The Yamaha VMX-12

It's an 1198cc liquid-cooled V4 strapped onto a cruiser frame that will launch you from 0 to 60 as fast as you can say "Oh, S**T!". After twenty years the Yamaha Vmax is still the musclebike to which other contenders are compared.

The first time I saw a Yamaha Vmax was in the summer of 1986. Back when I was in high school, after my parents separated, my dad rode over for a visit on a brand new Vmax. I fell in love the bike on the spot. The big scoops, the huge rear tire, the rumble of the exhaust -- all of it said that this bike was one that demanded attention. This was no conventional Japanese cruiser. It was definitely not a Harley. And it would not be mistaken for a sportbike. It was in a category of its own.

I had grown up on three wheelers and little Yamaha Enduros, but I stopped riding when my parents moved us to Los Angeles. It took me a long time to get back into motorcycling. And, once I did, it took me a couple more years to realize that I still wanted a Vmax. Was it ever worth it. I had driven a Vmax once, in the early nineties while I briefly worked at a motorcycle shop. It had been an exhilirating but short ride. I had heard the stories about the bike, and when I had that opportunity to drive the bike, I was too intimidated to push it, so I never really knew what the bike could do.

Now I commute with this bike 200 miles a week for about seven months out of the year (less often during late fall, winter, and early spring). I also take occasional joy rides on the weekend, or after work, or instead of work.

It's not the fastest bike on the road. It can't race through the twisties like quicksilver. It isn't a streamlined marvel of German engineering.

But it stands out in a crowd. It's not just another Harley or Harley knock-off. It's not a slippery Tupperware Torpedo with the high-RPM inline four whine. It's not a European highway bike.

It is the Vmax. The original bad boy muscle bike. And its reputation precedes it.

I've had someone who drives a Yamaha R6 look at my bike and say, "You drive that thing? That bike is scary."

Another Vmax owner (Mark -- I don't have his last name) said "The VMAX is probably one of the most dangerous production bikes available today. With sportbike speed and acceleration coupled with brakes, tires, and frame technology leaning more towards Harley Davidson's."

Flippantly, I replace "dangerous" with "fun". Yes, there's a lot of power and performance in the bike, and, yes, the bike is set up like a cruiser, with underwhelming handling. The combination means you have to pay attention to what you're doing. You can't sleep while you drive, like you would in a cage or on a cruiser. Despite its shortcomings, a stock Vmax will leave a smile on your face. Like the t-shirt says, "Force / Mass = Geez!"

I've lost track of the number of times I've watched people looking this bike over. People have come up to me while I'm putting gas in the bike to tell me how good it looks, or how "cool" it is. Or they'll ask questions about the bike, because they had heard of the Vmax, and they wanted to know if the things they'd heard were true. Most of the stories are true, by the way.

I watched a guy walk into his girlfriend because he was checking the bike out, instead of paying attention to where he was walking. Another guy waited in a parking lot until I had removed my helmet and earplugs just to tell me how nice the Vmax looked. This bike is not one that gets lost in a crowd.

The look may be dated to some. People have said the over-the-top scoops on the bike are corny, but those distinctive scoops are a visual reminder that this bike is practically a dragster. Yamaha has hardly touched the design since the Mighty Max first tore up the streets in 1985. This bike hearkens back to the era of the classic American muscle car, the golden era of carbureted big-bore V-engines, when aerodynamics were an afterthought, and the solution to poor acceleration or top speed was "Put a bigger engine in it!"

Several times, while I've been stuck in the middle of traffic waiting for the light to change, I've seen people look around trying to find the small block rumble they're hearing. The 1200cc V4 with good aftermarket pipes makes a very satisfying sound at idle. And when the RPMs get up a ways, the bike roars like hell.

The stock Vmax stands out: it's not a cruiser, it's not a sport bike. I was following a pickup truck with a big Harley sticker in its back window, and the guy driving the truck was spending as much time looking in the mirror at my bike as he spent looking at the road in front of him. He couldn't figure out what he was seeing and hearing.

And with a few little changes, the bike stands out even more. Thanks to the Internet, and a few rides with other Vmaxers, I've come up with a laundry list of things to do with the bike.

Some are nominally performance enhancements -- putting the Supertrapp exhausts on might have eked a few more horses out of the engine. I didn't put them on for performance, though. The sound of the Supertrapps was right for the Vmax. The stock pipes are just too tame, especially at low RPMs, for the bike's personality.

