In the past Yamaha has come at the market with a powerful 1,197 cc, 70-degree V4 engine borrowed from its famously fast V-Max, although sans the V-boost that made the sport cruiser so rowdy. Today the market is still a competitive one, although with clear lines drawn between the American V-twin tourers from H-D and Indian, and the sportier multi-cylinder offerings from Honda and BMW. By the end of the ’80s, BMW, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha had joined the game.

The concept of luxury touring began in the early ’80s when Harley and Honda released their first fully dressed long-distance tourers, which were bikes with factory-installed fairings and hard side and top cases. And until you get used to the bike’s physics and the slight delay in steering feedback, she wants to totter.Īdd a consistent dash of torque and a hint of rear brake, however, and the big machine becomes almost magically agile and well mannered at around-town speeds its super-low centre of gravity acts like a gyroscope during the slowest manoeuvres.Īfter busting out of the city, my first hours on the Venture were on the highway, undoubtedly this machine’s strong suit. You don’t take a boat across the ocean, it says you take a ship.Īside from her enormity, the first thing you notice as you grip the swept-back cruiser-style handlebar is that your hands are a very long way from the front wheel. It occurred to me early on that Yamaha very purposely attached the name “Transcontinental” to its new Venture. In the weeks prior to my time on the Venture, I’d reviewed eight other motorcycles, everything from urban all-rounders to adventure tourers, and each provoked fatigue and niggling pain (primarily in the bum region).īy comparison, the Transcontinental felt like riding on a cloud, which is surely the primary goal for any luxury tourer. This 2020 bike is big by anyone’s standards: at 2.7 metres long and 437 kg. That’s how it was for me as I finally settled into the cockpit of Yamaha’s 2020 Venture Transcontinental, a new twist on the company’s on again/off again luxury tourer – the Venture Royale (’83-’93) and Royal Star Venture (’99-’13) – this time powered by a 1,854 cc air-cooled V-twin instead of the liquid-cooled V-four that helped make previous Ventures popular. The way you drop into a state of mind about 500 km into a trip, lulled by the murmur of the tires on the road and constant shush of the wind. The road, at times, can feel like an old friend. Most bike models get leaner and meaner with age, but Yamaha’s resurrected luxury tourer got a little slower and lot baggier. Plenty of storage capacity and extreme comfort make this a fantastic long-distance touring bike, but it isn’t without

2020 yamaha star venture tc