BigLenny

Wait Wait Wait! "Step down to an RSTD"? I refuse to let my red girl believe she is a step down just because she doesn't have a fairing and a trunk. RSTD's RULE!!!!

The same at my house, SilverT.

And obviously, we (we meaning your wife) decided to do landscaping instead of riding on a warm spring day. Looks great! BigLenny

Pucster, The way I see it is we have 2 things working here: 1. As we get older, the ol "hardcore" becomes a tad "softcore". LOL. 2. Us humans, once we experience something better, we have a tendency to not wanna go backerds. Heck, I remember for years I drove a 66 Ford pickup that had a vinyl bench seat, with a standard shift 3 on the tree transmission, no a/c, only wing vents to blow the hot air in from outside, AM only radio that crackled and barely worked, no power steering. Burned more oil than gas. And I didn't think twice about it. That was back when I was "hardcore". Now I drive a 2014 4X4 F150 Crew Cab that is automatically climate controlled. Heated and air conditioned leather seats, Bluetooth phone and music, SiriusXM satellite radio, 10 cupholders, 6 speed automatic transmission, power sunroof, dual power seats with memery settings, etc, etc, etc. And I am very proudly "softcore" now. LOL. Would'nt go back to the hardcore days fer nuttin. So, yes, I want full water cooled on my bike. Because now that I'm a softy, a buncha heat coming up from my bike might give me a stroke or something. LOL.

Wow! Now thats some good info right there. I already knew about the Harley situation, but I would've bet strong money that Kawi would've completely water cooled their bike. One of the main things i love about my RSTD, and I'm sure it's the same on the Ventures, is; we have never felt overly hot on our bike. And we have ridden in some smoking hot temps down here in the south. We got stuck in Branson, Missouri traffic on a 100 degree day, walking speed for about an hour. My clutch hand was worn out, but the bike never got hot. We were hot from the sun beating down on us, but no heat to speak of coming up from the bike.

Thats a good looking bike, Don! I just finished Googling and reading a bunch of comments from Voyager owners. The heat issue is talked about a lot. Apparently Kawi installed a KAMS system in the 2012's and newer to help with the heat. some say it helped, others say it didn't. Also, I read several comments about the bike developing a drivetrain whine as it gets older. They say the fix is replacing the belt and both cogs at a cost of $1500.00 or so. There are lot of folks who really like them tho.

I've test ridden the Voyager on more than one occasion because I do like the looks of the bike, and being water cooled intrigued me. Kind of a unique looking fairing. Anyway, both times I rode it, I was astounded at how much vibration the bike had at highway speeds. Even my wife made a comment about it. Also, I was very unimpressed with the flimsiness of the windshield and the saddlebag and trunk lids. When you have the lids open, they are real flimsy. There was a serious heat issue with them, but a few years ago, Kawi installed a blower underneath the left side of the riders seat to help with that. Not sure how much difference it made. I also don't know if the Vaquero was experiencing the same amount of heat that the Voyager was putting off. And, the Vaquero has a different style of saddlebags than the Voyager, so they're probably more surdy.

I get what you're sayin on the long legs thing. I'm 6'6" with a 36" inseam. Feet forward bikes always feel more comfortable to me than neutral sitters like the Spyder. But they do intrigue me.

Don. My suggestion is; either go with something you've never experienced before, like a Can-Am Spyder RT Limited (2014 or newer), or get a bargain on an RSV. Big Lenny

The more I'm looking at these bikes on Youtube and such, listening to owners and seeing test rides, I'm getting more intrigued. Another thing that kinda enters the mind; on one of these, if we were to be out in the middle of nowhere and I have a health event that would prevent me from operating the bike, my wife could actually drive this ride and get us somewhere for help. Not something she's ever going to be able to do on our bike.

