Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127780
1997 Honda F6 Valkyrie worries, just leave the gearbox in its tall fifth gea r and let it id le do wn to a crawl. Th e Valkyrie will pu ll from as low as 800 rp m and offer no complaint. Con versely, w hen you're read y to let th e Valkyrie fly, it'll do th at too. At" around 700 pounds th e Valkyri e is no ligh tweight, bu t when you compare it to the Gold Wing' s rou gh ly 800-po u nd mas s th e F6 starts look in g rather trim. And since th e GL e n g ine was o ri gi na lly d esi gned to push thi s heavier weight with its large frontal area, it comes as no big su rp rise that th e Valky rie flat goes with the hopped-up version of the horizontally opposed six. The F6 gets aw ay from a dead sto p w ith admirable zi p (aided by a goo d cl u tch) , but where the engine reall y shi nes is in the mi d range, parti cularly aro und 3500 rpm. Third gear's a charm - just snap th e throttle open and you' re go ing right now, with th e expe rie nce heigh tened b y a throa ty six -cylinde r snarl that sounds more like a muscle car than an y motorcycle has a right to. You can' t call the exha ust not e staccato, but : it has abo u t as m u ch o f th a t ty pe of so u nd as a six-cylinder's firing ord er will allo w. All th e hard work by not on ly th e p o w e rpl an t g uys, but by co u ntless ex peri ments with vario us ex haust setu ps paid off. And as Hond a' s head p ress man Gary Christop her was quick to point out, getting any kind of character from an exhaust system in ligh t of th e EPA's stringe nt noise-emission controls is an admi rable accomplishme nt. As little as it is required in light of the ge nerous torqu e available at such low rpm, shifting action is good, but typ ica l street-goi ng H ond a in that it lacks a certain slickness. The lo ng, 66 .5-i nc h w heelbase means that this applica- By Mark Hoyer G etting a first look at a motorcycle and no t bei ng able to • ride it, like Honda did to us w ith th e 1997 F6 Valkyrie • 0 0 ° "po wer cruiser" intro duction this January in Chicago, may be all part of releasi ng a new model, but it doesn't revea l anything about the stuff that really cou nts on a new bike. Good for wh etting the appetite, but what C you tell an abo ut th e importan t stuff like overa ll riding experience, and, particularly for a cruiser, it s sou l? Rumors wer e flying late last yea r that Hond a was to release an all-new cru iser using the venerab le GL1500 powerplant designed fo r the Gold Wing, bu t u ntil we fina lly got official wo rd we must ad mit we had our do ubt s. Face it, the Gold Win g engi ne was designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, to provide smooth torque and seamless power delivery. How can you make a cool cruiser out of th at? Honda tol d us there were a h ost of changes made to liven up both the perform an ce and th e sound to give the Val kyrie a hot -ro d , V-ei ght ki nd of feeli ng fro m stoplight to stoplight. Even so, we had our doubts. Then we wen t rid ing. Honda should be p roud of its eng ineers for their dramatic transformation o f the mild-ma n ner ed GL15 00 Gold Wing engine from its some what sleep y competence to the ba rking heart of a hot rod . What was once Dr . Jekyll is now Mr. H yd e. Th at flat-six is perhaps the pin nacle design as far as touring powerpl an ts go, pr ovid ing a torqu ey, supersmooth ou tput that mad e it almost comple te ly transparent in it s op eration. Healthy bu t seda te. Add rubber mou nting as foun d on the Wing, and about the onl y way to tell wh en it's time to shift is to glance at the tach ometer. We're talkO ' ° (Right) Calling the Valkyrie agile might be a bit much, but the big . bike supports a surprisingly brisk pace th rou gh the turns. in g s moo th an d q ui e t - a nd m ayb e jus t a lit tle u ninspiring. . Of cou rse, the en gin eers at Honda kne w all th is when th ey first tried to ap ply the GL1500 to the "power cruiser" concep t that ultimately became the 1997 F6 Valkyrie, but tr ied the twin -carb eng ine, straight out of a GL chassis, anyway. No big su rp rise, but they cam e aw ay unimpressed. Something mo re rad ical, more visceral was need ed . In th e en d, fat cams, valvetr ain changes th at allow a 1000rpm-higher red line, and six carbs feeding six cylinder s that exhale th rough a set of au tomotive-looking head ers and a six-into-six exhaust system were adopted. To let th e characte r of the powerplant make its way throu gh to the pilot, the engin e was solidly mounted in the sing le-backbone stee l fram e. The result o f this so li d mounting isn 't what you could possibly call vibration, but rather only th e sug ges ti on of moving parts. And while the si x 28mm carb u retors see m integral to pu m ping up th e ou tpu t, the y were initially called for by the s ty lis ts beca use it wo u ld -look cool. _ "Ov er 100 horsepow er" and a u niqueto-th e-m ot or cycle-w or ld exh au st not e w e re t he net r esults . Oh, yea h, a n d ins tantaneous acceleration from almost anywhere in the powerb and. Tha n ks p artiall y to the large d isplaceme n t o f 1520cc, th is power isn't made at the expense of flexibility, as the engine is willing to accommo da te just abou t an y rpm and gear combin atio n you hand it. Don't feel like shifting? No tion of sha ft dri ve produces no sudde n changes in rear ride heigh t with variat ions in throttle opening. Seemless downsh ifts are easil y coordinated with the close-ratio transmission. Couple this w ith a rigid chassis and am ple torque and the Valkyrie will accommodate and even enterta in you on twisting road s. A brisk pace is both comfo rtable and easily su p porte d, with the well-pl aced foot pegs only touching down occasionally. A 45mm in ve rte d fo rk keeps th e big 150/ 80R1 7 Dunlop 0206 radi a l well under control, and the bike feels firmly p lanted in corners. Wide handlebars