2008 Yamaha Warrior

After reading several reviews,I decided on te yamaha warrior as my very first bike I have ever owned. It really is a comfortable yet powerful bike. i could'nt be happier

I love my Warrior. 12 months ago I owned a Yamaha FZ6. I loved that bike too. I loved how nimble it was,it's suspension, it's breaks, and most importantly, it's amazing power with a redline at 14,000. The problem was that I didn't ride canyons as much as I wanted to. Rather, I mostly rode on overnight ... trips with my brothers, so the sport bike wasn't cutting it. I sold the FZ6 and bought a BMW R1150RT. It had a cool, telelever front suspension, great hard cases, a wonderful electric windscreen and heated hand grips, great headlights that illuminated the horizon as well as my truck, but it just wasn't exciting to ride. It was engineered to get from A to B as efficiently as possible, and it did. The power assisted, integratged ABS breaks were a disaster, and the power was mediocre. The center of gravity seemed too high and whoever rode it, dropped it. It was just a little more exciting to ride than my truck. So I sold it and bought a 2008 Yamaha Warrior. I swore I would never buy an air cooled motorcycle, but everything else about the Warrior excited me. Like the R1 suspension and brakes for example. I'll take these brakes over the power assisted, linked BMW ABS brakes any day. When I want to ease off the front brake, like in a dirty turn, I can do it. I like being the boss of brake allocation rather than an onboard computer. The foot pegs keep my feet nicely out front, relieving my knees. Although I would prefer running boards, the foot peg position works well. The Warrior also enjoys a steeper lean angle of 38 degrees as compared to most cruisers at 30-33 degrees. I do scrape my pegs in tight turns, but it's nothing like a Harley Softail or even an Electraglide. The belt drive is the best. I don't EVER have to oil a chain, and I don't have the huge repair bills of maintaining a drive shaft. I can ride this bike for hours without fatigue, although a passenger won't fare much better than on a sport bike. The huge "can" that finishes the exhaust system forces the passenger foot peg location way too high, and the tiny passenger seat just isn't comfortable. I didn't buy this bike to ride 2 up. I bought it for me, and I love it. It is exciting to ride, like the FZ6, and it's as comfortable as a cruiser should be. I was afraid I would miss the peakyness of the inline 4 of my FZ6. Although the v-twin power is completely different, I really enjoy its torque, its smooth low end, and 1700 cc's of brawn. This is my 3rd bike and I have no regrets. I think I've finally found the bike for me.