Yamaha Muscle Bike -- The Warrior

[pashnit]

Can't resist re-posting this shot of Dave's bike. More I look at this thing, more I begin to drool. Anyone else got one of these or know about? :bike

[DaleC]

No, but it would really look good in my garage and I'd make the extra room for it. I have three motorcycles there now, but they like company and want new friends......

DaleC

[TheKaiser]

Originally Posted by pashnit

Anyone else got one of these or know about? :bike

I know Yamaha issued a huge recall because some Warriors had an interesting transmission failure wherein the gears would lock into several speeds at once and seize the transmission.

I'd still love to have one.

[Warrior]

I own a Warrior also, love the thing. It did have the recall on the transmission. Yamaha was a little slow getting the part kits out to dealers, but when I turned in my Yamaha I got it back three days later. Not a bad turnaround.
If you are thinking of buying a cruiser and are coming from the sportbike realm I highly recommend it. The suspension and brakes are awesome, I have pretty much my whole rear tire scuffed, only milimeters of chicken strips on the edge. The engine is great also, very linear, with loads of torque, it shoots out of corners.
Very easy on the eyes too, get loads of comments from people. But it's not a Harley and that's not all its good for.

[Scarman]

Hi Guys,
The 1st picture above was taken in my garage a few weeks ago after installing the chrome fork tube covers.

I came from sport bikes and sport touring bikes, but last year felt the need to try out a cruiser. I tried a few other cruisers but they all seem to plow through corners. Not one of the bikes I tried seemed to have any power with the ability to take a decent slice out of a corner.

Then a friend of mine told me that I had to try out a Warrior. At the time it was more money than I had budgeted for. Generally I won't try on a bike that is far out of my budget, but I did it anyway.

At first it seemed like a decent ride. Very good power on the low end. But what really got me was when I took it into my first turn. It took the corner more like a sport bike than any other cruiser I had tried. Honestly I have always stuck with Honda or Yamaha so those were the bikes I limited myself to although I did try on a Kawasaki.

A beautifully unique cruiser with a nice stretched out riding position that will leave you sitting on the ground if you don't hold on at take off, and can do a decent job at slicing corners. Now this is certainly no sport bike, but for a cruiser it does surprise you in the corners. It lays down til you scrape the pegs with ease and snaps back up like it weights 200 lbs. less. I believe it's approx 650 lbs. wet.

However being out of the range of my budget, I left it behind. I went home and couldn't stop think about what an amazing bike it was. A short time later my wife asked me if I was having any luck looking for a new ride. I told her about the Warrior and how the used market for bikes around here was slim pickens that summer. Then she says "If you like the Warrior, then go get it". I told her it was like 4 grand out of my budget, but she again said go buy it. Not waiting for her to come to her senses, I quickly ran out and got it.

It's been an addiction ever since. Those that own this bike are usually rabid about it. The creativity of the owners and long list of custom modifications is endless. Once you start changing things on the bike, you can't stop. It just keeps getting better. Park a Warrior with a group of other custom bikes and almost everyone is drawn to the Warrior. I am constantly stopped by people asking what kind of custom bike it is.

The recall was a pain but it's over for most now and we've moved on. Actually for many the recall was a blessing in disguise. The recall required a pretty serious tear down of the engine. Many including myself took advantage of this and had some performance mods done at the same time. If it we not for the recall, I would have never been able to justify the internal performance mods I had installed. The recall ended up saving me almost $2K in labor alone.

I recently had my bike on the dyno and it came out to 98 hp and 120 ft pounds of torque. The dyno tech had never done a modified Warrior before. He was really surprised at how fast the torque came up right off idle. He had just finished a Harley with a screaming eagle kit and it wasn't even close to the Warrior. The Warrior jumped close to max torque at 1300 RPM and stayed flat throughout the entire RPM range.

I have a friend that rides another cruiser and I let him take it for a quick spin around the block. He said it scared the bleep out of him. It's really fine as long as you are real easy with it. If you get a little aggressive with it, you better be holding on. Every once in a while it's fun to just let it lose.

Here is another image that I took that same day. Interesting perspective: