WHEN I first rode the new-for-2009 VMax from the Star Motorcycles division of Yamaha, there was something familiar in its manner that I couldn’t quite place. Something to do with how I felt after each ride, walking away with my hands tingling and ears ringing — a feeling that I imagine jackhammer jockeys know all too well.
The VMax is a hulking machine: straddle the beast, grab the handlebars, fire it up and feel the ground shake as an angry roar erupts from the 197-horsepower V-4 engine. The bike’s rocket-launcher quad exhausts snort like an aggrieved warthog — an image reinforced by the gaping air-intake snouts on either side of the engine.
The VMax will rip through a quarter-mile run in 10 seconds. It doesn’t carve sweeping corners; it grinds them into submission. Traffic isn’t so much handled as exorcised.
It took several days, but this beast’s hint of familiarity finally came to me: years ago, when my dad and I were building a corral, we rented a gas-powered post-hole digger. The unwieldy contraption would drive an auger about four feet long into the hard-packed ground for anyone gutsy enough to grab the handlebars on either side and fire it up.
With a fury I’ve seldom experienced, the digger would obliterate everything in its path as it began gouging its way toward the center of the earth. Riding the VMax was a lot like going a few rounds with that digger.
Even parked, the VMax looks as if it is sizing you up — a penned rodeo bull waiting for a cowboy. What do you have planned for the next eight seconds, sodbuster?
The VMax earned its reputation for raw power decades ago. The original 1,198 cc V-Max first arrived as a 1985 model; in motorcycle years, that’s an eternity. Offered for more than two decades, it was one of the longest-lived, least-changed motorcycles ever built.
Twenty-five years ago, the V-Max (the name was hyphenated then) had to overcome a good deal of skepticism. Would an unusual-looking, Japanese-made, 4-cylinder, water-cooled, shaft-driven power cruiser sell in America? Remember, this was the land of the free, home of the brave and birthplace of the cult of air-cooled Harley-Davidson V-twins.
But the V-Max’s 133-horsepower V-4 proved to be a wake-up call for thrill-seekers, who quickly became addicted to the visceral straight-line acceleration. Never mind that the V-Max turned corners as nimbly as a container ship and was a handful to stop. It was just ugly enough, with its tortured plumbing, to be bulldog-beguiling.
But as the years passed, the V-Max kept selling. Other makers began to consider the virtues of a such a modern, high-output engine in a cruiser. Even Harley-Davidson, in conjunction with Porsche, came out with a water-cooled power cruiser, the V-Rod, for 2002.
But the V-Max remained unchanged. Why? Yamaha says it spent nearly a decade fiddling with prototypes. Progress came when it decided that any new V-Max must have a 200-horsepower engine. More power was needed after competitors raised the ante.
The designers preserved the quintessential V-Max look, but the engineers changed virtually everything else. A new V-4 engine now displaces a stout 1,679 cc. Claimed horsepower at the crankshaft is 197 at 9,000 r.p.m. The torque, worthy of a pile-driver — 122 pound-feet — peaks at 6,500 r.p.m. That merely makes the new VMax (now without the hyphen), according to Star, “the most powerful series-production motorcycle ever.” Top speed is electronically limited to 137 miles an hour.
A 5-speed transmission is fitted — a 6-speed might have been too fussy and fragile — it has a slipper clutch intended to permit downshifts without skidding the rear tire.
Bringing the power into the 21st century required dumping the old flex-prone steel chassis. So a cast-aluminum frame, using the engine as a stressed member for added rigidity, was developed, and there’s a new alloy swing arm. Power is sent to the fat 200-millimeter-wide rear tire via a shaft drive.
The new chassis curbs unruly behavior. With so much power and low-end torque, performing a wheelie ought to be easy, but with this one it isn’t.
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