Yamaha XS 1100 Venturer

Road Test 1981

Yamaha has finally ventured into the brave new world of turn-key touring. And the tongue-twisting name chosen for these ready-to-travel long-distance bikes is, appropriately enough, Venturer. There are even two of them for potential gypsies to choose from—an XS850 Triple and an XS1100 Four.

Both Venturers are based on the civilian line of XS-series street bikes (read: non-Specials); what's more, you can't even get one of those plain-Jane XS850s or XS1100s without the Venturer touring equipment already attached. The reason, according to Yamaha, is that the number of optionally tour-dressed 850s and Elevens that have rolled off showroom floors in the past couple of years has increased dramatically. So to meet that demand, and to simplify things for the dealers, Yamaha has decided that every non-Special 850 and 1100 will now come with a fairing arid its attendant touring hardware. Period.

One highly influential factor affecting Yamaha's decision to enter the turn-key game was touring equipment—or, more specifically, the lack of its availability from YPDI (Yamaha Parts Distributors, Inc.), the parts and accessories arm of Yamaha in the U.S. The shortage was brought about partly by strong growth in the touring segment of the marketplace, and partly by a sales-incentive program initiated by Yamaha prior to the 1980 model year. That program encouraged dealers to buy lots and lots of touring equipment--and it worked. Too well. Yamaha didn't expect the overwhelming number of orders it received for touring bolt-ons. So instead of enjoying a smooth outflow of parts, Yamaha found itself with empty warehouses, a logjam of backorders and a multitude of unhappy owners.

Yamaha's game plan for 1981, however, guarantees that for every new standard-issue 850 and 1100—that company's two most-popular recipients of touring gear—there will be a fairing, saddlebags and all the usual chromeware included. In effect, then, the Venturer is similar to Honda's GL1100 Interstate in that it can roll off of the dealer's sales floor ready to ramble down the vehicular arteries of America.

In other ways, though, Yamaha's turn-key program differs slightly from Honda's. Where Honda makes all of its Interstate wrappings in Japan and then ships a single package across the Pacific, the Yamahas rendezvous with their touring hardware Over Here, simply because this is where those pieces are made.

Manufacturing differences aside, though, Yamaha's marketing people make no bones about the fact that the XS1100-based Venturer is aimed dead-center at the Interstate. They fully expect that even the most weathered of horizon-chasers will shop at Honda and Yamaha dealerships before deciding which 1100cc motorhome they want to own. So by having a complete touring package for sale, and at a competitive price as well, Yamaha dealers now have a better shot at keeping some potential Interstate owners riding behind the sign of the crossed tuning forks.

Yamaha dealers shouldn't have much trouble keeping their newly acquired turn-key touring clientele in replacement parts, since all of the Venturer's over-the-road wares can be found in the YPDI catalog. The fairing is much the same as the one listed in the 1980 wishbook, and it's designed specifically for the standard XS Eleven. So the stock halogen headlight, for instance, fits—well, like the fairing was made for it. The package also includes ABS plastic lowers for the fairing that knife through the cold with great efficiency, but the problem is that they don't have any sort of tunnel vents to direct fresh air into the cockpit. Meaning that when the weather gets uncomfortably hot, so do you—unless you detach them.

Yamaha did find a cure for one problem that bothered previous fairing-equipped XS Elevens: nighttime windshield glare. It was caused by reflections from the illuminated instruments, but that fugitive light is intercepted on the Venturer by a matte-black sheetmetal shroud mounted atop the dash panel. The shroud looks kind of silly, sticking way up about six inches, but it works. You won't see the reflected faces of the speedometer and tachometer on this windshield at night.

You also won't see a travel trunk on the Venturer, night or day. Yamaha intended to equip each bike with one, but the company that actually makes them couldn't supply enough to meet the production demands. So in its place is a useful but less-practical luggage rack. Venturer owners will have to buy aftermarket trunks on their own, but YPDI spokesmen say that an OEM trunk is planned for 1982 turnkey touring Yamahas.

Even without the trunk, though, there's plenty of space in the two fiberglass saddlebags. New bracketry repositions the bags closer to the bike than last year's Eleven offerings; and side-hinged lids replace the fully detachable lids that too often fell off of pre-1980 YPDI bags. Unfortunately, there's not enough room in the bags to stow your helmet, so you'll have to leave that job to the helmet lock on the side of the motorcycle.

Yamaha turn-key development didn't involve just adding pieces to the stock Eleven; in the interest of increasing the riding range, the gas-tank capacity grew from 5.8 to 6.5 gallons. Those supertanker specs will allow you to cover more than 300 miles between fuel stops—a distance that surely is more than your buttocks can stand, even with the new contoured bucket seat that parks you about an inch and a half closer to the ground than before. And to help support your load of traveling gear, the shock springs have been up-rated so they won't sag as easily when overworked. The shocks themselves have the same four-way-adjustable rebound damping and five-way-adjustable spring preload as on previous XS Elevens.

Not so the shorty mufflers on the Venturer, which were grafted from the Eleven Special for cosmetic purposes only. These upswept pipes presented a potential problem, however, in that they empty the exhaust right toward the bottoms of the saddlebags. So to avoid hot pants in the luggage compartments, metal heatshields are rubber-mounted to the bottoms of the bags. They provide a buffer air space between the saddlebags and their contents, hopefully preventing the Eleven's BTUs from incinerating your BVDs.

Things like that offer strong evidence that the Venturer isn't Yamaha's final solution to turn-key touring for the wandering masses. But the bike does underline the significance that touring currently has in the marketplace. Whether the hard-to-say name "Venturer" remains after the 1981 season will be determined by Yamaha's product planners, but the verdict on the bike's concept is up to the public. If past YPDI sales records—and those of Honda's Interstate, as well—are any indication, that verdict is already in.

Source Cycle Guide 1981