YamaGeezer

2nd Generation throttle cables don't break.

Hear some backfiring there. Are you going to have to rejet?

I personally know a lot of HD owners who would disagree with you on that. Go ask the owners of '07 and '08 HD bikes how much more money they had to fork out on top of the price of the bike to get it cool enough to ride. Go read some of the HD forums and you'll see that not every HD owner is cherishing the "way of life." Believe it or not, oil leaks are STILL common on new HD bikes! I know this because I did some research. Wife and I stopped at the HD shop in Daytona and I fell in love with a white Ultra Classic there. Thought seriously about trading, but didn't until I could look a little closer at what UC owners are saying. What they're saying is: Dude - keep your Venture! I'm hearin' them loud and clear.

Hi all. I have a 2007 Venture and wanted to ask a question: I've had the carbs synced 2 times in 9,000 miles. Both times they were synced, I start getting a backfire out of the right side exhaust when decelerating (in gear). Never the left side, always the right. The bike hasn't backfired since I ran a bottle of Seafoam in it earlier this summer. Had my 8,000 mile service done today. On the way home, it's backfiring again! What are your thoughts? It's not bad, but I prefer it not to backfire. I had the dealer service dept. look for an exhaust leak the last time. I've tried to find one as well, but there just doesn't appear to be a leak. Is this something any of you have experienced? Thanks....

Haven't seen anything written about this on the site, so I thought I'd pass it on. Some friends and I rode up to Shady Valley, Virginia a couple of weeks ago to ride what they call "The Snake." Shady Valley is close to Bristol, near the Virginia - Tennessee state line. I forget how many curves in how many miles it is (it's a lot of both). If you're interested in that sort of riding and you've been to the Dragon and bought the T-shirt, you'll really enjoy the Snake. In fact, the actual road almost appears to be brand new - no potholes, no missing pieces, very smooth and well marked, and the two lanes even appear to be a little wider than the Dragon. Even better, there was no traffic at all. Shady Valley is a beautiful place, and they even have a "General Store" for souvenirs, hot food and motorcycle stuff (helmets, bags, leather, etc.). You can even buy a T-shirt! The attractive young lady working in the store told me that on weekends, you can't get into the parking lot for all the bikes. We were there on a Monday. If anyone has ridden it, tell us what you think. Be safe!

Free - Lake Lure is a nice little mountain town - the key word being little. It has a nice park (Chimney Rock) and a beautiful lake (of course), but most roads lead either to an Interstate (I-26), the Blue Ridge Parkway or just outta town. The best riding in each of the places you mentioned is the Blue Ridge Parkway. There's a section of the Parkway closed between Asheville and Marion, so that would be a little aggravating for you. My suggestion would be to travel a little further and spend time in Gatlinburg or Pidgeon Forge, Tennessee. You have the Parkway, Dragon and the Cherola Skyway all close by. Gatlinburg will have some of the things you wish to avoid (bumper to bumper traffic, a lot of stoplights). P. Forge is also crowded, but there's more lanes for traffic going through, so it's not too bad. There's several National Parks in the area that offer great riding. There's also Cherokee and Maggie Valley if you'd be interested in that. Have a great trip!

