Hidden Gem : All products featured on Vulture are independently selected by our editors. You may earn a commission if you buy from a link. Learn moreThe typical cruiser motorcycle is something of a animal. The word alone harkens to the Harley Low Rider and Indian Scout Bobber — two bikes I have a soft spot for — and their respective 1,1917cc and 1,250cc motors.
These days, though, some brands are beginning to understand that bigger is not necessarily better. Take the Royal Enfield for instance, waking everyone up with its Super Meteor 650 and its world-famous 648cc twin.Or Honda, which has a Rebel with a 1,084cc engine but arguably delivers a nicer package with its 471cc Rebel 500. (There’s even a Rebel 300 for under $5,000.)Bikes like them have made the world safe for smaller cruisers — and have me doing a double take at an old school retro bobber out of China: the Hanway YP500.
Hanway or the highway
Based in Jiangsu Province, a little east coast hamlet of, oh, 85 million people, Hanway produces a number of different bikes, the YP500 and a similarly styled bike called the B50 among the biggest.Backing up its classic good looks, which are reminiscent of both the aforementioned Indian Scout Bobber and the Triumph Bonneville Bobber, is a twin-cylinder, liquid-cooled 498cc engine. This rather small power plant produces 47 hp and 33 lb-ft of torque.
You probably don’t want to be taking that on the highway regularly, though — it’s perfectly serviceable for doing around suburbs and cities. The soft-tail cradle frame gives you just enough cushion against potholes.A slipper clutch eases shifting and a seat height of 28 inches, just over the 27.2 in of the Rebel 500 and indeed lower than the Super Meteor’s 29.1, also add to its appeal to newer riders. So, for a mid-size bike, sitting in the middle of the engine size scale, the YP500 weighs a rather portly 440 pounds, which is heavier than the Rebel 500’s 408-pound baseline and lighter than the Super Meteor’s 531.
The YP500’s also have attractive paint schemes. There’s an eggshell white, a deep, nearly burgundy red and two blacks, one gloss, one matte.There’s also the chromed-out, hyper-reflective special edition that kind of looks like if Ryann Gosling’s Fall Guy aviators turned into a bike. For these reasons, it’s perhaps not a surprise that the YP500 has gained traction not just in Asian
markets but also in Europe, with its size also putting it in its own bracket at the top of the A2 license class, a perfect foothold as the next step up for a progressing rider.A little too bad, however, is that you can’t get it in the United States (yet), which is unfortunate because its estimated U.S. price — about $4,684 — is maybe the most alluring aspect of all.
Availability and pricing
However, Hanway wasn’t too shy for Europe, so a US appearance in its future — the way same has suddenly happened to so many of us — isn’t hard to imagine.The regular YP500 has an entry price of 33,980 yuan ($4,684 USD) and the Special Edition’s base is 43,980 yuan ($6,063 USD). And of course those figures do not include tariffs