Freebird

There was a member here named Skipop. No longer an active member. His profile showed that he was from Pensacola, FL. Had a 2005 with Hannigan conversion.

No, there was no original equipment backrest. If you post a picture, we might be able to help. Most did not have two pipes but I think I've seen one or two that did. Most popular style is the Utopia Backrest. http://www.utpr.com

Sorry, the guy who made those passed away years ago. I don't remember any matching gauges specifically but there were a number of matching gauges from different manufacturers that would work.

Hello DeepWord, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. DeepWord joined on the 07/05/2022. View Member

Hello houstonitdevelopers, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. houstonitdevelopers joined on the 07/05/2022. View Member

Hello smartscrapers, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. smartscrapers joined on the 07/05/2022. View Member

Hello johnxb351, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. johnxb351 joined on the 07/05/2022. View Member

I don't know that the OEM shock is rebuildable. I have seen people remove the class and go to manual however. You will get more responses if you post in the First Gen Tech Talk section.

Hello COWBOYBILL, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. COWBOYBILL joined on the 07/04/2022. View Member

I think that this has been covered about as well as it can be. I'm personally not a fan of running a car tire on a motorcycle but that's just me and I don't want this to turn into an argument. I just wanted to mention one thing. I've seen it mentioned several times that you should not mix a radial on the back with a bias ply tire on the front. That may be true for the most part and maybe this has something to do with how the bike is designed but I know that there have been at least a couple of bikes that came from the Yamaha factory with a radial in one place and a bias tire in the other. I would have to do some research because I don't remember which bikes but I remember it being discussed and referenced here before.

Hello wall2wallbuilding1, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. wall2wallbuilding1 joined on the 07/04/2022. View Member

Hello Gaunt, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. Gaunt joined on the 07/03/2022. View Member

LOL....we all did things back in the day that caused some pain. Today, people would be blaming the manufacturers for every bump and bruise but we dusted ourselves off and tried again. I used to LOVE hill climbing and still have the scars to prove it. I never actually owned a bike that most would consider geared toward hill climbing, just rode what I had. When I was about 15 years old, my ride was a, don't remember but I think 1967, Harley 250 Sprint. That was my street bike, my motocross bike, and my hill climbing bike. It had great torque and did a fine job. I had plenty of burns from that hot exhaust though. Those were some of the best days of my life. Don't have any pictures of my bike but it was exactly like this one. To be honest, I pushed it more than a few times but loved it just the same. I could always get it running again.

From what I've read, most of the larger clubs have folded due to lack of new leadership. They say that a very small percentage of people want to do the work. A lot of members want to attend the large events but don't want to help with the work. As the leadership has aged, the younger members aren't willing to step up and take over. Don't know if that's true or not but it makes sense.

Here's another thing. What about the large riding clubs? As most already know, Star Touring has closed it's doors. Now I'm hearing, but haven't confirmed, that the Goldwing Riders Association is pulling the plug. Of course the Venture Touring Society/Motorcycle Touring Association threw in the towel long ago. I understand that the Ventures are not doing well and our membership here is way down also. I'm sure that there are multiple reasons for this and we have discussed them before but it may go hand in hand with the decline of touring bike sales.

I agree with everything you said.

Well, I guess I need to do my homework before commenting. In fact, Kawasaki does have a hybrid, albeit not a touring model, in the works. To be honest, I'm not impressed with it but they are working on one. The article also ways that Honda tried a hybrid scooter and Piaggio has a hybrid MP3. I don't know if either are still in production. https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-news/kawasaki-hybrid-motorcycle-prototype-unveiled/

I am a bit surprised that there has been no talk of a hybrid. I doubt that I would be a customer but it seems that bike manufacturers jumped right over the hybrid idea and are going straight to all electric. Not at all good for long distance touring.

Hello Sherief, Welcome to Venture Rider. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. Please introduce yourself so that our members can get to know you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. This thread is primarily for introductions. If you have specific questions about your bike, you will get more responses if you post them in the correct forum. Sherief joined on the 07/01/2022. View Member

The low rev limiter was the one thing that I didn't like about the bike. Otherwise, I loved it. I have heard though that it is being discontinued. They skipped 2019 and 2022 already.

Oh, I’ve also read multiple reports that some accessories for the Star Venture have already been discontinued.

I have been reading reports that the Yamaha Star Venture is done. We all know that there was no 2019 model. The last year and the current model is the 2021 model. The Eluder was a one year model. Once again, they skipped 2022. Dealers are reporting that they have heard nothing from Yamaha about a 2023 model. Also, I am reading that several large Hondas are being discontinued. I have even read that SOME models of the Goldwing are going away and there are rumors that due to International emissions standards, that it is the manual transmission models that will no longer be available. Word is that they can meet the emission standards possibly with the automatic models but not with the manual transmission. I have no idea how Harley and Indian are going to do it but I am told that the USA standards are a good bit less restrictive than European standards. Honda, Yamaha, etc. serve a larger global market than Harley and Indian and I understand will likely not produce a bike that can only be sold in the USA. Add to this the fact that most of the younger generation are not buying large cruisers and touring bikes and many of the older generation are either no longer riding or downsizing to lighter bikes and it just doesn't bode well for the future of large touring machines. All very interesting and I think mostly rumor at this point but the big Japanese cruisers may be in trouble. I guess we will learn if it's truth or fiction in the next few months.

I ended up buying the BackFlip MX4. It should do what I want it to.

LOL...I'll bet somebody has siphoned it out already.

Lol. Yep. I had filled the truck up the night before.