How Much Horsepower Does One Man Need? Part One of Four: Why?

By Brad (DangerMouse) Joyce

The rather depressing Russian author, Leo Tolstoy, answered the question, "How much land does one man need?" rather soberly and with typical Russian verve. "Enough to bury him in." Remind me to scratch old Leo off the guest list for the next ISRA rally. Small wonder high school students have such a hard time getting through that stuff! Recent trends in motorcycle design, though, seem to be following Leo's advice. How many horses does Suzuki's new Hayabusa need? Apparently, enough to kill you.
Motorcycle magazines are one of my favorite ways to pass time. Therefore any time I am in an airport (where it seems they have made a business of supplying me with vast expanses of time to fill), I usually purchase as many moto-mags as I can find. On a recent trip across the Atlantic, I was reading one when a gentleman seated next to me struck up a conversation about motorcycles. Funny how bikers come out of the woodwork when they spot one of their own. People just love to talk about bikes. Anyhow, he had noticed the extreme profile of the Hayabusa on the cover of the magazine.

"Looks fast," he noted. And the award for understatement of the year goes to…
"Yeah, they say here it'll do 194 miles per hour," I replied. With my tone of voice and facial expression, I tried to convey that strange sense of awe one feels when in the presence of something that is sublimely ridiculous.
"194?!?!"
"Yeah, they say that it has 160 horsepower."
"160?!?!"
"160." I was as surprised as he was. I don't think the horsepower ratings of all three of the bikes that I have ridden over the years add up to 160 horsepower combined.
"194 on a bike?"
"On a bike."
We both sat silent for a while looking at the pictures of Suzuki's new beast. I am sure neither one of us really understood the Hayabusa. But at the same time, we respected it on some level. I mean, it is an extremely eloquent engineering statement… granted, that statement is "look how stupidly dangerous this thing is," but it IS eloquently said. Whether it is engineering or some new Japanese alchemy, the Hayabusa is the motorcycling industry's best attempt so far to take the emotions that surround the danger of riding and make them flesh.

My new friend on the plane summed it up nicely. "Well," he said after a longish pause, "if I wanted to die THAT much, I'd just jump off a building." Enough horsepower to bury you with, indeed.

Cruiser riders are a different lot than those sport bike hooligans on R6s, GSX750s, and F4s. It isn't that we don't crave speed. We do. But there is more to being a member of the cruiser faithful. It can't just be fast. It has to be the right kind of fast. It has to be an oddly antique way of going fast. It has to be done in keeping with a uniquely American quasi-religious tradition. Cruising is a faith where the saints bear names like Crocker, Indian, Flying Merkel, Excelsior, or Harley-Davidson. Almost like the anachronistic Amish communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, the biker who chooses to cruise has made the decision that things before are better than they are now. The rider of a cruiser is a staunch believer that the 'good old days' really were good. Granted, we have modern expectations of fuel economy, price, and reliability; we aren't stupid, after all. And so we find ourselves on Yamaha's Stars. And, we find ourselves reading about these antique looking bikes on the information superhighway.

Customizing a Star is to turn the needle of Sherman and Peabody's 'Way Back Machine' to whatever period of Americana you think is the best. Some like the Easy Rider days of the 60s and early 70s. Expect them to kick out those forks, strip off anything you don't need, and chrome everything else. Some prefer the mega-fat Cruisers of the 50s. Bags, windshields, studs, conchoes, fringe, you know the look. Some prefer the look of the 30s and 40s. Expect sprung solo saddles, bullet lights, tasteful chrome and art-deco paint schemes. Whichever custom route you take, a Yamaha Star is the perfect choice. Because of it's heritage? Uh, no. It's because when you thumb the starter, she'll always start. It's because they are genuinely modern machines. It is because somewhere deep inside, we all know that the 'good old days', with their unreliable and anemic motorcycles, really weren't all THAT good. A Star lets you pretend they were.

But part of 'good old days' game is to tinker. Beyond just changing the looks of these bikes, we want to make them faster. Just like my granddad did to his Indian Chief when he got back from being a fighter pilot in the Pacific theatre. Ok, my grandfather wasn't a Flying Tiger. He spent most of his quiet life fishing off the uneventful West coast of Ireland and he didn't fight in World War Two - but the that's missing the point. I'm sure SOMEONE'S grandfather was a Flying Tiger. And if this hypothetical grandparent had an Indian Chief, he would be OK in my book. All the more so if he stroked the engine. So, as antithetical as it may seem, we crank out every last pony we can from of these machines. "Why not just get a faster bike to begin with?" one could ask. Hell, if I did, I'd make IT faster, too! Let's come back to that question next year once we have witnessed the owners of the already blindingly fast V Star 1100 adding aftermarket exhaust and opening up their carbs.

To be continued in our next issue
How Much Horsepower Does One Man Need?
Part Two of Four: Torque