I'll throw in my perspective as a longtime cruiser rider, one who has yet to get a FJR...but plans to. I grew up riding on the back of my Dad's bikes in the '70s -- Honda CL and CB 350s and 500s -- and then graduated to my own bikes with, first, a Honda SL70 (and, later, a XL125 and XL250) when I was a kid, then a Yamaha Virago and Honda Magna in the early '80s. Took some time off riding, then picked up a Vulcan 900 and now ride a '12 Triumph Thunderbird 1600, a "muscle cruiser" (as some magazine articles have named it) that is largely considered atypical of cruisers, not only in its parallel-twin design and somewhere-between-feet-forward-and-standard-position foot pegs but, arguably more important, the frame geometry and whatnot that makes for an incredibly -- comparitively-speaking -- nimble cruiser:
The graduation from classic Hondas to the current cruiser platform was, for me, a natural one...unlike the sportsbikes and other Transformer'ish-looking bikes that have only grown in number, there was an aesthetic progression from those early, simple models to the current cruiser platform that made sense...for some/many of us, cruisers looked like what motorcycles
should look like, for those of who grew up in the '70s and had those classic Hondas imprinted on our minds. Even now, even with my plan to join the FJR family, the cockpit-like front end of the FJR gives me pause, as it covers my view of the road beneath in the lower front area and makes me feel a bit disconnected from the road, from the ride. Feel odd, not quite right.
All that said, my plan (after lusting after the FJR for a couple years) is to pick up a leftover '16 next summer. The six-speed change was the finally straw that broke my resistance. After a lifetime of classics and cruisers, it's finally time for something different, something a bit lighter, something even more nimble and fast and offering storage, something that, I think, will suit the kind of longer-distance riding I plan to do in the years ahead. While I'm not a Harley fan for a variety of reasons, I'm certainly not an aplogist for cruisers nor do I think they need an apologist...I love my TBird, and I think cruisers are by and large a terrific option for many (as evidenced by their sales numbers in comparison to all other types of bikes). If I had the garage space and budget to have both my '12 TBird and a '16 FJR, I'd be all over that plan...unfortunately, I have neither, so the cruiser will have to give way to the sport tourer...not because the latter is necessarily better in my eyes, just that it has the features that I want at this point in my riding life. My bike after the FJR, which will likely be my last bike, if I project out another couple of decades, will probably be a Triumph T120 Bonneville, a true retro classic, like those old Hondas of my Dad's but now with modern engineering...and so it all comes around full-circle.
With regards to the OP, the Scout really caught my eye when it was first announced and came out, but having seen the fit and finish on some and, more to the point, the diminutive size of the thing, it wouldn't be the right bike for me; looked great on my 5'4" 16-year-old daughter, though, when we hit the IMS last year.
