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Mr. Tate rides California.

Christmas comes but once a year. So do birthdays, but you can sod 'em both when it comes to a BMW press launch. It's like Christmas, Birthday and the annual vacation all at once, except that it's not freezing, sad or money consuming. It's a lot of fun, comes with all expenses paid and you get to ride a bike to boot.

One fine summers day it suddenly dawned on me that it would be just a dandy idea to do a road test of some of the larger cruisers (Fat Bastards as I like to call them) that have appeared on our ever tasty bike menu recently. Let's see ... we have the Honda Valkyrie, the Yamaha Royal Star and the ever present Harley Road King. Cool, that should do it.

The Bullet pushes a meagre 24 bhp (18 for the 350), but it's a torquey little bike with that one cylinder. The shifter is stiff and sluggish, and it's not always evident the gear has taken until you release the clutch. I keep reminding myself it improves with use.