I just spent a few minutes looking at cruisers from assorted makers. Yamaha's carbureted cruisers include their 250 Star (nee Virago) and the V-Star 650. Kawasaki seems to have dropped the 500 Vulcan (and the 500 Ninja), and their smallest cruiser is the 900 Vulcan with FI. Honda still has the carbureted Rebel, but no other carbureted cruisers. Suzuki still has the S40, the only Single in the lot. Wonder if the rest of the carbureted crowd will go away in a year or so? If so, what replaces them?

yep, with FI on the S40 and a factory designed fuel map for efficiency and milage it would likely be in the 70+ mpg range
change it from a cruiser and put it in a standard frame setup like the TU and they could sell it for a high milage commuter

ralfyguy wrote on 08/13/10 at 10:31:37:


The C50 was the Volusia prior to 2005.  Visit  http://www.volusiariders.com/   I'm a member there too.  Some pretty good folks.

babyhog wrote on 08/13/10 at 11:29:34:

Me too!  If I'm remembering right, I saw somewhere that it's stock rating is in the neighborhood of 50hp, but don't quote me on that.  It won't win you any races, but it can get you moving quick enough, and seems happy cruizing anywhere from 50mph up to 80, although the gearing's a little low to go much over that for long distances.  In fact, a lot of people swap out the rear gears for better ratios.

Back to the subject at hand.  If they came out with a TU650, I'd be all over that.  The 250 looks great, but don't think they'd haul me around on the freeway real good.  I'd also love to see FI on the Savage, and I think they'd keep selling enough of them to pay for the investment of making the modifications to the design.  Heck, they never seem to keep them on the floors the way they are now!

And I'd also noticed that the Vulcan 500 is gone now.  I've seen some old stock ones at a couple dealers still.  If they're around this time next year, a person could probably get a real good deal on one!