My Bke #4, Yamaha Venture Royale

I was happy with my dinner mint green Virago xv750. I had put a lot of miles on it, and it was my first "big bike", and I identified with it. But I was always looking at bikes, and one day when I was getting parts at the local Yamaha dealer, strolling through the used bikes, and I saw a pretty, black and white, low mileage, Virago xv1100. Well, I was thinking, my bike had 33,000 miles, this one had 8,000 miles, it was a little more powerful, maybe I should think about upgrading.

But next to the Virago 1100 was a maroon, 1988 Yamaha Venture Royale. It looked in great shape, had only 30,000 miles (low for a touring bike). This is the bike that our road captain and our tailrider ride. I'm not sure if it was wanting to be one of the crowd, or wanting a bike that I could ride hundreds of miles in comfort, but it really appealed to me. I could trade the old 535 for it, and it was so old that I wouldn't be paying too much for it.

So I decided to call Don the Road Captain and have him take a look at it. He felt it was in pretty good shape, but maybe had more than the 30,000 miles indicated due to wear on the footpegs. He also thought it was overpriced, and bargained with the salesman for me. Anyway, I traded in the xv535, and I was the owner of a 1988 Venture Royale. Riding it home was an adventure, as I'd never been on anything nearly that big before. It's a full dress tourer - Yamaha's answer to the Gold Wing, with a lot of storage space. The 1300 cc motor was a adapted from the V-max, and as a result this bike had serious acceleration.

It turned out the bike needed some work. A strange whine on deceleration ended up being an indication he rear end was shot - I had the dealer's shop fix it, but I had to find the part and pay for that - a serious expense. I had Al, our club mechanic, put progressive shocks in the front. After that, the bike was rideable. I enjoyed it for half a season, with amazing acceleration, wind fully blocked, and surprisingly good performance in turns, once the new shocks were installed. The biggest problem with it is it was really heavy, and really top heavy. I dropped in the parking lot, in the driveway, turning on a narrow road on a steep hill. It was just a monster, and once it started to go it was going to go.

Eventually I sold it to George, our 70+ year old tailrider, who loved it. I replaced it with a 2000 BMW R1100RTP, a former california highway patrol bike with 80,000 miles on it.