Freebird

Very cool my friend. That thing will get you back and forth to California almost for FREE.

OK....backrest is ordered. Ship date is September 10th. Highway pegs are installed. ROK handlebar risers are ordered. The only thing remaining is a luggage rack. Then nothing else. That's the only other thing.......

I'm just getting ready to order the Utopia. I've had them in the past and currently have one on the '05. They make a good product and usually do a great job matching factory upholstery.

I'll take a look at it and see what I can find out. I haven't bought the luggage rack yet but maybe I can compare the contours and get an idea.

OK...I need to order a riders backrest ASAP. I need to get it here by yesterday. I would have had the Star tall riders backrest installed before I left if it would have been in stock but I'm glad they didn't because I don't think it's tall enough. Have any of you added one yet? At this point, I'm leaning towards the Utopia and will probably order it later today. I know that they have a great product and typically match the stock seat covering of a bike very well. Open to your opinions.

OK, sold a stairlift this morning so life it good. I'm back home and will add a bit to my "First Impressions". First I'll back up just a bit. Like I said, I was within minutes of trading the Slingshot for a 2012 Harley Ultra Classic with 15,000 miles on it. I liked the bike but the remembrance of the heat from my '13 Road Glide Ultra plus the lack of all the features of the new SVTC was nagging at me. I jumped on Ebay just to see if there were any great deals available on the SVTCs and saw a single ad from a dealer in NY. It was cheap enough that I first thought it was some kind of scam. Rather than deal with that, I did some research and found out which dealer it was and called them direct. I learned that it was indeed a valid deal and ended up negotiating with them on my Slingshot trade and did the deal. About 10 minutes after that, RDawson posted about the ad he saw on Ebay. I did check with another dealer that many of us have much respect for and I know that they give me the honest scoop when I ask them a question. I at least wanted to give them first shot at my business. I won't name them here but here is the response: Thank you for the trade request/internet lead regarding the trade of your Slingshot for the new Venture bike. We appreciate the interest in dealing with us however I am afraid I wouldn't be able to help you. The reason being is I do not have a Venture in stock and that is an appealing price on ebay at one of my local dealers. That price is extremely good and I would not be able to touch that as it is well below dealer invoice. So with his complete understanding, I pulled the trigger on it. The dealer wanted to move it because he didn't want to pay interest on it all winter. So back to my impressions: As I said, I had never even seen the new Venture in person. My first reaction was a very slight disappointment. I liked the styling but it initially struck me as being a bit drab. Very little chrome. Even the engine has little chrome and, I suppose due to the fairing wrapping around the gas tank, doesn't even have any tank badges. Considering that my '05 has about every piece of extra chrome that Yamaha offered, plus some others, I was a bit underwhelmed at first. The more I looked at it though, the more it grew on me. In fact, I'm leaning now towards not even adding any chrome if it becomes available but going with more black pieces like the luggage rack, highway pegs, etc. A very understated somewhat muted look. It's actually growing on me. So I saddled up and pointed it toward home. I had already made plans to meet BongoBob at a BBQ place to get a bite to eat and that was a slow traffic plaqued 45 minute ride from the dealership. Now I knew that riding home was not going to be completely rewarding because the bike would absolutely not be setup the way I need it to be. I've posted several times on this forum that a backrest makes the difference between a pain-free 20 mile ride or a ironbutt ride. I actually called the dealer before I left my banks parking lot and told them that if they had the tall riders backrest in stock, to please get it installed before I got there. Alas, they did NOT have it in stock. I'm glad now that I've made it home because I don't think it would be tall enough and I will likely order the Utopia. The next think that I absolutely MUST have on a bike is highway pegs. At 6'2" tall with LONG legs, I spend most of my rides with my feet on the highway pegs. I took the KuryAkyn pegs off my '05 and took them and a wrench with me. I knew that I could install them in about 10 minutes and be on my way. Except, they have the two piece hinging type clamps and I didn't notice that I dropped one of the hinge pins. Found it in my garage when I got home. So, I was unable to put them on either. I knew at that point that I was going to have a painful ride home. Not the way I wanted to bond with the new bike but hey, I had almost 300 miles to go and the only way to get home was to get suck it up and endure the pain. I was not mistaken. Before I even got to the restaurant to meet Bob, my back was already hurting a little. Enjoyed some great BBQ with a great friend and then pointed it home. Before I ever got past the toll booth on 90 leaving Buffalo, I was already in some moderate