Suspension upgrades are a worthwhile performance enchancement. The stock suspension needs some serious help, unless you're just looking to putt around town on a fancy-looking ride. I updated the shocks to a pair of Works Performance shocks per the recommendation of a lot of people. Even on the first test ride I did with them, I felt a difference. A lot of the paved country roads in my part of the country are not smooth, especially at intersections. I was used to feeling the back end hop when I accelerated across those roads, but the Works shocks reduced that hop quite a bit. On other rough sections of road, the back end used to jump around. That's a lot smoother now, too. It was nothing as harsh as it had felt with stock shocks. I have to recommend this change when you can afford it -- and it's not that expensive for the basic Trackers, especially with the VMOA discount.

Just a couple of weeks later, I installed Race Tech springs and cartridge emulators in the front forks. And I thought the rear shocks were an improvement! The front end doesn't wallow like it used to, and it doesn't push my arms out of their sockets if I hit a hard bump (one that causes hydraulic lock in the stock damper rods). I still feel the road -- it is not a "softer" ride. It is, however, a more secure ride. The only simile I could think of is the effect one gets when one jumps onto a conventional spring mattress -- that's the stock suspension. With the Race Tech upgrades, it's like jumping onto one of the "mud bed" style waterbeds that have baffles in the water chambers. It moves, but not harshly. And it doesn't move as far. Like a few other people have said, if I were to do it over again, the suspension changes would be first.

A few changes I did were for convenience. The windscreen lets me run the bike later in the fall and earlier in the spring by keeping the cold winds off of my chest. It also keeps me from getting battered by winds when traveling at significant speeds, although I removed it in 2005 and discovered that I don't mind the wind at interstate speeds. The tank bra I use gives me a place to keep the cell phone and garage door opener. The Corbin seat keeps my butt from aching too much on a longer ride.

A lot of the changes are small touches to improve the looks of the bike.

The huge, bulbous rear taillight was one of the first things I knew had to go. The sleek half-moon LED array Radiantz combined with the license plate bracket cleaned up the rear end very nicely -- it's a pity Radiantz discontinued that product almost immediately after I found it. The tail light also shows off the rear tire a little bit more by placing the bottom of the license plate where the top used to be. The downside is that now there's not much to stop water and crud that gets thrown off the rear tire. The back fender looks pretty nasty after riding a few miles on wet, dirty streets. I may add a "dirt catcher" from MEK to fix that little problem.

I've switched from the stock tires to Metzeler ME-880s. The front is stock sized (110/90/18). I ran a 170/80/15 on the rear for quite a while, but I decided to switch to the stock 150/90/15. The 170 improved the bike's handling enormously over stock tires, and the 150 feels even better. It may not be as cool looking as the slightly fat 170, but it's lighter and rides better. ME-880s are "only" H-rated (as opposed to the stock V-rated tires), I don't see a problem using them. I really don't get to spend hours running at 130+ MPH, anyway. These tires stick to the road better than the stock tires, and they last longer than stock. I drive the bike a lot harder (and more confidently) than I used to do.

These pictures (on the right) from late May 2004 show the Radiantz tail light assemble and the custom tail light assembly under the grab rail that I got from Gary Spradley. This latter assembly uses three Radiantz 4.5" LED flex strips installed in a machined aluminum replacement for the plastic assembly that holds the rear reflector. These pictures show the way I have the custom LEDs wired -- all three LED strips plus the Radiantz license plate holder are running lights, and the upper and lower strip plus the half-moon also function as brake lights.

The rest of the stock lights had to change, as well. The turn signals are too big. I don't think they should scream TURN SIGNAL until they're turned on. Once they're on, that's a whole 'nother thing. Then they'd better get someone's attention.

I decided to replace the front turn signals with Kellermann's bar-end turn signal/weights. I was changing the handlebars to wide drag bars, anyway, and these indicators serve as vibration dampers and front turn signals. Bright 21W halogen bulbs lighting fore and aft work very well for turn signals, and the change in wattage was not enough to require anything special for keeping the turn signal blink rates about right, as long as the rear turn signals are left intact. These things are legal in Germany as the only turn signals on a bike, and the drag bars place the signals out wide enough that I could use them as solo turn signals.

However, I wanted to keep the rear turn signals, because I wanted to have something in the conventional location, in case a cager behind me isn't paying attention. I just wanted them smaller. Kellermann's Micro-1000 easily fit the requirement. My pinky is longer than one of these turn signals, and just about as thick. They're small, but they have 6W halogen bulbs in a good reflector housing. Again, bright. The bar-end signals are better attention getters, but I've got these guys throwing light out, as well.