The wife and I had a few days off this past week and decided to actually do a "tour" on our '07 touring bike. Funny how you buy a touring bike expecting to do all these trips, and then something happens and you find your "tours" are actually day trips to the mountains or to the next town over to do some shopping. I've been aggravating the wife, saying "if we aren't going to tour, I'm getting a cruiser in the garage." Rather than have two bikes, she decided this time off would be a good chance to actually do some "touring." We live in Inman, a little town right outside Spartanburg, South Carolina. Good place to live as you're going to see something different no matter which way you turn the handlebars. I wanted to ride to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to see the Civil War stuff. She wanted to ride to the Outer Banks of NC just because we've never been there and there's a lighthouse she'd like to see. Lighthouses don't do it for me (being a normal human male) and she couldn't possibly care less about some battle that took place in Pennsylvania, of all places. So we compromised. We decided to ride to Key West, Florida! Due to circumstances totally beyond my control (wife couldn't get off the telephone), we didn't get to leave Inman until 2 PM on Tuesday. All my figurin' and calculatin' said that we'd need two full days of riding to get to Key West. On Tuesday at 1:30 she said, "how far can it be." With the bike packed up and ready to roll, and the temperature outside around 95 degrees, we took off. I wanted to at least get to Daytona before we stopped for the night. The bike did wonderfully as we averaged 80 on the ol' speedo (which I presume means we're really doing 72mph, right?). With stops for gas and a few breaks here and there, we managed to get past Jacksonville before the heavy rains came around 9 PM and cancelled our riding for Tuesday. We stayed right off I-95 in St. Augustine at a Motel 8. First lesson of the trip: never, ever stay at a Motel 8. Whatever extra money you'll need to spend to stay somewhere else, it will be worth it. Trust me on this one. Next morning, we're off again at 8 AM. Stopped for breakfast in Daytona, then after breakfast, just because I was curious, we went to the huge Harley-Davidson dealership there (right off the Interstate). As my wife went and looked at the HD apparel, I looked at the touring bikes. Now, let me tell you, I've never owned a Harley, in fact, I've never even ridden one - but man, they're absolutely gorgeous motorcycles on the showroom floor. I looked primarily at the Ultra Classics. Really, really nice bikes. I really liked the size of it. The main concern I have with my Venture is the weight of it and the top-heaviness. The salesman told me about Harley's new feature whereby if you twist the throttle forward, the back cyclinders will stop, allowing them to cool. I assume he meant while sitting at a stoplight or something. I commented that adding a radiator would be much simpler and do a better job. He agreed and said by 2010, all Harleys will be water cooled. Anyway, the cheapest Ultra I saw there was $22,000, and it was an '08 will some bling added. Nice bike, but I just can't get past the air cooled part of it. Wish I could because it looks like it would be easier to handle in town and, frankly, it's much nicer looking and better equipped than my RSMV. Just my opinion there, okay? We finally made it to Key West around 9 PM on Wednesday night. We were delayed by some of the most horrendous rain I've ever ridden through. One thing I noticed about storms in Florida - they don't move! We tried to wait a couple of them out, but they never moved away! It was like they were just sitting there, drenching everything in sight, daring us to get back on the bike. We had no choice. Wife pretty much insisted I wear the River Road rain gear we bought three seasons ago, which I absolutely hate. You have to be double jointed and not have more than 2 or 3 rigid bones to get into these things. My sleeves blow up like weather balloons going down the Interstate too. Now I ask you - how does one expect a suit to keep water off your arms if the elastic around the wrists isn't strong enough to keep the air from opening them up? Key West was a blast. We parked the Venture and rented a scooter for traveling around the island. Only way to go. If you ever go (assuming you've never been there), rent a scooter because there's thousands of them on the roads and, quite frankly, you'll be hard pressed to find a parking space for anything bigger. Food and lodging in Key West, along with gasoline, are expensive. Adult beverages were kinda high, too, now that I think of it. Take all your extra change. And don't park your rented scooter next to a bicycle rack - you'll get a parking ticket that's gonna cost someone $35. (Don't ask me how I know this.) Didn't see a lot of bikes there, but I did see another Midnight Venture on the island and a Black Cherry Venture going towards the island as we were leaving. There were probably a thousand Gold Wings coming and going - most with trailers. Key West actually has a Yamaha dealership, but no Ventures or TDs on their smallish showroom floor. Guy we rented the scooter from said the HD dealership on the island went out of business several years ago. We left Key West on Friday morning around 10:30. Rode 12 hours and stopped for the night in Brunswick, Georgia. No rain on the way back. The bike averaged around 42 miles per gallon, which I thought was good. I was able to go 170+ miles on almost every tank before stopping to fill up, and it always had more than a gallon left when the indicator on the dash said I was bone dry. The cruise control and the emergency flashers came in handy (used the flashers during the heavy rain so I was sure I could be seen). After I drained the MP3 player (I forgot to pack the recharger), the radio worked just okay. I'm really not happy with the speakers on our Venture. I already had a sneaking suspicion about this, but this trip confirmed that the pillow top seats will have to go. It looks nice and even sits nice for 200 miles. After that it's like some smart arse dumped a bucket of fire ants in my tighty whities. Last time I squirmed this much, I was in the Navy waiting for the doc to tell me if I'd somehow contracted a social disease two nights before. (For those of you curious, I hadn't.) In total, we traveled a little over 1900 miles from Tuesday to Saturday, and didn't even start her up on Thursday. As I sit here now, we probably bit off a little more than we could chew on this trip. This is really not a trip you want to take in 5 days. But this touring bike lives up to the title. It hummed along at 75-85 mph the entire time and never missed a beat. I did notice I had some oil drippage from the overflow tube beneath the bike on Friday morning, but I believe that has more to do with my switch to full synthetic oil just prior to the trip. We'd never been to Miami before. Holey moley - it's huge! It seemed we'd never get out of it. If you ever go to the Keys, you want to avoid South Miami if possible. Stop and go traffic starts where I-95 ends and Highway 1 begins. Horrible riding if you're two up and heavily loaded. Honestly, the Venture is a beast under those conditions. I'm hoping our next trip is to Gettysburg!

