If you have a cruiser as an "other" bike...

Did you have it first, and then the FJR (or whatever other bike(s) you have)?

If not, what made you decide to get one?

When do you choose to ride the cruiser? When do you choose not to?

If you had (or have) only one bike, would it be the cruiser?

I know I have other questions, but I don't know what they are or why I'm asking in the first place. I've always had a pretty brutal opinion of cruisers as motorcycles, the attitudes of cruiser riders toward safety, be it gear, training, skills, noise, modifications...there's a long list.

But-

I have developed a minor preoccupation with the Indian Scout. I discussed my test ride in another thread. I kinda wish it had just plain sucked, but it didn't. Accessories are stupid expensive, and functionally inferior to anything I'd add to the FJR or the GS. My riding style is...spirited. I know I could ride the 390 anywhere, get there and be finishing a soda and a sammich before I'd get there on the Scout. SWMBO likely ain't going to love it (she does love the FJR). Again, the negatives are a long list.

But if you own one, how do you reconcile the differences between that and non-cruiser riding?

This has to be a variation on cabin fever. Too f'n hot.

To answer the question with complete honestly may be futile, but I will try.

I would like to have a Harley Bagger. Street Glide/Road Glide kind of thing. Wife would think it was comfortable I think, maybe or maybe not. Maybe the FatBoy as I like the "look" of it. My father in law ( who by my account was the worst rider I ever shared miles with) had a series of Kawasaki Vulcans. He started with a 500 and had at least 4 more increasing in displacement. Everytime he crashed, he got the next size up. 750>>crash>>900>>crash>>>1100>>crash>>>1500 rarely ride that one because he was afraid he was gonna crash it-----no duh Dad!! But, I rode everyone of those bikes and thought each was okay. Not for me, but okay. No luggage capacity.

No desire in anything else really unless it involved off road capability. I am in a stage where I really would love to try riding a bike in the woods along some trails.

Back to the Harley Davidson, too loud for me. The Vulcans seem to put me in an un-athletic body position. That was my biggest complaint for sure.

The positive for the Harleys would be that I could not wear gear, look totally Bad-Arse, and never worry about crashing since they don't. And the good thing about me owning a Vulcan is that it would be safe from my Father in Law. I know there are other bikes out there that I would like, but I am not spending my money on them.

I had a mean streak for a while. Okay, I still have one, but I used to have the bike. Looked great. Turned heads. Sounded great. Tremendous power. It had forward controls, so a bad seating position was made even worse. With feet and arms straight in front, no way to get off the seat for a big bump or hump. I hit a pothole and had back pain for 6 months. That bike, even when properly maintained, vibrated itself to pieces constantly. Plate mount was never more than a week from coming off, Loctite be damned. Exhaust bolts had to be replaced fairly regularly. Got to downtown Atlanta one pre-dawn commute and went for first gear. There was no shift lever. Bolt vibrated loose and the shifter was dangling straight down. Nice bike otherwise. Just a terrible seating position. I swapped bikes with someone for a while and got to ride a Nomad for a couple of months. I loved the seating position on that bike, and don't recall it vibrating anything loose. I would like a road king, but if I went cruiser, I would probably go with Kawasaki's version, simply because of lower cost, better reliability, and the fact that they're water cooled. To be honest, I considered a road king or nomad along with a host of other bikes when I made the decision to sell my eurotrash sport tourer. I went FJR partly because of it's similarities to the sport tourer I was leaving, which I dearly loved, and partly because both the twisty roads I frequent make good lean angle a priority, and the traffic situations I frequently encounter make nimbleness and maneuverability important. The floorboards and seating position of the Nomad/Road King feel like they were made for me. Just a rightness. But not enough rightness to convince me that either was the uber-reliable LD machine I needed.

I've personally never owned a cruiser but my wife had one for almost 19 years. She wanted her Harley because it's American made. I worked part time for 16 years at a Harley dealership and as a result got to ride just about everything Harley has offered. My Buell is the closest to them I'll ever own.

There are some relatively competent cruisers out there. Very few if any would satisfy me the way the FJR does. Most are overweight, under powered, and lack any serious carrying capacity unless you throw cubic dollars at them in modifications. Don't get me wrong most of us have put money into our bikes to make them better, cruisers just require more of it to get to where we all started from.

My neighbor just bought a new Indian Scout on Saturday. She is short statured and needs something with a low seat height. Her husband rides a HD Sportster Custom and while she likes it well enough she wanted something different. They stopped by my house to show it off. Nice bike. Too low for my taste and they've already fitted an obnoxious exhaust which he is already rethinking after only 2 days.

There's a good reason manufacturers make such a variety of models. It would be a boring world if we all liked chocolate.

