Re: Why Cruisers Have BIG Engines
Cruiser-style bikes are similar to blues music; they are locked into certain criteria. If a song doesn't have 12 bars, it's not a blues song. It may have a blues FEEL to it, but it ain't the real thing. When Bob Dylan debuted his electric sound, it was folk-rock, but with amplification, it no longer qualified as folk.
A cruiser is inextricably linked to a slow-turning, narrow-angle, preferably single-crankpin V-twin with its sycopated, loping cadence. A bike with any other engine is cruiser-esque, but not the real deal.
You can put ape-hangers and a stepped seat on a Ninja and call it the King of Cruisers, but it ain't a cruiser.
The above-described engine has character and charm and soul in spades, but it is the trailing edge of engineering if you want to make power. So the only way to get more power and keep it tractable is to make it bigger.