My sister has a V-Star 600, or 650(I can't remeber which it is, but it's six something). She always complains about when on a ride with friends who all have bigger and more powerful bikes that they have to slow down to allow my sister to catch up. When I had my VTX1800 my sister and I were riding together and at 65mph her V-Star sounded like it was wide open and was going to fly apart. I had a V-Star 1100 Classic for a while. It was ok, but was gutless as hell. A raider on the other hand at least on paper looks like it should be the fastest v-twin cruiser out there(I don't consider a V-Max a cruiser). I have friend with a V-Star 1100 Custom that with pipes, carb tuning kit, and a K&N air filter could at least somewhat keep up with the VTX I used to own. I think with Yamaha it's more about reliability than speed.