I left the stock front running lights on the bike only as long as I had to. Once I saved up, I got a pair of Radiantz 1.75" Amber LED arrays. Although the Radiantz LEDs are intended to be running lights as well as turn signals (dual element equivalent), I set them up so the LEDs are at full brightness all the time. The more light, the better. I got clear lenses on the LEDs, so they don't really stand out when the bike's shut down. But, when they're on, they're BRIGHT.

Compare this picture to the next one -- the LED marker lamps practically disappear from the bike when they're switched off, but they are easy to see when they're running.

After agonizing over how to install an expensive seven inch headlight on the Vmax, which does not have normal cruiser headlight mounting brackets, I discovered that Jon Pullara at Vmaxbitz had updated the 7" headlight he offers. Instead of using side mount arms that clamp to the forks, he provides aluminum brackets that use the stock turnsignal mounts, instead. It's such a simple design, I'm surprised it hadn't already been done. Maybe it has, but I've never seen it before. Installing the headlight was pretty easy, and I've got a page that has my notes on the installation. The 7" headlight with the stock 55W/60W bulb and stock headlight wiring puts more light on the road. At night, I can see a lot better. During the day, the larger diameter of the light makes the bike more visible, as well.

A year after adding the Vmaxbitz headlight, I went back to looking at some higher-end headlight housings. The Vmaxbitz light is large, puts out ample lighting, and has a unique mounting bracket, but it still was not quite what I wanted. It still fundamentally had the same look as the original headlight, just larger. When I was headlight shopping in 2004, I really liked the Headwinds housings. They were incredibly clean looking, with no seams visible from the exterior. They just would not mount to a stock Vmax - I would need to design an adaptor and have it fabricated. Fortunately, that is a possibility.

While I was looking at the Headwinds housings, I noticed they make 2" rear turn signals for a Harley - with side-mount posts and wires run through the post and a hollow bolt. Headwinds also has 2" highway lights. So I put two and two together, and I ordered myself a set of the "rear" turn signals with 35W highway lights and clear lenses. I installed them on the stock front turn signal mounts, and I use an AutoSwitch relay controller to switch them on and off.

Unforunately, the large size of the 2" highway lights interferes with the Radiantz LEDs, so I had to remove the LEDs from the bike. On the plus side, I have Vmaxbitz scoop grilles that include LED markers on them, so I still nominally have front orange marker lights.

As of right now - February 2006 - I don't have the Headwinds headlight mounted yet. When I comes in, I will install it using the double-relay mod.

Another cosmetic change that had a huge impact on the appearance of the bike was replacing the mirrors. Once I had the drag bars fitted, before I had reattached the windscreen and mirrors, I realized that the bike looked better without the stock mirrors above the bars. It seemed appropriate that, once the mirrors are off, the highest point on the bike is the speedometer. So I hunted through some catalogs until I found something that would work. They're inexpensive clamp-on mirrors, but they seem to be holding up so far. Hanging the mirrors under the bars makes them less accessible for quick glances. When I'm leaned forward, my arms hang down to block the mirrors partially. But I tend to be more concerned with what's in front of me than what's behind me, anyway.

Hanging the mirrors close below the handlebars makes them subtle. They don't stand out as jarringly as conventionally-placed mirrors, and they don't take up the ends of my handlebars.

The big cosmetic tweaks are done, and most of the performance tweaks are done as well. Outside of paint, the rest of the changes I have planned are subtle. Of course, by the time I get those changes done, I'll probably find some other things to tweak. It'll be a few more years before I finish personalizing this bike.

I like the way this Vmax has turned out. Numerous changes, most of them little, have really improved on what is a already distinctive-looking motorcycle. The net effect has exceeded my expectations by far.

I'm a member of the Vmax Owners' Association:

If you're a Vmax owner and not a member, you're missing out. The technical discussion board has been invaluable. The member discounts have saved me enough to pay dues to this club for another six or seven years.

Local VMOA get-togethers are always fun. Any time you have several Vmaxes driving around together, you get a lot of attention. So many people are unfamiliar with the bike that they stop and stare when a group of them rumbles by. One of these days, I'd like to make it to one of the big gatherings, where there're tens of bikes.

More Stuff

My never-ending change list, documenting what I've done to the bike and what I want to do to it.

I decided to take notes as I installed the 7" headlight from Vmaxbitz.

I added links to other Vmax sites of interest (that I'll get around to completing someday).

And I'm keeping around some other pictures of my 'max, so I can keep track of changes as I go.

I put together a description of how I installed the Sargent tank metro panel on my Vmax.

I wrote an article about giving my Vmax a facelift that originally appeared in the Vboost magazine.

Back to our home page.

Back to the site's home page.

This page was last updated 17 February 2006

Contact for this page: WebMaster@BabylonByCandlelight.com