A new standard in tourers?

1.8L air cooled twin - I think they missed the mark. They had a great powerplant in their liquid cooled V4s.
 
From what I understand, Harley has set the luxury-tourer bar a lot higher with the Milwaukee 8 engine.

$32K for a Yamaha? Are they frickin nuts?
Buy an HD Electra Glide Ultra for under $30K. Use the $2K for the obligatory chrome accessories or Stage 1. Keep it forever.
 
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I'm not a fan of the futuristic look, otherwise I'd be looking more to goldwing, Honda has been at the touring game a long *** time and I respect that. I'm more into the Ultraglide look myself, and ofcourse the patented Harley sound, you can get close with any twin, but it will never have the same lope due to the crank design. I'd first ask myself if this would look a home or out of place in port dover this october.
 
GTAM is the wrong crowd for this. Impressive indeed that Yamaha built it but I think it's priced a bit high. Love that it's got the kitchen sink thrown at it and to get anything comparable from HD would be boatloads more money (a base Electra Ultra starts at $30k and is nowhere near this). Not liking the styling though but features are great.
 
Can you buy an HD ultra glide for under 30K? In that market segment loaded up the way it is 32k may not be a stretch. Its the most modern equipped tourer I've seen, only down side is resale will probably bottom out really quickly.
 
Right there on the HD website. $29,599.00. (With the associated decent resale value!).

The Yamaha does have amazing features, but a lot of it is stuff I personally wouldn't want or need.
 
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A friend posted this on Facebook a few days ago.

Interesting bike, I like the front end styling for sure (love the 4 headlight setup) but the rest of the bike doesn't seem to match the aggressiveness of the front end. Air cooled is a big oversight IMHO as well I agree especially on a big heavy touring bike, but hey...Harley still gets away with it.

But yes I will agree that the depreciation will probabbly be a big hit.

Would I buy one? Sure, but I'd wait until it's 5 years old and buy one from someone who had it as a garage queen, only put 5000KM on it, but lost 40% of it's value...to my benefit. Comparing it to a Harley at that point it would be an exceptionally good deal since the HD would have lost much less of it's value, but in the end isn't necessarily an exceptionally better bike from a "What you get" standpoint in the end.

GreyGhost said:
touchscreen on a bike? Seems like a great idea :/
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Read the article - "Designed to be used with gloves on".

FWIW this is not a new thing - Harley had touch screen controls starting in 2013 and Victory bikes have as well. Generally people love them as they are designed around the realities of motorcycling - bigger on screen buttons that area easy to press without accidentally mashing 4 other buttons at the same time when you hit a bump, the ability to put things in menus (again, with big buttons) instead of having a hundred switches and buttons for various options, etc.
 
TK4 said:
1.8L air cooled twin - I think they missed the mark. They had a great powerplant in their liquid cooled V4s.
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Expensive as hell to produce those engines. And they are gigantic. The Stratoliner/Raider motor that appears to be the basis for this motor was fantastic and a good choice. Reliable and powerful, no complaints from me on that choice.

Face said:
Wet weight, 963 lbs with 25 l of fuel. Comes with electric forward and reverse docking motors and Yamaha braided mooring lines. All for the low low price of $32,000 + freight, pdi & taxes.

http://www.yamaha-motor.ca/products/details-build-price.php?model=4971&group=MC&catId=1
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Hahaha, I thought the exact same thing. I have used the reverse on the Goldwings more than a few times, and it is handy mind you.

kruzuki said:
From what I understand, Harley has set the luxury-tourer bar a lot higher with the Milwaukee 8 engine.

$32K for a Yamaha? Are they frickin nuts?
Buy an HD Electra Glide Ultra for under $30K. Use the $2K for the obligatory chrome accessories or Stage 1. Keep it forever.
Click to expand...

kruzuki said:
Right there on the HD website. $29,599.00. (With the associated decent resale value!).

The Yamaha does have amazing features, but a lot of it is stuff I personally wouldn't want or need.
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I couldn't find a similarly equipped Harley for less than $30k on their website. Just about everything that has any features that come close, is $32k (or thereabouts)... Goldwing, HD Ultra Limited, etc. Whether or not you will use those features is up to each rider.
 
As soon as you need reverse on a bike I wonder if it has gone to far. Features I like, though I pretty much have them all on my BMW GS, though it does cost about the same. I don't mind the look, reminds me a little of Victory, kind of a mashup between Harley and Victory. I think they may be just ahead of the rest on this with all the great tech they put in it. I see a lot of this stuff being standard on all higher end bikes, and slowly trickling down. Build in Nav is good, though I prefer to have a bike that integrates with my Nav, lots of great features as well as being able to control without needing to touch the screen. But also being able to remove the Nav, connect to my computer, update, sent routes, etc. Not sure how they would do this bike unless they have a USB slot somewhere that can read and copy a GPX file. You would still need vaping software that works with the Nav.
 
Priced out a loaded ultra limited low on the hd site yesterday. 38k with all the bells and whistles. I still like it better. Might be 6k more, but it holds its value much better, and ofcourse it has a few things you can't get on any other bike.
 
Made for a teeny tiny niche in the market?
 
Are these big twin tourers smooth? Do they use super cushy mounts? I've had a few twin supersports and nakeds - would much prefer a smooth 4 for long distance slabbing.
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