I like the cr500s. They sell enough conversion kits to make em street legal. And they have a good deal more hp than the yzf 450, as they are a two stroke.
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I like the cr500s. They sell enough conversion kits to make em street legal. And they have a good deal more hp than the yzf 450, as they are a two stroke.
I have seen a few cr500s at the drag track. They go mid 11s stock with a good driver. Some people with a few mods are in the 10s easy.
http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps988bdad3.jpg
Had a CR 500 while they are a Bad Ass monster that will hurt you if given the chance I have a good friend that has a new CRF450 and they are a handful of torque that in my opinion are just as fast and in the woods faster.
This is a softail we just finished about a month ago -
http://i853.photobucket.com/albums/a...1295203439.jpg
V-rods come in MANY flavors. So foot positioning is different for many of them. Some have pull back style bars with forward pegs, others have drag bars with forward shifting/braking pegs, others have drag bars with forward pegs but you have your shifter/brake pegs under you for a more standard riding position. Then there is the upright V-rod that is more like a standard, no forward pegs at all. Its the Street Rod I believe. After a while they went from 1132 engine to a 1250 and power increased a bit. Great bikes and for what they are handle well and stop decent. The reason a sport bike stops better is mostly due to the pads that Vrods have stock and the fact the Vrod is much heavier. The brakes are fine. A good pad change to just EBC's helps a lot.
As far as the Warrior, its a great bike and can be modded. Some "myth" around it is the suspension. It does NOT use R1 suspension. It uses the same fork tubes but that is it. It has no adjustments like the R1 and it is sprung much softer. The rear shock is the same as you find on the Yamaha 1600cc cruiser bike. They were able to keep the weight down by use of aluminum for the frame but its still a cruiser frame. A lot of guys say "Its a R1 setup!" when in fact it is not. I am also not a fan of exposed push rods. Air/oil cooled.
The Raider is a nice bike but a V-Rod is better at everything imho. Not to say I would buy a V-rod over the Raider but the V-Rod is smoother, is a tick faster, is liquid cooled, revs higher and feels more sporty, and out handles the raider (mostly because the raider uses a larger front tire). The Raider actually has the HD shake (designed that way) at idle but smooths out quickly and has loads of power. It will flat out destroy the Warrior stock for stock in a drag race. Warrior was rated at a higher tq but dyno sheets proved the torque rating from Yamaha is inflated. Again, not a fan of exposed pushrods. This bike is also air/oil cooled.
Onto the Victory. They make a good bike but they also have their short comings. Brake pads need changed, the brakes feel MUCH better with just cheap EBC pads. The rear shock is sprung either too soft or too firm for my flavor, that being said if you ride it like a cruiser and not a sport bike you will be just fine. :) They make good power, are simple to work on (8 gaskets in the entire engine), right side drive and changing a belt is less than a two hour job. No exposed push rods, 4 valve heads, engine/tanny are one unit, easy to change the oil, lots of accessories as of late, good warranty, helical cut gears in the tranny (they whine like an old Rock Crusher!) and some come with 100k mile warranty on the tranny, and a host of other pretty cool engine stuff from the factory. Oh, and the only real upgrade for power for a Victory is 100% covered by your warranty if something goes wrong. :) Resale value is not the best so if you don't plan to have it forever, buy used. The Hammer is called the Hammer because the seat makes you think you spent the weekend sharing a room with Zapper and somehow you don't remember anything but he keeps calling you wanting to "talk about feelings". You can ride it a long ways but be sure to stop every 80-100 miles. Gas MPG's are good. I averaged 43 with all sorts of riding. The 6th gear is an actual .8 OD gear as well so it doesn't turn too high of rpm's on the highway. In the 1/4 its about .2 behind the V-Rod, Raider, and M109R. Not much but its behind. Now, I am speaking of the 106ci, which honestly is the one you want. There are also air/oil cooled but being a single sump system for engine and tranny with a decent external cooler, they tend to run cooler than other air/oil cooled bikes. One thing they did was back down to a 5 quart system. Prior Victory bikes had a 6 quart. Some of those bike showed excessive premature wear to the engines and it was diagnosed the oil was not getting up to the proper operating temperature. Mostly these were bikes that had primarily short trips on them which didn't allow the engine to reach the correct operating temperature.
The VTX1800 is a good bike as well. My dad has a 2006 he bought new. Issues I have is that its really heavy, limited ground clearance, and wish it had one more gear. Though its fine being a 5 speed. It just feels like at 55 I am lugging 5th and that 4th is just a few RPM's too much for cruising. Paint is good. Design is good. Aftermarket it good. Reliability is great. It is a Honda, after all. :)
Suzuki M109R. Yeah, buddy. On par with the V-rod in the 1/4 mile and sports a 7500 rpm rev limiter and though its factory limited to 130-131, you can remove that and prepare to blast all the way to 150. The Victory has a limited in 6th gear for I believe 4600 rpm. Given that 55 mph is under 2k, do the math on how fast it will run. The M109R has some typical Suzuki issues. The paint is not the best, the chrome is not the best, some side covers have been known to fall off at random, the blinkers have had some issues with falling off, but all in all they are a great bike with good brakes and lots of power. They are a bit heavy but it doesn't feel as heavy as it is. The brakes are great. And who doesn't like to brag about having the largest pistons in a road going vehicle from the factory? 4.4" bore. :)
It all depends on what you want and your personal preference as far as riding style, how much power you want/need, the comfort level desired, and how much aftermarket support you want and need. All good bikes. All will do right by you, but it comes down to personal preference.
Damn double post.