#v-star

In 1996, the cruiser market in America was introduced to the initial Star motorcycle, the Royal Star. Over the next few years, more Stars appeared on  Yamaha’s manifest, in the form of V-Stars, Drag Stars, and Royal Star variations. In 2006, the company decided to commit to the flourishing line of motorcycles by creating  Star Motorcycles as a brand separate from the mothership, much as Toyota did with Lexus and Nissan with Infiniti. Eventually journalists and riders, alike, became accustomed to what, at first, seemed arbitrary and unnatural – since Yamaha logos were still featured in discreet locations on Star Motorcycles.

File this one in the “They still make that?” file. We’ve been bombarded with so many cutting-edge sportbikes and go-anywhere, do-anything adventure-tourers lately that it’s easy to forget about the cruiser segment of the market. And even among the cruising set, the sub-liter middleweight category hasn’t been getting much love. The attention usually goes to the big-displacement crowd because, let’s face it, cruiser riders have an image to uphold.

Cruisers don’t always get the attention they deserve here at MO. Part of the reason is the racing background of most of the staff here. So when we sent Mark Miller, professional AMA Formula X-Treme racer, and current Isle of Man TT competitor to evaluate a cruiser — the 1998 Yamaha V-Star 650 Classic — we knew he’d come back with something out of the ordinary. Miller was used to getting his knee down at triple digit speeds aboard his YZF-R1, but while reviewing the 650 Classic he also saw some parallels between the two. Sounds crazy, but considering the breadth of motorcycles, cruisers included, Miller has ridden, the idea didn’t seem so far fetched after all. In this Church of MO edition, let’s take a look at how the 16 year-old V-Star and R1 worlds collide.