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/127795
PROJECT BIKE Yamaha Royal Star By Mark Hoyer Photos by Kit Palmer and Hoyer otorcycling has changed a lot since the old days. As time passes, fewer and fewer of the folks who were there to witness and experience the old ways firsthand are l1ere to tell.us about the days when scruffy-looking guys riding old Harleys, Indians or Triumphs begged, borrowed or stole their way around the countryside, roaming in packs and sleeping on the ground. The days when tattoos actually meant something and were done in dingy "parlors" by guys named snake. Yeah, there was cluome on those big old bikes, but you couldn't tell from the layers of road grime and rust. A motorcycle was the ticket to freedom and made you the member of a unique club. Customizing was a de facto part of ownership, in some ways to individualize the machine, but also Simply to keep it going by using the parts you had available to you. It took dedication and ingenuity to keep riding. Today, a motorcycle is still a ticket to freedom. The ticket just costs more now, and the club you join is much more likely to have the word "country" in front of it. Tattoos are "skin art" and done in boutiques where you can get an espresso while you wait. This is because the most unlikely people are buying into the biker lifestyle. Jokes about dentists and doctors riding their Harleys to the local hangouts abound, and they don't exist for nothing. The new biker lifestyle takes as much commitment as the old one, just in a different form: Money. Those of you watching the motorcycle market now are certainly aware of the big-bike cruiser phenomenon, this M (Above) For a "catalog" custom, the finished Royal Star proJect was stunning. (Top) By comparison, the stock bike looks plain. (Right) Over 40 Yamaha accessories were used for the project with a total cost of more than $3800. modem-day charge back through time to when bikes were bigger than life and heavier .than death, led by the single remaining American brand to have found a way to survive in an everchanging world. You can look at Harley as either being faithful to tradi tion or hopelessly outdated. Either way, you can't say they aren't successful. They sell all their bikes and vigorously pursue a thriving accessory business. You must also know by now that three of the Big Four Japanese manufacturers have already stepped up with models they perceive fill the demand for big, relaxed cruising-focused motorcycles typi(ied by the decidedly retro 'Harley-Davidson Fat Boy and Heritage Softail, and to varying degrees all are offering a full line of shiny things to add on to your bike to make it different The base machine is looked upon as a canvas or ou tline and it's your job to spend some money to make it distinctly your own. Perhaps the most serious of these Japanese manufacturers is Yamaha. Huge sums and great effort have been sunk ipJo the Royal Star project, and having a broad line of cool accessories was an integral part .of its version of the retro-cruiser concept from the very beginning. Want to build your own? All it takes is a little time and a lot of cash. First, you need a bike. That we wanted to use only Yamaha's own acces- expect like chrome battery covers or passing lights, Yamaha even offers these little shiny plugs to fill all the allen-head bolts that hold the motorcycle together. Most of the pieces used were easy to install and required minimal mechanical know-how. One 6f the things Yamaha says they were looking for in this regard was just this - ease of fitment. To that end, all parts come with metric hardware, just like the bike itself. But not everything was "in-the-parking-Iot easy" to install, as the Yamaha guys were fond of saying. Not unless your local dealer has an air compressor and electrical multi-tester in its parking lot. The foam-insert gorilla grips specified, for instance, took some serious muscle