We really like/love our RSTD that we've had now for 8 years. Haven't ridden it much since September because of a major surgery my wife had, plus 8 weeks ago my wife's 68 year old mentally handicapped brother fell and broke his hip, so we have been alternating staying with him at night and weekends at the rehab center. And my wife's sister died 6 weeks ago, which has caused us to have to finalize her estate. It's been a crazy weird end of 2015, start of 2016 at the ol Clayton house. Now, let me get back up from the therapy couch and finish what I was saying about our RSTD. Yes, we like/love our RSTD. Have had a lot of wonderful memories on the red machine. However, we've been tossing around looking at one of those Spyder RT Limiteds. The newest one that has the 1330 motor. We've never went down on our bike. Came extremely close on a couple occasions, but haven't yet been down. It sure appears a machine like that Spyder would lesson our chances of going down quite a bit. I know some of our site members here have made the change from bikes to the Spyder. I wonder if you folks could give me a good comparison of the two. I would be concerned that the Spyder would ride more choppy than the RSTD. The RSTD has a smooth ride that we enjoy. Also, I have a considerable concern about the overall quality. While Consumer Reports ranked Yamaha #1 in overall quality, it also ranked Can-Am as last. If we bought one, is it going to drive us crazy with little ticky tack things that are always going wrong with it? I did notice when McCarl had to spend an annoyingly long time to figure out an alignment issue with his Spyder. It wasn't even me going through it, and I felt disheartened for him. But, they are really cool looking rides! I bet people always wanna talk to Spyder riders at the gas station. Our RSTD has been such a phenomenal, virtually trouble free ride, I worry that the next bike we buy won't be as good a quality as what we've been experiencing.

Hummingbird, There are certainly a lot of riders that think that, but as you've stated, you certainly don't have to be of a particular age to like a trike. However, the main reason a lot of riders think that is because it is very common to see people post things like "when I get to when I can't hold a bike up anymore, I'll get a trike", or a common phrase is; "trikes have allowed people to keep on riding as they get older". I've seen numerous people who own trikes state in a post that the reason they got a trike, or a trike kit for their bike is, they had just gotten too old to wrestle with a motorcycle anymore, but they didn't want to quit riding. These kind of sentiments and statements by the very people that own trikes, are the main culprit for them having an image as machines for the older generation. You don't have to be old to get a trike and enjoy it, but the fact is, by far, most folks riding trikes aren't of the younger demographic. Big Lenny

Good Lord! I'm so glad I live in the south this time of year! But I do feel bad for ya being sick. Hope you get well soon.

Wow! That is a whippin!

Apparently having a coffee pot in your room is a REALLY BIG deal. I'm not old enough to drink coffee, so I don't drink it (the real reason is; I can't have caffeine because I have atrial fib). But, a couple weeks ago, I had to run my 88 year old mother in law out to Amarillo to handle some business due to her being the executor of an estate of a friend. We drove 10 hours to get there, then had to meet with the family and we didn't start looking for a hotel until after 10PM. I found a Comfort Inn and Suites to stay at because I am a Choice Hotels member, and right before I told the phone attendant to book it, my mother in law told me to make sure they have a coffee pot in the room. I asked, and to my surprise, they did not put coffee pots in their rooms. Man, this caused her to throw a mild hissy fit, and start a long dissertation about how "even the lowest of hotels will put a freakin coffee pot in their rooms". She refused to stay there because she "had to have her coffee in her room". Well, the NCAA tournament was in town, so affordable hotels rooms were few and far between. It took me another 30 minutes before I could find a hotel that was fairly nice enough, and had vacancies, and had "a coffee pot in the room". You coffee drinkers have a serious addiction. LOL.

Or you could od this. I have started doing this now. It isn't hard. But, make sure you strap the bike to the jack! Don't ask me why I know.

