At city speeds around the Willow Springs grounds, the bike is incredibly nimble, thanks to its wide bars and light curb weight of a claimed 405 pounds.

The motor oozes character, as you’d expect from a big twin with a relatively light flywheel. Acceleration from in-town speeds is instant, prodigious and addicting.

I certainly hadn't expected a naked bike wearing the blue-and-white propeller badge to be such an unashamed high-performance knockout. Despite BMW's attempted image transformation over the past few years and the fact that the K1200R's 163-horsepower (claimed) peak output makes it the world's most powerful roadster, the German marque still hasn't totally lost its reputation for practicality, common sense and caution.

The Nightster isn't exactly light at a claimed 545lb dry weight (claimed 565lbs ready-to-run), but the center of gravity is fairly low, and this combines with the wide bars to make aggressive riding easy, even at around-town speeds. Out of all the cruisers I've ridden, the Nightster would be high on my list if my plans involved a lot of city riding - it's almost like a (really low) standard in terms of how it attacks city traffic. Just be careful of those wide bars while splitting lanes!

Visually, the motor is just as stunning, taking up a large amount of real estate in between the massive steel frame rails. And, the first thing that strikes the eye, after the huge attractive air cleaner cover, is the chrome pushrod tubes that actually contain pushrods. “To allow for a lower engine height” is the official reason, in an effort to maintain a lower centre of gravity and a lower seat height. Makes sense, but I couldn’t help wondering how much of the decision was style-driven based on a certain other popular V-twin’s method of valve actuation.

The most significant new model announced then, the new Royal Star Tour Deluxe, will be in dealers by the end of the month, and most of the remaining models in Yamaha's 2005 cruiser line—including all the significantly changed models— will be available in July. Only a few minor-change models will wait until August or later to trickle in to dealer showrooms. The Ventures are scheduled for August deliveries to dealers, and the standard Warrior and some V-Star models.

The most obvious difference, of course, is the N's unique fenders, which really set its style. The rear fender includes a pair of flush-mounted horizontal LED taillights, a first for any full-production Honda cruiser. It also has its own saddle. The 1800N shares the basic staggered dual-muffler design of the R and S, but N version's mufflers have straight-cut ends with five-bolt caps. Other unique details on the N are cut-out rear fender rails, shock covers that are ribbed for your pleasure, a low-rise handlebar mounted on a riser, and decal logos on the tank rather than badges.

Several months ago, the rumor mill started to rumble about a 2000cc v-twin cruiser on its way from Kawasaki for 2004. The rumors were almost right, but the engine was even larger. Displacing 2053cc (125.3 cubic inches), the 2004 Vulcan 2000 has the largest capacity v-twin engine ever put into production by a major manufacturer. With 141 foot pounds of torque at 3,000 rpm and 116 horsepower at 5,000 rpm, the Vulcan 2000 out powers many small automobiles. It is also carefully designed to be smooth and usable in the delivery of that power.

The motor is stock for the series, with the only allowable mod's being a Dynojet carb kit and freer flowing exhausts. The head received a multi-angle valve job and had the air filter replaced with a freer flowing piece. The exhausts were retro style with reverse megaphones with a not too a mega-noisy sound, and they obviously looked the part.