The monster “power cruiser” that rocked the neighborhood

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Back in 2010 I was visiting my local Yamaha/Suzuki/Kawasaki/KTM dealership—Bill Eddy Powersports—here in my home town of Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was a beautiful day and I had a habit of stopping by there back then to see my friend Bill, and check out their latest motorcycles. They always had a lot to look at, and the folks working there were fun to talk to. 

While Bill was trying to talk me into a new KTM 900 Super Duke (craziest unfared wheelie machine I have ever ridden), I wasn’t about to spend $14K or whatever it cost on something like that. So as was my habit at the time, I also had to check out the row of used motorbikes while I was there. One of them caught my eye. It was a low mileage, mint condition, all-black 2007 Yamaha Road Star Warrior 1700, with a small windshield and some kind of aftermarket pipes on it. 

The 2007 Yamaha Road Star Warrior I picked up. Beast.

I had never owned or even ridden a “power cruiser,” and even though I had owned a couple H-D Sportsters by then. I was really more of a sportbike or “standard” kind of guy. But there was something that appealed to me about that Warrior besides its blacked out looks and the 135 ft lbs of torque churned out from its massive V-Twin. It had sportbike style wheels on it, and dual front discs. It looked like I could actually RIDE the thing. So impulsively, I bought it. I think I paid $5500 which was about half of what it had cost new. 

Being as this was prior to my accident in 2016 when I totaled my brand new Triumph Thruxton 1200, I was still a pretty aggressive rider back then who liked to go fast. I have to admit that while this bike wasn’t quite up to Harley V-Rod standards (the bike that invented the power cruiser genre, in my opinion), it ran pretty strong. The Warrior was an absolute torque monster that still had some serious top end to it. The belt drive setup was nice and smooth. And it would corner well enough, although it was so low-slung I would often scrape some bits when cornering, something that would never happen on a sportbike.

Of course, it was heavy as a tank, weighing in at more than 600 lbs dry and more with its nearly 4-gallon tank full to the brim. But it was a lot more fun to ride with a much lower weight distribution than a riding buddy’s Honda VTX1800, which I felt was an absolute pig. The ergonomics on the big Yamaha were a little crazy with the feet forward controls (in all fairness, I’m a guy who spent $900 on rearsets for a Sportster!), and if I was any shorter than the 5’11” I am, I don’t think I could ride it very comfortably. 

It was, however, ridiculously loud with the headers it had on it. At that time I lived in the Washington-Willow historic district here, and to say I had some pretty stuffy neighbors would be a vast understatement. My daily driver at that time was a ‘35 Ford Pickup with a 383 Stroker and headers with exhaust cutouts, and one of my neighbors, another college professor here, was constantly sending me snarky texts about it. This bike didn’t help my relationships there, either. One morning Katie, my wife at that time, got a call from an old friend of hers who lived a couple blocks away. He stated he was sitting on his porch reading a book and heard a ridiculously loud motorcycle approaching and was wondering to himself “who that asshole was riding that thing,” only to be informed it was me, Katie’s husband. Let’s just say that big Yamaha didn’t win me any brownie points at home!

The Warrior parked in the garage (sans windshield), where most of the neighbors preferred it.

Like so many cycles I owned over the years, I didn’t keep the Warrior for very long. I don’t think I ever rode it a longer distance than the 23 miles to Granny’s Kitchen and back, a breakfast spot in Huntsville, Arkansas, a nice quick bike trip on two-lane roads with little police patrol. That bike never gave me a single problem during the year or so I had it, I must admit. I can’t say it wasn’t a better bike than any Harley I had ever owned or ridden, and it was a bargain in terms of what I got for what I paid. While metric “pseudo-Harleys” have never been my thing (I’m not a fan of fingerless gloves or riding chaps, either), if I ever got the urge for another big V-Twin, I wouldn’t hesitate to look for another Road Star Warrior… but maybe one with a stock exhaust setup on it!

Mark Zweig