Yamaha 1300 Tourer - Yamaha 1300 Tourer Fansite

I recently took a trip of a little over 5000 miles on my 1300 Tourer. I rode solo, with an overnight bag in one side case, a large tank bag, and a large T-Bag without the top section. It was a great ride for the most part, with good weather, great people along the way, and a mix of road types. I rode from the Denver area to St. Louis, then through Kentucky and Tennessee to Chattanooga. From there, I rode to a friend's house north of Atlanta, and after a brief visit down to Jekyll Island, GA. Every time I go back to the South, I'm reminded of what a beautiful place it is. After a few days on Jekyll, I rode to Mt. Pisgah on the Blue Ridge Parkway, then up the BRP and Skyline Drive. These are some great roads for bikes, though there's a bit of construction, and the speed limits are low. The views are fantastic, the curves plentiful, and the traffic light. After the mountain roads, I went back to state highways, then interstates again, to eastern Pennsylvania for more visiting. From there, I took more state highways and interstates to the Detroit area for a day or so, then kept to the superslab to get back home.

For anyone who hasn't done a trip like this, I highly recommend it. You can see a lot, meet a lot of great people, and really get to know your machine. I'm not much of a planner, so I mostly winged it. Others may want to spend some time working out routes, planned stops, etc. Whatever your style, there's probably a great trip just waiting for you to take it.

The bike performed quite well throughout the trip. I had one or two tanks of questionable gas, but no serious trouble with that. The high speed sections seemed to really drop my mileage, to the point that I got about 30mpg for a couple tanks' worth. On the other hand, I got more like 55mpg on some other sections, so it all balanced out to mid 40s. I find the lack of meaningful fuel information annoying. My reserve light comes on with anywhere from about a gallon to about 1.75g of fuel left, so that's not very helpful. With the mileage varying so much, the trip odo isn't as helpful as it should be either. I have to wonder why bike makers don't put decent gauges on the bikes. The seat stayed comfortable for hours, though eventually it seemed to harden a bit, as if the gel were compacting. When that happened, I'd shift forward as far as I could for a while, then back as far as I could for a while, and it seemed to recover its condition. I've read that Star has the best OEM seats, and I believe it. I would really have liked a throttle lock, and I plan to get one before I do another long ride. The biggest complaint I have about the bike is the angle of the grips. On shorter rides, they seem fine, but after a while, the forced bending of the wrist can be a problem. I'll look into some of the replacement options others talk about here, and see if any really solve that. I was a bit disappointed that the rear tire wore out so fast, needing to be replaced at 8K. Fortunately, the shop where I had my oil changed had a replacement, and the front still has good tread at 12K. At times I thought it would be nice to have a Goldwing, but the Star did well enough, and it was so nice having a smaller bike on the twisties through the mountains, I wouldn't trade. All in all, this is a great bike for distance riding with a mix of roads.