beat that says, well, motorcycle.
Some notes on smoothness, or maybe on size: We have all read and heard at great length about counterbalancers, rubber mounts, offset crankpins, frames tuned to absorb engine shake and other ways to cure or dissipate the vibrations inherent in any Twin.
Know what works? Size, or more accurately lack of size. The technical advances mentioned above arc advances. they do quell the tremors. But when an engine has smaller pistons it also has smaller tremors and the uncomplicated little Virago is smoother than the 750 or 920 Viragos or the Honda Shadow 750 or Harley 1000, There are vibrations, sure, but what the rider gets is little more than a reminder of an engine at work. No problem here, the mirrors even remain clear at cruising speed.
The Virago 500 is also a narrow engine, just 13.5 in. across, and the combination of narrowness, light weight and the broad power band encourages sporty riding. The Virago is an in-between size, feeling more a full-size motorcycle than a 450 or 400 and seeming incredibly light compared to most 550s, especially 550s with Inline Four engines. The light weight and short wheelbase make the Virago nimble, good Tor cornering, and make it more easily disturbed by sidewinds and wind blasts from semi-trailers on the highway, not so good for straight-line touring. But the Virago is stable at top speed and in fast, sweeping corners. The suspension is not adjustable (except for rear shock preload) and comes set up a bit on the stiff side. The trade-off is a choppy ride over repetitive bumps in the roadway.
Speaking of trade-off's, we've arrived
 

at the Virago 500's downside. It began back on the drawing board, when the Virago 500 was scaled down.
The cruiser look began as a chopper look and choppers were originally built from Really Big Twins. Low seats, kick-out front ends, stretched wheelbases and the riders could easily lean back, put their feet up and stretch out. Those first  specials, Customs, etc. had the look but not the dimensions. Since then the Big Four has learned to deliver the looks after amending the style to allow Tor more compact machines. This works up to a point; the Yamaha XS1100 and Honda CB1000C. for example, can he cruised and ridden while the Honda 650 Night-hawk has cruiser elements while still being fine in daily use.
The Virago 500, though, doesn't have the wheelbase or any of the other distances to be both a cruiser and a good place on which to go riding. Riders of average height found the 500 cramped. The bars come back too far and the ends rotate inward toward the tank, making the bars into tillers. The bend of the bars cock the rider's wrists at an unusual angle and, because the control pods are shaped to follow the handlebar contours, makes it harder to reach the controls with the thumb. The born button, for example, is tucked down and inward on the left control pod, and the one time one rider needed the horn, all he got with his thumb was a blank space on the control pod. The foot pegs had some riders searching for someplace to put their feet during long rides, and the one-position-only seal didn't help riders avoid feeling cramped. Those arc the prices of the Virago's style.
The horn or, more correctly, the
 

horns are loud enough when the button is finally located. The headlight was everything a headlight should be bright penetratingly and perfectly aimed. The turn signals are self-cancelling, and can be manually over-ridden by pushing down on the side-to-side signal switch. Over-riding the signals often caused the switch to hang-up the next time the rider wanted to signal a turn, and it took prodding and poking at the switch before the signals lit again,
The Virago's brakes are good enough, being very controllable throughout our stopping tests. From 60 mph, the bike needed 119 ft. to stop; from 30 mph, 30
On the Cycle World mileage test loop, the Virago 500 returned 51 mpg in the standard combination of open highway, country road and city traffic. Ridden hard on backroads, mileage dropped to 47 mpg. The fuel tank holds 2.9 gal., which gives the Virago a total range of between 136 and 148 miles, depending upon how it's ridden. Reserve is usually good for 16-20 mi. at highway speeds.
So what have we in this Virago 500? We have a V-Twin simpler and lighter that the Yamaha Vision, and, at a suggested list price of $2299, less expensive as well. The flip side of that is that the Virago isn't as quick or fast at the dragstrip. The Virago is fun to ride, feels light and agile, sounds neat, gets good gas mileage. It also compromises rider comfort with styling, styling far enough into the cruiser mode to deter riders who don't care for that look, yet perhaps too conservative to appeal to hard-core cruiser fans.
The Virago is indeed a motorcycle in the middle, good as it may be.■