I agree with the fact of when you take incentives away from service employees to do their jobs with excellence, they will generally resort to being average, or worse. These restaurants that have adopted this policy will eventually see there service levels drop, and most likely will not ever think it is related to the tipping policy. I used to purchase all of my electronics (TV's, computers, etc.) from a store named Circuit City because all of their sales people worked on commission. This caused them to study their product, and sharpen their customer facing skills so they could make the sale while they competed against the Best Buys in the world. The Circuit City sales people would fall all over themselves to be as helpful as they could to get your business, because their paycheck was directly effected. Well, eventually, Circuit City adopted the "non commissioned sales persons" policy that Best Buy had, and that very act put them in the sea of sameness with Best Buy, and it came down to price after that, and Circuit City could never win that battle. I guarantee you the higher ups of Circuit City never caught onto the fact that changing the pay plan of their sales reps was a HUGE key to their service, which in turn eventually brought their business down. These restaurants will fall the same way. A waiter is a salesperson. Take the commission/tip away, and the good ones will go where they can be paid for their excellence, while the bad ones will hang around and be average or worse. Don, You should write the big wigs of Joes a letter explaining this experience, and why you think the service has dropped. Maybe it'll make them go, hmmmmm.

Dale, You're most certainly being bent over. $350.00 should be the cost of the tire and installation. I've had it done for less. BigLenny

Hello All, Sorry to be so long to respond, but, ever since the Barry Manilow concert, I earned so many points with my wife, she hasn't let me outa the sack long enough to send a message to you folks. I'm worn out, but I gotta tell ya, if she's gonna react like this every time I take her to a Manilow concert, I'm gonna hafta take a gander at his schedule and hit the road following him. LOL.

I'm going to say this one time, and one time only. Tonight, I am going to take my wife to see Barry Manilow (or, Barely Man-enough, as some of my redneck friends call him). I will not tolerate any discussions of me giving up my man card.

I think Goldwings are awesome bikes. I, like others, have been known to say they are the gold standard. However, they don't fit me. I'm 6'6", with a 36" inseam, and I have test ridden them more than once trying to convince myself that I could own one, but the front of my knees rub against the fairing, and when I put my feet out on the highway pegs, It's so freakin wide it just feels annoying. Also, when my feet are on the highway pegs, the outside edges of the fairing push against the inside of my calf to the point that it would drive me crazy to be experiencing that all the time. Another thing is; I like different things. There are 40 bazziliion Goldwings out there, and even though I know they are a phenomenal machine, they've been the same for so long, that I get a yawn feeling when I see one. (Except for the red and black anniversary edition one). LOL. I once watched a Discovery Channel program on how they made the newest version of the Goldwing. Wow! That dude was designed by Honda's top sport bike designer, and the when you take all of the plastic off of it, its just a big honkin sport bike. Hence, the handling being so sweet. One final thought: I'm starting to kind of rethink the Goldwing as being the "Gold Standard" of touring. It's hard to not say the Harley Electra Glide Ultra wouldn't be the gold standard. Man, I felt weird typing that. LOL. But, that bike has been around way longer than the Goldwing, and while we know that it has had it's share of low quality years in the past, the past decade has been very good to that line of bikes. And, the redesigned Rushmore Edition put it on a top level. And, it outsells all of the other touring bike brand brands combined. Just a thought.

Not trying to be a dull cookie, but, what's so new about that "new' bike? I thought they already had a bike that looked like that? I guess my question is; what makes it so special? Is it water cooled, or something I can't see? Looks like a basic windshield bagger to me.

Just curious; Why is nobody mentioning iPads? We have an iPad2 that we take on the bike, and we've had a wonderful time with it. It has 32GB built in, but no external memory card slot. I have an accessory that plugs into the lightning slot with an SD card reader on it so I can load the pics and vids onto the SD card. Also, we download the pics and vids to our desktop to keep plenty of space on the iPad. I just this last week won a sales contest at my company, and they are mailing me a new iPad Mini4. I'm looking forward to using that on the bike. The smaller size is gonna be more beneificial, i think. It's not like I'm an Apple freak, but our iPad has been bulletproof for us for 5 years now, and I have a tendency to stay with it.

I'm in Orlando for a national sales conference this week, and brrrrrr! It's chilly for Florida. Good thing I left my speedo and tank tops back in Little Rock. LOL.

I love the Connies. But, I wouldn't buy it because it doesn't have a cruise control. For the life of me, I do not understand why Kawi doesn't care enough to put a cruise on it. Yamaha has finally done that with the FJR. That is the final piece that would make that bike a true sport "tourer".