Goose - you seem like a real knowledgeable guy on these forums, but you're mistaken here. I own an '07 Midnight with a little over 5,500 miles. I bought the bike off the showroom floor. My bike has the chirp and the "grinding" noise in the rear end. In both cases, the dealership I bought the bike from says it's normal for this bike. They did grease the rear end for me at the 800 mile check-up, but the noise was back before I got to 1500 miles. I haven't been to a meet yet, but I've met two different RSV riders on the Blue Ridge Parkway, one with a 2000 Midnight, the other with a 2006. Both complained about the chirping noise and the rear end grinding. One was from Alabama, the other from NC and neither could get their dealership to fix the problems. The chirp I can live with. From what I've read here, there's no real fix for it anyway. But the grinding in the rear end concerns me greatly. There is absolutely no way this grinding isn't causing some kind of damage. I do not want to get the rear end greased two or three times a year, and my dealership says it is not covered under the 5-year warranty. If I weren't upside down on the finances for this bike, I'd trade it tomorrow. Until then, I'm gonna ride it and hope the rear end doesn't explode when I'm doing 70 on an Interstate. Be safe!

I have XM Radio in my car, and love it. But I don't think I'll put it on my bike for one reason: reception in the mountains. I do most of my riding in the Blue Ridge, and believe it or not, you lose reception depending on what side of a mountain you're one and where the satellite is. Wonderful everywhere else, though.

Congrats, but you must know that REAL motorcycles are black. Totally black. Totally black and chrome. Any other color is just a pretender. I also heard, but don't know if it's true or not, that manly men ride black motorcycles. My wife believes it. I think you'll really like your "pretender," though. (Mine's black, by the way.)

I test rode an '07 Wing and the '07 Venture I bought the same day. I did not like the sitting position of the Wing, but man, that big Honda will scoot. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I wasn't interested in raw speed. I wanted comfort because I like to ride 400-600 miles a day sometimes. During the test ride, I could not see the front forks or the front tire on the Wing. Even if it had been more comfortable, that would have been a deal breaker for me. I personally need to see where my front tire, or the front forks are when I'm going down the road. May be weird, but that's just the way I am. I've been passed by many, many Wings. I tried once to keep up with one on I-77 coming out of western Virginia. No way, no how. But you know what - no problem either. I go plenty fast enough. My wife actually thought the Venture was more comfortable, too. Sounded good to me!

Wow - great info here. I'm liking this Zen player alot. Now that I've been edumacated, I'll get all my music on 'er. Thanks a lot! Carl "YamaGeezer"

Those of you who use MP3 players on your bike - could you answer a question for someone (I won't mention any names, but, yes, it's actually me) who doesn't know anything about this new-fangled electronics stuff..... I bought a 8G MP3 player. I understand that they sound best if you rip your music straight from CDs at a minimum 160 Bitrate. I own approx. 115 CDs, and according to the info I got with the player, it should hold them all. I've started ripping the CDs to the computer using the highest quality, constant bitrate of 320. I'm approximately half way through and the computer says my music file is already well over 10G! Do I have to rip the CDs at something less than the highest quality? I figure with the speakers on my Venture, I'll need the best sounding music I can get. Is using a Constant Bitrate the problem or is the 320 the problem. I don't want to have to delete everything I've already ripped because it's been extremely time consuming. Thanks for any info.....

I have Progressive, but I'm wondering if maybe I'm getting ripped off. I had a 2003 Honda VTX 1800 that they insured for $268 a year - full coverage. When I traded it for the 2007 RSV, the cost went up to almost $600 a year! When I asked why, they said it was because it was a touring bike. Granted, the VTX was much cheaper than the RSV, but wow! I haven't taken the time, yet, to investigate other companies. My home and auto insurance is with Travelers. Fantastic company, by the way. They just don't insure motorcycles.

I certainly can't speak for Spud, but I'd bet he's saying no because of the chirping and whining. Those of you who do not have it should count your lucky stars because it can be difficult to live with - especially if you're making payments on a brand new bike. My '07 Midnight chirps and whines every time I ride it. I'd probably buy another because I now know that the noise doesn't indicate a problem - it's just a characteristic of the bike. It is unfortunate that Yamaha can't fix this problem, though. The noise is embarrassing and there are many drivetrains out there that don't make the noises. But, like I said, some people just can't live with it. I'm learning to.