pain. Within a few more miles, I was really hurting. My lower back and left shoulder had piercing pain that I knew I would have to endure for another 3 hours. So the ride home wasn't pleasant from a physical standpoint but the enjoyment of the bike actually helped to make it all worthwhile. Now understand that none of these issues are the fault of the bike, those are things that I experience with every bike I've owned for the past quite a few years. The RSV and the Road Glide were no different. The other thing was the handlebars. On the RSV and the Ultra Glide, I quickly changed out the handlebars to get them higher and a bit more pullback. The problem with the RSV is that you can't tilt them up very far due to the fairing limiting how far you can go. Now that is what causes the pain in my shoulder, oddly, mostly just my left shoulder but it hurts bad. The pullback on these bars actually seems good and the fairing will not limit how far I can rotate them up. In hindsight, I should have done that before I headed home but just didn't look at it closely enough. Today or tomorrow I will adjust them and I THINK they will be good. Won't know for sure until I get the backrest because I'll be leaning back further then. I think it will be very good though. The next thing is the seat. Those of you who like the pillow top seat on the later RSVs will likely not be a fan of this seat. I don't know yet that I am but I'm thinking it will be ok. Again, I can't really judge that until I get the backrest and highway bars installed and the handlebars adjusted. I will tell you that it is relatively HARD. Now I love the Corbin seat that I had on my '99 but it took a good thousand or more miles to get it broken in to my skinny but. I did have some pain from the seat on my way home but I'm hoping that it will break in like the Corbin did. Also, I use the highway pegs and backrest to take pressure off my spine so that all figures into the seat. So I won't have a final opinion on the seat for a while. The bottom line is that it is what it is. If it ends up not working out, I'll replace it just like I have on most every bike that I've owned. OK, those are the things that bothered me on the ride home. What absolutely didn't bother me was the performance of the bike. Low speed handling is fantastic. Slow speed turns are better than I've ever experienced on a large bike. Steering is very precise and slight nudges on the grips make countersteering an effortless procedure. I'm simply amazed at how this heavy bike handles. I can't wait to get it into some sweeping curves as I know it's going to be such a pleasure. The engine suits me perfectly. Though you obviously can't wind it up like a V4, the power curve is pretty much perfect for moving this 1000 pound bike. The torque is amazing and cruising along at 70 to 80 MPH is just a pleasure though I had to limit things due to the break-in period. The exhaust note is pretty much perfect for me. You can hear a nice deep rumble but it's certainly not loud. Some will no doubt want louder pipes but I'm perfectly content just the way it is. The cruise control works exactly how it should. When you hit the set button, it absolutely locks in at that speed with no dropping off. It just locks it down where you want it. The clutch and brake levers have 5 adjustment settings to adjust them for people with longer or shorter fingers. Mine were set on 4 and that seems to be about right for my fairly large hands. I may place with them a bit but they are fine as they are. Simple to adjust though and the settings are marked. The clutch is very good. Engages pretty far out but I'm used to that with the PCW spring and replacement of half disk with the full disk on my RSV. It is smooth and doesn't take a lot of effort to engage and disengage. As I said before brakes seem really good but really haven't ridden in an environment where I can really judge them yet. OK, that's pretty much my initial thoughts about the bike. I can only summarize by saying that I truly like it. Heck, I may even love it but won't commit to that yet, at least until I get my mods done. At this point, it seems like the perfect middle ground that I would want between the Harley and the RSV, both of which I liked for different reasons. I think that this one pretty much nails what was best about both of them. I know that it's not for everybody. I know that those who love the high revving V4 will continue to be disappointed in Yamaha's decision to go with a Twin and I understand that. For those of us who are slowing down a bit as we get older though or even younger folks who just enjoy the relaxed low rpm cruising of a big VTwin, you would likely find this to be a very enjoyable ride. Unless I run into things in the future that I don't know about yet, this will very likely be the last bike I ever buy. I think when I am done with this one, I will either be done riding or ready for a trike conversion. I will say this about that. If the day comes when I think I want a trike, it will be a motorcycle trike. The Slingshot and Spyders just don't do it for me. On the other hand, the RSV or the SVTC might just fit my needs just fine. One thing I meant to add. The trip home was leisurely and I tried to vary the speed and RPMS from time to time due to the break in period but was primarily between 65 and 75 MPH. I got right at 42 MPG on the way home. I was pretty happy with that.

