CW Comparison: Big Baggers

Eight heavyweight cruisers with windshields and saddlebags through 1400 miles of the great Southwest.

By Peter Egan | Photos by Jeff Allen

October 2008

Photos: Big Baggers >>

Ah, high summer in the Mojave desert, when the Gila monsters are in bloom, sand swirls across the highway like something from the Red Planet and the toothpaste out of your saddlebag is hotter than the reading lamp in your blessedly air-conditioned motel room.

Most folks go to the seashore during this season, but not us. We needed a long road trip to properly wring out these eight large-displacement baggers, so we asked ourselves, "What would T. E. Lawrence do?"

The answer, of course, is that he would press forward across the Nefudh Desert—yes, the Sun's Anvil, where no man or camel has ever survived for more than about 9 minutes—and emerge on the other side, thirstier, yet somehow wiser.

And that's what we did. I flew in from Wisconsin to join the CW staff, and we left our Newport Beach digs, crossed the Mojave in 115-degree heat and rode to Las Vegas. After a night of overdosing on the opulent casino life, we struck west via the monumental Hoover Dam to rustic, back-to-reality cabins near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

A third night found us in Prescott, Arizona, at the grand old Hassayampa Hotel, and then we returned home across that same sunny Mojave, where miles of warmth reflected from fresh blacktop saved us from having to use our electric socks.

Cernicky and Paul Dean went at it on one downhill mountain stretch near Jerome, Arizona, and Dean proved that you don't actually need tires to slide through a hairpin corner. You can do it on one floorboard and a motorcycle frame, borne along on a magic carpet of metal sparks.

But mostly our staff restrained itself and rode these bikes "as they are meant to be ridden," laid back, cruising at reasonable speeds and soaking up the scenery. These are baggers, after all—simple motorcycles with visible fenders, two saddlebags and a cop windshield—meant to allow appreciation of one's surroundings rather than just a terror-filled glimpse of the next apex.

Baggers come in many sizes, but our group here represents the largest of the large—the only exception being the Star. Yamaha wanted us to test the (perhaps more popular?) 1670cc Road Star Silverado S rather than its bigger sibling, the 1854cc Stratoliner S, so we did.

The biggest bike in the group, by a large margin, was the 2294cc Triumph Rocket III Touring, and the smallest was the 1064cc Moto Guzzi California Vintage. At first glance, the Guzzi appears too "small" to be included in this group of ground-pounders, but it's by far the least porky bike here, and lightness can work as a great equalizer, as we shall see.

So, without further ado, on to our bikes—listed here in alphabetical order—and our assessment of their useful over-the-road qualities:

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