this before, the factory offered a "fix" that didn't work, and I still have no idea if the bike can be made safe due to this defect. 

When my review hit the stands, I got a few calls and emails from Hyosung owners describing their experience with the clutch problems and asking if there was remedy. Since the dealer had decided to toss fuel and a lit match on our relationship, the best I could offer the Hyosung victims was a phone number and web-link for the NHTSA recall hot line. 

In my review I tried to briefly describe many of the bike's defects as accurately as possible. There is, or should be, a public service aspect to product reviews and I take that seriously, having been burned a few times by half-honest product reviews. It is hard to be critical of a motorcycle that has been handed over with the expectation of unbridled love, but that's a critic's job. Of course, the basic design was pretty funny on its own, which added an aspect of humor that was out of my control. The Korean manufacturer went for a really weird and retro chopper look and a totally stupid riding position, which was a regular source of entertainment by everyone who knows me and saw me on the bike. 

 To be blunt and honest, I hated the bike and think it is the worst representation of the style I've ever ridden. But, I'm no cruiser expert. I do my best to stay off of the damn things and have yet to ride one I'd consider owning. The article says as much. In a form-follows-function world, cruisers have lost their way. The Hyosung was the worst representative of a terrible motorcycle style that I've ever suffered. My review didn't reflect even half of my dislike of the Avitar. As toned-down as it was, the resultant article received the following comments from the manufacturer's sales department:

• ". . . You assured both myself and [names deleted], our National Sales Mgr. that you just wanted to do a fair, light hearted review on some of Hyosungs models and that no matter how bad the bike or scooter may turn out to be (should that be the case, which it is not), neither you nor your writing staff would be overly hard or in anyway unfair on said unit and would emphasize the strong points of the model more so than its weaknesses. . .
• "Well I can assure you that if this lop sided, closed and narrow minded, cruiser hating editors article hits the newstands as written, I will personally guarantee you that you will never ever review one of our bikes, scooters or anything else we manufacture again either. Did the same Jackass that wrote this article happen to ride the HD too?
• "I am shocked that you call yourself a motorcycle magazine and that your reviewer considers himself a motorcyclist at all least of all an motorcycle editor? . . .
• "However to send a person to test a motorcycle that openly admits to hating any and all types of a certain style of motorcycle (in this case cruisers) is just plain stupidity and completely unethical and can only lead to an uninformed and uninspiring review!
• "Also, how small is this reviewer that he doesn't fit on the GV650? We had women that stood all of 5ft 4 inches tall and weighed 105 pounds soaking wet sit on it at the show, easily pull it up off the sidestand and feel very comfortable doing so? In fact, its neutral riding position along with how well it carries its weight low . . .
• "He has no business testing ours or any other manufacturers products because he does not carry anything remotely close to unbiased, fair or ethical writing skills...or dare I say any writing skills at all. . .
• "There are so many holes in this article that I couldn't plug them with all ten fingers and toes...but I digress, if this is what you call a review in your magazine, then please don't bother to ask to "review" our products in the future. . . "

Where the marketing doofus got the idea that I'm an "editor" is a confusion. He also appears to think my first or last name is "Jackass," which I suppose is more likely than me being an editor. While his own "writing skills" would make most text messengers blush in shame, he seems to feel pretty confident in his ability to blast mine which makes for entertaining reading. It is interesting that he conveniently chose to forget that MMM had not signed up to review the cruiser. In all the magazine's negotiations, the bike we were anticipating for review was the Hyosung GT650R; a Korean attempt at copying the Suzuki SV650. I was signed on to the review because I ride a Suzuki V-Strom 650 and previously owned and enjoyed an SV650 for 50,000 miles. Neither Sev, Victor, or I would have even considered putting me on a POS cruiser from any manufacturer under practically any conditions. If the goofball sales doofus had done any research, he would have known that MMM, in general, is not fond of cruisers and I, in particular, think they are clown bikes. 

Until the Avitar was rolled into the dealer's driveway and my wife had driven away in my escape vehicle, I had no idea that I would be test riding a Shriner vehicle. I would have dressed appropriately, had I known: protective bandana, butt-less leather chaps, Doc Martins, and the usual Harley comedy accessories. As it was, I arrived in full Aerostich gear, helmet, boots, and all. I was as appropriately dressed as a riot cop at a Grateful Dead concert. If I weren't cursed with a Midwestern inability to say "no," I would have recalled my wife and simply left after explaining to the dealer why they did not want me reviewing the Avitar. 

As it was, the dealer had spent all of the magazine's lead time prepping the bike, delivering it almost two weeks after they had promised it would be ready. Two of the four possible reviewers had dropped out of the pool of writers because of the near deadline and the poor timing. It would either be me and Steven Heller or Steven alone. It probably should have been Steven alone. So, I can't disagree that with the marketing doofus' basic premise that I was bound to dislike the Hyosung cruiser. A more adventurous manufacturer might have taken my position as a challenge and accepted any level of approval as an accomplishment or an opportunity to fine tune a vehicle that clearly needs critical design input. So it goes and Hyosung was already on record as being "sensitive," since they had burst into indignant flames over Cycle World's mediocre review a few months earlier. I admit it. I hated the bike. 