So yesterday was a long day. I woke up at 4:00 in the morning. I had some things to do before leaving for Buffalo to get the new bike. Then because I was from out of state, they had told me that they preferred a bank check rather than a personal check so I had to wait for my bank to open at 9:00. Got to the bank, got the check, and got on the road around 9:30. I trade the Polaris Slingshot so had to drive it to Buffalo. It is about a 3:45 to 4 hour drive from my bank to the dealership outside of Buffalo. I arrive there around 1:30. The experience at the dealership was very good. It was Bob Weaver's Motorsports on Niagra Blvd. I dealt with a young lady named Kristen and she was very friendly and a hard worker. Met the owner and talked to him for about 15 minutes. Nice guy. I asked him why the heck he was selling the bike for $20,999.00 and he told me that it was the simple fact that the season for motorcycle sales is grinding to a halt there and that he just didn't want to pay interest on a 20,000 bike all winter. The bike was exactly as advertised. Brand new and pristine with 5 miles on the odometer. There was a $75.00 doc fee and a $5.00 NY State Tire Tax added so it was $80.00 more but they had told me that in the exchange of emails before we agreed on the final deal. I was OK with that. Still a great deal. I would have preferred to have purchased from Pioneer not far from them because Pioneer is a great dealership who has truly been a friend of VentureRiders. I did talk to them though and they told me honestly that they couldn't touch that price. The fact is, they did not have one and would have to order one from Yamaha or try to get one from another dealer. They told me that the price was below invoice and obviously it would make no sense for them to go out of their way to get me a bike and then sell it to me below invoice. I completely understand that but I just wanted to let them know why I was buying it elsewhere. They told me that I was getting a great deal and were very good with it. So, this will be a somewhat short report because I am still completely beat from the trip yesterday and I have a stairlft sales call in a couple of hours so have to get ready to go. First of all, let me say that purchasing this bike was a complete leap of faith. I had absolutely no intentions of buying a new bike right now but two things played into the decision. I truly ended up NOT liking the Slingshot. I won't get into that in this thread but it just wasn't for us. So I have had it for sale but wasn't getting any offers. So then I started entertaining various trades. What nobody knew was that I was 10 minutes away from finalizing a trade with a guy who had a 2012 Harley Ultra Classic with 15,000 miles. We had hammered out the final details and I told him I would let him know Friday morning and if we did it, we planned to meet on Friday and do the swap. Now Eileen was very supportive and she didn't like the Slingshot either but Friday evening, she asked me if the Harley was really what I wanted. I like the Harley but kept thinking about all the things that the new SVTC had that the Harley didn't. It was Eileen that told me I should just get the Venture. She said "You know, you DO run a Venture site". Smart woman. So that was about 7:00 Friday night. I called Kristen at the Bob Weaver and told her that we had a deal and I would be their around 1:00 to 1:30 to trade. I say it was a complete leap of faith because unlike many of you, not only had I never RIDDEN the new bike but I had never even SEEN one in person. When I arrived at the dealership, that was the first time I had ever laid eyes on one. The Ventures I have owned include '83, '88, '89, two '99's and my '05. Like most of you old VentureRiders, I do like the V4 engine but I've also admitted here many times, that I really love the VTwins also. I've owned a couple of Harley's, 2 Viragos, even a Honda 1100 Shadow so I'm not stranger to the VTwin. It is much different than a V 4 but satisfying in