I owned a Harley from the late 70's-late 80's, though not a "cruiser" per se. A '56 Panhead hard tail, with a 10" over Durfee girder, atypical chopper. I was young, and lived for the HD Kool-Aid drinking.

Personally, I don't like cruisers. Their size/weight, and pure gawdyness is a complete turnoff. Also, I think the image of the riders, riding them, leaves much to be desired . You know the type, always trying to look like they're the baddest mf'er on the planet. That's just my opinion.

Cruisers vibrate, so you'll have to get used to that. Your weight will fall onto your tailbone, so short rides should be fine, but long rides could develop back pain. As mentioned earlier, you can't get up out of the saddle while riding, so RR tracks, bumps, potholes and such will cause a man of faith to cuss like a sailor. They do have low-end grunt, which will get you off the line quickly, but peter out further up the rpm range. Fun can be had from redlight to redlight. The lean factor can be greatly diminished, depending on forward controls/frame height.

These are just a few that come to mind, and everyone is different, so you might ending up loving it. But honestly, if you're having that itch, then there's really only one way to scratch it.

Ride what makes you happy.

I had a Roadstar Warrior before my FJR. At the same time I also had a VFR800 VTEC. The VFR was my daily/touring bike and the Warrior was my Friday bike. Like Lumberg's Mean Streak, the Warrior had forward controls and a drag bar. The fuel tank was only good for 100 miles, which worked out alright, because the ergos prevented me from riding more than a couple hours at a time.

But... the the sound was intoxicating (mine had the Yamaha racing exhaust, a PCIII and some other breathing add-ons), the torque was addictive and the handling was way better than you'd expect from a cruiser. I always had volunteers for ride-alongs on the fender. It really was a bad-ass experience every time I took it out. I got rid of the Warrior because I spent more time polishing than riding and at the same time upgraded the VFR for a more competent all-rounder.

I don't miss the VFR (the FJR is better in every measure), but I do miss the the Warrior. I'm likely to get another one...

At the ripe old age of 39, I had a mid-life crisis and decided to do something I'd wanted to do since high school - get a motorcycle. I went to a Harley dealer, put $200 down and ordered a bike. Since it would be approx 1 year before the bike came in, I had time to get my license, gear, etc... I decided on a Harley because I figured that if riding wasn't for me, I wouldn't have much trouble selling the bike. I also had no idea there were so many aspects to riding - all I ever noticed were the pirates.

9 months later, my bike comes in - a brand new, 100th anniv 2003 Dyna Low Rider. Looks good, feels good as I ride it around the parking lot a few times before taking it home. Over the next couple of years, I get a new seat, re-jet the carbs, upgrade the brakes & suspension, add a backrest, detachable windscreen but no more chrome - the bike came with more than enough and that stuff is a bitch to clean. I put a few thousand miles on it and even took my Mom on a trip down the Blue Ridge Pkwy - she loved it but I was not very comfortable for such a long trip. As I'm out and about, I begin to notice all the other bikes - of all shapes and sizes - and my second mid-life crisis hits me...

This time, it's sport bikes... they sure look like fun and I've always had thing for going fast. We go to the IMS and I sit on every bike on the floor - looking for one that feels right and isn't too tall as I still consider myself to be a "new" rider and I don't feel stable unless both feet touch the ground. I find the one I like and I put my money down at the local Suzuki dealer. Within a few months, I pick up my brand new 2006 GSX1300RZ Hayabusa. I keep the thing completely stock for about a year and then I see what all my 'busa friends have done to theirs and I go bat-shit crazy with modifications. I'm not talking about bling mods, just performance and handling type stuff. I get luggage for it and begin touring... before long, my son decides to go on trips with me and we have a BLAST! At the time, he was 14 or 15 but by the time he turned 16 he was beginning to look like a praying mantis on the back of the bike. Hmmm, what to do... what to do...

Mid-life crisis #3 - the FJR. I'm happy, the kid is happy, the rest is history.

I still have all 3 bikes and ride all of them - some more than others - and my moto adventure bucket list continues to get longer. I may buy more bikes (I have a wish list) and I always feel another mid-life crisis is just around the corner. Life is short my friends so live it to the fullest - just be sure to wear your gear!

I take the wife's XL883L for a spin every now and then because it's just fun to putt around on. I'd never want to travel on it though, the ergonomics and vibrations are horrible.

I have, and will probably always have several bikes of various styles. The FJR is my first choice for most missions, but I couldn't imagine limiting myself to only one type of bike. That's just crazy talk.

My 1974 airhead is too small for serious LD. I still really enjoy riding it. No one right type of bike. And there's more than one type of riding.

This is the last cruiser that I owned and it was a heck of a lot of fun.

I still have a cruiser. Well, I should say I still own a cruiser, it stays at my sons house most of the time.

I still like the bike. It's nice for slow cruises on the beach roads. We do a couple group charity type rides a year. It is good for that.

