At the track the Hog effectively tied for second place with the Boulevard M50 in the quarter-mile. Indeed, the Harley and Suzuki were in many ways archrivals.

That sporty riding position, combined with higher-clearance foot pegs, brought the Harley one twist of the throttle away from the nimble Suzuki in the canyons. wheelbase and upright, almost forward-leaning riding position make the Sportster closer to a standard bike. Oddly, the Harley is less like a traditional cruiser than the others. The riding position, suspension design and styling all hearken back to the 1960s. The Sportster makes anyone who rides it instantly cool in an old-school kind of way. The Sportster is the mechanical equivalent of that perfectly antiqued vintage motorcycle jacket-like the leather one Peter Fonda wore in Easy Rider or the waxed cotton Belstaff jacket that used to hang in Steve McQueen's closet. In all, the V Star is a great deal for a new rider looking to save some Âpetrol and get a head-turning bike for weekend rides. And our test passenger found the rear pillion the most comfortable. On the open road, the Star returned nearly 52 mpg. Better still, our test rider proclaimed that the brake feel on the Star was the best in the test. More important, the Star had the second-best brakes of the bunch. The Star was no star at the dragstrip, yet it was able to outgun the larger displacement Honda to 60 mph. And for larger riders, the close-coupled position was cramped. It wouldn't be our first choice for a trip cross-country. Remember those? At highway speeds, the handlebars fed through a bit more vibration than the other bikes. Like the Harleys of the past, the V Star's 649 cc V-twin is air-cooled, is fed by a pair of carburetors and has a manual choke. And it has that classic cruiser profile reminiscent of a seven-eighths-scale Harley-Davidson Softail. But as small as the V Star is, it had, as they say, a big personality. That lack of heft and an amazingly light clutch effort combine to make the V Star easy to ride and maneuver in heavy traffic. At 474 pounds, it was the most svelte in the test. Smaller or less experienced riders will welcome the Star's low weight, too.

So for the price of another bike in the test, you could get a new V Star and, say, a Shoei helmet and Dainese leather jacket and still have a few hundred left over for gas money. But the Star was the leader in several important criteria for first-time or budget-conscious riders. On paper, the 649 cc V Star appears to be the runt of the litter. But in this test, we found that the smaller bikes had enough power, efficiency and comfort to impress. Often it takes big torque to turn our heads. And we brought along a seasoned passenger to test each bike's capability for two-up touring. Professional rider Danny Coe ran each bike through our battery of acceleration and braking tests at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona. We gathered up five middleweight contenders from Yamaha (Star), Harley-Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki, and rode them nearly 350 miles through some of Southern California's best roads and worst traffic. Best of all, these bikes are some of the sweetest bargains in motorcycling. Yet many are rewarding enough for old pros, too. So they won't overwhelm first-time riders. The middleweights are lighter, lower and much easier to ride than the big boys. Broadly ranging from 500 cc to 1000 cc, these bikes all pack traditional V-twin engines, pumped-up styling and loads of comfort. The best-selling of these fuel-efficient cruisers live in the rather nebulous middleweight class. Who says motorcycles are just weekend fun? So a cool-looking, fun-to-ride cruiser can become a very unlikely and appealing alternative to a hybrid. The smallest ones sip fuel at a pace that would make a Prius owner jealous. But despite the big chrome pipes, fat rear tire and bulging V-twin engine, bikes are fantastically fuel-efficient machines.Įven the heaviest, most powerful models deliver hybridlike economy.

On the outside, a husky cruiser bike may look like the two-wheel equivalent of a gas-guzzling muscle car.

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