To me, if you trike your motorcycle, you're not "biking" anymore. What's the difference between a trike and a convertible (besides the obvious # of wheels)? If it has more than two wheels, it ain't biking. I also believe trikes to be dangerous - even more dangerous than regular motorcycles. JMO, of course.

You're right - no bike is perfect. HOWEVER, there are bike manufacturers out there who listen to the people paying the bills and address their complaints. It's just unbelieveable to me that this particular "imperfection" has been complained about for 10+ years without any real solution offered by Yamaha. Can you spell REDESIGN? Heck, it's amazing to me that they haven't changed or updated the RSV since 1999! I didn't know I was buying 8 year old technology when I purchased this motorcycle. I should have done more research. How many times do you think Yamaha has been told that there isn't enough light behind the RSV or that linked brakes would improve the bike's stopping ability? Do you think they have shown any concern at all about the safety of the people buying their premium tourer? Don't you also think it's strange that Yamaha has made the decision to put fuel injection on their V-twins and not on the Venture or Tour Deluxe? I find that confusing to say the least, especially since they've had so many years to do it. And if they say it would make the bike too expensive, they're lying through their teeth. Perhaps Yamaha should reduce their piano and jet ski designers and hire somebody familiar with what motorcycle buyers want. I just purchased a half helmet because here in SC, my 3/4 helmet is just too hot in the summer. Earlier today I wore it for the first time on my '07 RSV. If you don't already know, you'd be amazed at how much noise a 3/4 helmet shields from your ears. I should have bought a full face. I'd rather have sweat in my eyes than chirping in my ears. I've ridden dozens of motorcycles from just about every manufacturer except BMW and I've never heard anything like this brand new tourer I'm just now starting to make monthly payments on. Despite the tone of this, I'm not usually a whiner and complainer. I paid full retail for this bike, so I figure I'm entitled to voice my disappointment. Like I said, though, it's my own fault since I failed to do the necessary research prior to buying. I just loved the look of the bike, and the test ride was comfortable and quiet. It's nice to be proud of what you ride. Right now, I'm more embarrassed than proud. I hope that changes because the bike is beautiful and comfortable. It just ticks me off that I've given a company like Yamaha my hard-earned money. Sorry for the rant and rave.

The chirping and/or whine of this bike is absolutely annoying to me. I've just bought an '07 and (of course) it didn't chirp during the test ride. For me, I'll probably complain a lot about this, but the positives of the bike so far outweigh the negatives. What bothers me is that these particular bikes (RSV and RSTD) seem to be the only ones made with this chirping/whining noise. Nothing Honda, Kawa, Suzuki or BMW makes have this problem and I've never heard a complaint about clutch life in any of those bikes. Even HD can make a clutch/transmission that doesn't sound like a screamin' bangee. Just wondering - do the Stratoliners and crotch rockets Yamaha manufactures make this same noise? Also, is the noise noticeable to someone standing on the side of the road as you ride by? Sometimes, I think I'm more embarrassed about the noise than annoyed. Anyone else feel that way?

For a company that demands the price for their seat that Corbin does, it doesn't make sense to me that you can't do more on their website. There's an awful lot of options for their seats that you can only guess at since the website isn't capable of putting your choices on a bike for you to see. At almost $1000, you better believe I'd send it back if it wasn't absolutely perfect in every way.

Haven't washed mine yet. Wondering - do you with Ventures remove the hard bags to wash the bike? What about the speakers - what do you use to keep water from getting in them? This bike looks like it will be a bear to wash, for sure. Thanks....

I totally agree. I read a lot about the whine (chirp) as well before I bought my '07, but I really had no clue the problem was as prevalent as it is. I honestly thought I'd get a bike that doesn't chirp, buying it brand new and all. For Yamaha to have ignored this issue is beyond stupid to me. What ever happened to making your customers happy? What ever happened to pride in the product you sell? How difficult would it be to design a clutch assembly that works as it should? Hell, even HD can make a decent clutch! The hydraulic clutches on my previous Hondas were absolutely outstanding. Can Honda do things Yamaha can not? I have my bike in for the 600 mile service right now, and I mentioned the chirp when I dropped it off. The technician I spoke too said he thought the new oil would solve the problem. I let it go at that. If it does not, and I don't believe it will, I'm going to insist they install the I-basket under warranty. If they refuse, I'll go over their heads. THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR A $17,000 MOTORCYCLE TO MAKE THIS NOISE - ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE ARE SIMILAR BIKES FROM OTHER MANUFACTURERS THAT DON'T! I love this bike so far, but my patience on this issue will be short. I do not want to put louder pipes on it. I don't care to crank up the volume on the stereo either. I bought the bike because I like quiet, dependability and comfort - and two out of three ain't good enough.