I had the cruiser before I got the FJR, it's nice to have a backup bike. I will either keep it or give it to my son.

Now days I would not buy another cruiser. I am kind of over riding them for the most part. No fun dragging the floor boards when you want to get a little spirited.

If I get another second bike (FJR will always be the primary). It's going to be a small flickable sport bike.

My perfect two bike stable would be an FJR and a FZ-07.

I owned a cruiser before buying my FJR. I used it primarily for commuting and rarely took it out for a ride just for fun and never rode it more than a few hundred miles in a day.

In 2005 I bought my FJR because I wanted a better commuter machine with bags to carry stuff, fuel injection and shaft drive for lower maintenance, and more power for fun.

Once I started riding my FJR I lost interest in the cruiser and only rode the cruiser once a year to run out the old fuel. I kept it for my wife to ride, but she used it less than I did.

I sold it to a family member a few years ago.

Great stuff. I keep bumping into the combination of what I've always thought of as superficiality of the cruiser crowd, and the impracticality of the bikes. Sure you can travel on a big bagger or V-twin cruiser, but you're talking more weight, less performance and a bunch of other negatives vs (for example) the FJR, not to mention a significantly higher price of participation. And if you're talking about a naked bike, even a classic naked, there are options out there at lower cost that are at least as comfortable and less money. It also bugs me that this nasty little voice keeps telling me how good the Scout looks. Little bahstid.

creg-ny-baa said:

It also bugs me that this nasty little voice keeps telling me how good the Scout looks. Little bahstid.

Click to expand...

I am lucky. My wife has a scout, so I can ride one on occasion. Actually it's a fun little bike to ride. I would put it a notch above a normal cruiser.

It handles well, has a better lean angle and is faster then most cruisers. It's a nice change of pace from the FJR.

creg-ny-baa said:

Sure you can travel on a big bagger or V-twin cruiser, but you're talking more weight, less performance and a bunch of other negatives vs (for example) the FJR . . . .

Click to expand...

And yet how many times have you heard from cruiser friends - er . . wait, make that friends that ride cruisers - that say there's no way they could sit comfortably on our style of bike for any length of time? Crunched up knees, leaned over forward, etc. I've countered with the whole weight on tailbone/slumped spine argument and have had luck analogizing to sitting on a horse with proper length stirrups but the bottom line is, unless you're willing to keep an open mind and find out for yourself you'll never know for sure.

For another toy in the garage I'll admit the Scout has made me look twice. Victory's offering also. But I'm not riding what I have now enough so I quickly kick myself and move on.

BigOgre said:

For another toy in the garage I'll admit the Scout has made me look twice. Victory's offering also. But I'm not riding what I have now enough...

Click to expand...

^^^^^This.

I had a negative attitude about "cruisers." Heavy. Sluggish. Loud. Poor handling. etc. etc. etc.

But then Triumph introduced the Rocket III Touring (hard bagger with 2.3 liter engine) at the exact wrong time.

The market collapsed, and they were stuck with a bunch of them at Triumph's American importer's warehouse.

That was in 2008. By 2010, Triumph was desparate to move the bikes, and they dropped the price on the leftover 2008 models to $10995 ... or at least some dealers did.

I could not resist. I had to try one at this price point.

It turned out that I liked it quite well. It was very different. Very comfortable. Not particularly prone to excess vibration (it's a triple, not a V-twin).

I have now had three of them, the current being a 2014 ABS model. I was going to trade this one on a 2016 FJR, but my wife wanted to keep the Rocket III Touring. She feels more secure and more comfortable on the Rocket.

I do have an FJR, and I've owned many bikes that were in the FJR genre, including BMWs, Hondas, Moto Guzzi, etc....

My personal opinion these days is that the FJR is the best all around bike out there. The cruiser is a nice change of pace for two up rides.

If your significant other is adventurous and likes to be thrilled, the FJR is the better bet. But if they'd prefer a true barco-lounger, the Rocket III Touring with a Russell seat will rock your baby to sleep, even when you're pressing hard.

El Toro said:

I had a negative attitude about "cruisers." Heavy. Sluggish. Loud. Poor handling. etc. etc. etc.
**snippo**

My personal opinion these days is that the FJR is the best all around bike out there. The cruiser is a nice change of pace for two up rides.

If your significant other is adventurous and likes to be thrilled, the FJR is the better bet. But if they'd prefer a true barco-lounger, the Rocket III Touring with a Russell seat will rock your baby to sleep, even when you're pressing hard.

Click to expand...

Well, she ain't much for boring rides, and is such a good passenger that other than mounting and dismounting, I'd never know she's there, no matter the pace. So no "need" for a Barcalounger. Plus, if you saw the size of the two of us, we'd look nearly Lilliputian on the Rocket III. JS.