This is the 650 Dragstar Custom, ridden by a glamorous lady model in the Yamaha 2003 catalogue.

This is my Draggie 650, on which I went to the International Rally in Holland, travelling down to Harwich with Harry and Richard.

This is a blurry photo of me not looking very glamorous on my Draggie 650 soon after I first bought it new from the Yammie dealership in Chesterfield.

The Yamaha XVS650 Dragstar Custom model is a lovely bike. It has the long, low custom styling of all the Yamaha Star cruiser range. Although it only develops 40 bhp and is therefore less powerful and fast than the Virago 535 which it replaced, it has plenty of low rpm torque but will still do motorway speeds comfortably. It is a bit lighter than the 650 Dragstar Classic, having short plastic fenders rather than full metal ones.

It is definitely big enough and strong enough for long-distance touring as well as day-long ride-outs. Once fitted with a rear carrier and pannier support bars, it will easily accomodate camping gear etc. for one-up attendance at rallies.

The Custom 650 comes with foot pegs, so I fitted mine with after-market foot boards.

The cruiser-style forward position of the foot pegs/boards takes a bit of getting used to, and can initially cause a bit of inner thigh ache on longer runs. However, once you have ridden it for a while, the legs get used to this position.

The stock seat for the rider is comfortable. The pillion seat that comes on the Custom model is a joke - just a thin strip of foam and plastic on top of the rear fender. Definitely not suitable for carrying a pillion for any distance. We changed this for a second-hand Corbin pillion seat, which was slightly better, but my wife still found it a bit hard on longer runs. It is possible to get a more comfortable seat for the Custom 650 (or VStar) as the U.S. import is known) - probably the Mustang is the best one to look at.

I found that my Draggie 650 vibrated a bit in top at normal A road speeds of about 50 - 60 mph; however, the engine then seemed to smooth out again when you reach motorway speeds of 70 + (or it might just be that you didn't notice the vibration at higher speeds because of the higher revs and wind noise etc.!) I have heard it is possible to cure the vibration by installing a supercharger.

Both the Custom and the Classic 650 Draggie look beautiful - they can easily be mistaken for a much bigger bike. They have loads of chrome, which is not hard to clean (contrary to what plastic rocket owners think about cruisers) - just use good quality car shampoo (such as Autoglym) and hose it off, rub dry with a chamois.

I did about 3,500 miles on my Draggie 650 from new before I sold it to a Yorkie VSOC member who gave it a very good home and has since done about another 8,000 miles on it (saw it at the Alfreton Lost Riders party in June of 2006). I noticed the new owner has put a supercharger on it.

I was sorry to see my Draggie 650 go as I got a lot of fun out of it, but in the end decided to sell it because my wife was never really happy riding on the pillion seat, which she found too hard. Also we wanted to go two-up with all our gear to VSOC rallies, and so started to look around for something a bit bigger. I eventually chose a Wild Star....