its own way. I have also admitted that I loved the new Road Glide Ultra that I bought in 2013 but the heat off that bike was brutal. That was my concern with the new Venture also. The ride home was fairly uneventful. But I had forgotten that it was the start of Labor Day weekend and that, coupled with road construction coming out of Buffalo on I-90 resulted in horrific traffic until I got past the toll booth on 90. There wasn't really a lot of stop and go but very slow and temps were probably in the mid 80s. So not terribly hot but I can tell you that on the Harley, it would have been very uncomfortable. I absolutely DID feel some heat off the new bike but nothing like I felt from the Harley and actually much less than I expected. Maybe just marginally more than I would have felt off my '05 RSV. I was pleasantly surprised. The first thing that I noticed upon leaving the dealership was the transmission. Yamaha got it right. This is probably the smoothest shifting transmission that I have ever experienced on a motorcycle. Just a crisp little "snickety" sound when you shift. No clunk of any kind. I was just incredibly impressed with it. The next thing was the handling. This is a pretty big bike and certainly no crotch rocket but it feels much lighter than a bike that weighs close to 1,000 lbs. It almost feels "flickable" with just light pressure on the grips giving very responsive corrections. It feels more like a sport touring bike that I ever expected. Those of you who ride first gens would likely find the handling to be an easier transition that you would if moving to a 2nd gen. As for the engine, that is where you die-hard V4 riders would not be as happy. It is simply a different bike. I have said before that as I have gotten older, the low RPM high torque output of a VTwin really suits my riding style. I love the relaxed feel of the VTwin. I also like to feel the pulses of those big pistons doing their job. This bike is much smoother than the Harley. You don't get that engine shake when sitting at a red light as you do with the Harley. To be honest, I even miss that a little bit. At highway speeds, the Harley really smooths out though and you don't feel a lot of vibration but there is a very little bit. This one is the same in that regard. You can absolutely feel just a little of the engine pulse but, to me, it's a very pleasant feeling that I love. It's that sensation that you indeed are straddling 113 CU of coffee can size pistons doing their job getting you down the road. I wasn't able to wind it out as it isn't broken in yet but leaving a toll booth, I did hit the rev limiter very quickly due to simply getting there much quicker than I expected to. The 4750 rev limiter will take some getting used to but with so much torque, I have no problem with it. Brakes seemed very good for me. Won't go into a lot of detail here and don't have enough riding time it yet to say much more about them except that they seem to do their job well. It was dark before I got home and I can tell you that those 4 LED headlights light up the road very well and the fog lights are very effective also. Will get more into the Infotainment system later but though it took me a few miles to really figure it out, by the time I got home (even without opening the manual yet), I had no problem using it as I needed to. They had everything activated when before I let and the GPS and etc. worked great. No problems at all. The stereo was truly fantastic. Many of us were always trying to get better sound of our RSVs but this one is great for me right out of the box. The sound was beautiful even cruising at Interstate speeds. Not sure yet but I don't think that you can turn off the external speakers when you are using the headset as you do on the RSV. I did use my headsets on the way home as I found that the lower cable I still had from my Ultra Glide worked fine on the SVTC. OK, I'll add to this later today but right now have to get ready to go on a sales call. More to come.