Riding the Hyosung Avitar was almost a crippling event and it felt unsafe at all but in the slowest, least traffic critical situations. My neck and back hurt for a week after escaped the Avitar experience. And the bike is butt-ugly. I did my best to picture it in the best light, including a pretty flattering (in my opinion) picture of the abomination next to a lake on a dirt road upon which only a masochist would venture with a machine so limited in capability. I gave it my best shot, but we were doomed to hate each other. 

Obviously, I didn't rave about the bike's glorious features and that was, apparently, a crime. Even I can only lie so much in 1,200 words. I do apologize for the "uninspiring" quality of the review. The best I could do was to reach for "funny." When I look back at the pictures of myself on the Avitar, I think we both accomplished funny. I still take crap from friends who posted a collection of pictures of me on that damn bike with my feet extended in the gynecologically-correct cruiser position and the rest my body so uncomfortably positioned that vacationing Guantanamo prison guards were taking notes as I rode by.

 In the aftermath of this experience, I've been relegated to finding my own bikes for review because MMM is growing gun shy of sales and marketing department backlash. Every once in a while, I feel a tinge of jealousy when the other writers get to play with cool bikes like the BMW F800ST (and I was on the list for that review before the Avitar fiasco) or the 2008 Aprilia Shiver. But I missed out on the H-D FLSTSB Cross Bones and the Can-Am Spyder, so I'm not all that injured. 

Successful humans almost always become more conservative and, no matter how you play games with the meaning of that word, that means we become less adventurous, courageous, and less willing to challenge the status quo. Believe it or not, I can remember when FM radio was adventurous. I can even remember when National Public Radio produced radically entertaining and informative programs. Way back in the dark ages of motorcycle publications, Dirt Bike Magazine actually performed shoot-outs that ended up with clear winners and losers. I wonder if Newsweek and Time Magazine had a golden age? I think the reason so many of us get our news and information from the Internet instead of magazines and newspapers is that the World Wide Web is still largely economically unsuccessful. Until the money starts pouring into blogs and web news sites, there are still ways to get attention on the Web without much financial incentive, so there is nothing to lose in telling the whole, nasty story. Once money creeps into the equation, the story's motivation changes. It's human nature. That doesn't make the occurance any less disappointing, though. Mostly due to a lack of patience, I'm going to post more product reviews on this blog in the future. I like the fact that I can say exactly what I think here without having to worry about offending whoever I'm likely to offend. It's easy enough to simply not read a blog if you don't like the writer.

Why I Hate Cruisers

What a totally bogus title. I don’t hate cruisers. They are inanimate objects. You should reserve a powerful emotion like “hate” for vicious characters like Nixon, Reagan, Georgie Bush and his sidekick Little Dick Cheney, Sideshow Bob, and the Anti-Truth (Fox News and their cast of clowns and freaks). I don’t hate cruiser owners, either. Some of them are among the lowest of the low, but they advertise that fact with their patches, tattoos, and crimes. Most folks who put on Village People costumes and ride a hard 50 miles-a-day from bar-to-bar on their big iron are mid-life-crisis walking wounded and are no more dangerous or despicable than the guys who dress up in gray flannel in Civil War enactments. So, really what this rant is about is why I dislike cruisers and the culture from which they are spawned.

First and most obviously, I can’t find a purpose or a function for the basic cruiser design.

It’s just a dumb-looking design without a single practical consideration. I once suffered through a Discovery Channel program on the history of motorcycles and that program tried to explain away the dopey riding position as being reminiscent of western cowboy saddles. I grew up riding western style saddles and I always had my feet under me anytime I was horseback. I’m completely unconvinced that sticking your feet in a pair of gynecologist stirrups is western, macho, or functional in any way. The “style” is derived from the piles of crap that the gangbangers chopper crowd rode during the days when only degenerates and Europeans rode motorcycles.

The riding position is primitive and uncomfortable. The chassis design negates all of the advantages of a motorcycle. The long, low, heavy, low ground clearance means the bike can't be maneuvered quickly in any kind of emergency. Cruisers can't turn, they can't get over obstacles, they can’t stop quickly, they can only accelerate in a straight line, and they are too heavy to get out of their own way. From a motor vehicle perspective, a cruiser is the equivalent of a Cadillac or, even more accurately, a single-passenger limousine. In other words, useless.

Most cruisers start with a single positive mechanical attribute; they are tuned so mildly that they can get pretty decent mileage when driven conservatively. Cruiser owners “fix” that almost immediately. Put on a noisy pipe, drill random holes in the intake system or put on a geeky chrome airbox and fuel efficiency will be sacrificed for the god of peak power at some random, probably unusable, rpm.