You missed a lot of posts. Yes, if things go according to plan, I will pick it up this afternoon.

Looking through my stash of headset cables, I found that I still have two lower cables for my edset's that are installed in my helmets. They are left over from when I had the 2013 Road Glide Ultra. They are 7 pin and I read somewhere that they will also work on the new SVTC. I'm taking one with me and will find out. If so, then I don't have to order and buy two new lower cables.

Well, I'm no stranger to the V-Twins. My last was a 2013 Road Glide Ultra that I bought brand new. I have to tell you, it wasn't a slam dunk decision. I was back and forth all day yesterday between the new SVTC and another Harley. I had a guy here locally wanting to trade me a 2012 Harley Ultra Classic with 15,000 miles on it and he was adding some cash as well. Trading for my Slingshot. I came very close to pulling that trigger instead. I kept thinking about all the extra features that I would be giving up though. That and the fact that my '13 Ultra Glide wasn't just a little hot but it was BRUTALLY hot. That was actually the only thing that I didn't like about it. Then there was my wife telling me, you know you DO run a Venture forum. So............ back to the point.......the way I ride now really goes well with the low RPM torque of the V-Twins. If I get there today and for any reason at all, this deal falls through, I will have to start over with the decision making process. I don't expect anything to go wrong though.

Thanks but it's not that big a deal. My bank opens at 9:00 and it's only a 3 hour and 45 minute drive to the dealership outside of Buffalo. I should get there around one or two. I actually traded in the Slingshot and it was paid for so I am well under 10,000 out of pocket. I asked them if they would just take a personal check and they didn't say no but said that they would prefer a bank check since I was out of state. It's no big deal.

Well, red just isn't my thing. Would have bought a black one if they had it. They probably will next year but this is most likely the last bike I will ever buy.

OK...sounds good. I would like to do it if at all possible.

Well, let me see what time I get there. It it's not too short of notice, I'll call you from the dealership.

A day or two ago, I commented that if I rode more, I would have already have bought a new Venture. I also said that I might eventually end up with one anyway. Well "eventually" came sooner than I thought. I'm picking mine up tomorrow afternoon. Have never even ridden one. Oh well.

Not really, 6 is ok until you get to about Lorain but after that, it's just not very good.

Well, I would have liked to have purchased from Pioneer but for one thing, they don't have one. It was just too good a deal to pass up. I won't be taking back to NY for service anyway. Don't know if I'll be able to stop by or not. It will be at least mid afternoon before I get there and get it all done. Then have to ride back home. Will be a long day. Can't leave here until at least 9:00. They said that because I'm from out of state, they would prefer a bank check and my bank doesn't open until 9:00.

Just closed the deal on a new 2018 SVTC. Will pick it up tomorrow afternoon. I said I wouldn't....I said I wouldn't...I said I wouldn't..... but I did. It was just too good a deal. It's the gray one. Red just isn't my color.

I bought it 10 minutes ago. Not through Ebay. Went direct to the dealer. I pick it up tomorrow afternoon.

Quite a bit of stop and go on that route.

Please put it in the classifieds.

You didn't screw up. You will get many different opinions on oil but I've been using the Mobile Racing 4T, they use to call it something else, since 1999 in my Ventures. Won't use anything else.

Great picture.

That is a very unfair statement. There have been many positive posts here regarding the new Venture. I have made several myself. I don't ride as much as I used to but if I did, I would have already bought one. I may still eventually end up with one. There are many things that I love about it and having owned several V-Twins, that part doesn't bother me at all. I have admitted that I am concerned about the heat and in spite that some say it is not an issue, even some that LOVE the bike have admitted that it can be a nuisance at times. In spite of that, I would still buy one if I were in the market for a new bike. I understand that there have been many negative opinions also but you will have that anytime there is a major change to a bike that people loved but please don't categorize our entire membership as haters.

OK Folks. The Member Map is functioning properly again. Sorry for the delay. I had it working but the map was dark and marked "developmental". I finally hired somebody to help me because I'm not smart enough to figure all of this out.