As far as the low CG advantage, that’s only useful when the bike is stationary, which (I guess) is a cruiser’s normal posture. Almost any inseam-challenged, overweight invalid can waddle a leg over a typical cruiser’s seat. A “tall” cruiser will have a 31” seat height while most customs will be modified so that small children can perch comfortably on the seat while planting both feet firmly on the ground. The other advantage to this “design” is that the bike practically stands itself in a parking lot. Like a sand-bottomed Bozo the Clown punching toy, with a pair of flat profile tires, a cruiser is a free-standing structure.

That, of course, is only an advantage when the bike is in a parking lot or barely moving. If form isn’t following some kind of function, I find no useful purpose for the form. A friend once said the cruiser “form is the function” and that lost me even further. If cruisers are art, I’m outta here. I don’t like non-representational art unless it’s on wallpaper and blends in with the furniture. I may not know art, but I know what I like; especially in motorcycles. A cruiser’s primary purpose appears to be to look impressively sedentary parked in front of a bar. I get that function from a rocking chair on my porch.

Tnere are folks who put the lie to my analysis, I'll admit. There are people who put long touring miles on their Harleys, Victories, and such and they amaze me. They are the exception to my "rule" and, as such, are exceptional. Sometimes I suspect they pick these ungainly, unsuited motorcycles just to prove that they can be ridden (tamed?) like a real motorcycle. I have the same kind of attitude toward really small motorcycles out of a similar motivation.

Humans are an irrational animal.

The social and historical aspects of cruisers turn me off even further. The riders who gravitate toward cruisers display a collection of traits that oppose most of what I believe in. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of very nice people riding completely silly motorcycles. Even some of them appear to be ignorant of what their ride-statement represents.

For example, the Nazi paraphernalia. A rider who also teaches MSF classes thought it was funny when I mentioned how insulted my WWII vet father would be seeing him displaying an airbrushed Nazi helmet. The guy is an ex-Marine, ex-policeman for cripes sake! How can it be that hard to figure out? Is there something about Nazis that I don’t know?

It gets a whole lot worse. I know bikers who sport Nazi swastikas and Harley tattoos, side-by-side. Biker rallies co-exist and cohabit with Klan’ers, skinheads, coke and meth dealers, gangsters, and all kinds of vicious, evil creeps. The posers who imitate the biker “style” don’t seem to realize that they are linking themselves with the worst of the worst.

The other social appeal for cruisers seems to be a freaky desire to turn back time to when men were boss and non-white men need not apply. The basic design of the “modern” cruiser recalls the crap that Hardly and Indian were making in the early 50s. Heavy, plodding, underpowered two-wheeled tractors that were more about sound than fury. All the 50s nostalgia recalls for me is fruitcakes like Joe McCarthy and lazy, do-nothing politicians like Eisenhower. The 50s were a time when superstition ruled our education system until the godless Russians gave us a demonstration of the axiom that “the only constant is change.” Of course, once science and engineering became popular areas of study, superstition took a lot of hits and off we went into the godless 60s and 70s.

From a public nuisance standpoint, it is, apparently, practically impossible to simply ride a cruiser. The kinds of people who pick this style of bike also want to announce their presence. Loudly. Their disrespect for my privacy and neighborhood goes right back at them every time they rattle my windows as they roar out of the corner in front of my house. You’d expect that kind of antisocial behavior from teenagers. Geezers blasting rapid fire farting noises are a different kind of retard. That kind of low tech cobbling passes for “customizing” and engineering in this breed of quasi-vehicle and I have to say I find it insanely boring and incredibly irritating.

The damage cruiser doofuses are doing to motorcycling is high on my list, too. They often pick these rolling wheelchairs because they are too fat, too incapacitated, and too scared to swing a leg over a real motorcycle. The prime quality of a typical cruiser is the low seat height. Some of these disabled machines are practically miniatures, with the associated useless suspensions, micro-powered motors, auto-pilot straight-ahead steering, and underpowered brakes. The obvious result is that near-cripples are riding these things into traffic and dying in large numbers. If they keep it up, they are going to give motorcycling such a bad name that no amount of whining by the rest of us will save our vehicle of choice from being banished to go-cart and snowmobile status.

Finally, I have to admit that I think the majority of cruisers are simply eyesores. All that shiny chrome placed in random patterns on badly welded low-grade steel chassis decorated with girlyman fringe and creepy, low-tech paint jobs grates on my nerves like a late night frat party that I can't shut enough windows to allow escape. To my eye, they are incredibly ugly and I can't get past that. It's no more rational than a "no fat chicks" tee-shirt, but ugly is as ugly does and cruiser owners do a lot of ugly.

There is a reason for this longwinded explanation. Stay tuned and all will be revealed.