• Ease of Installation: Normally 7/10
• Installation Time: Normally 30 minutes
• Mechanical Aptitude Required: Beginner
• Tools Required: 5/16" Open End Wrench & 10mm Wrench - Allen Keys required are included in the kit
• Quality of Instructions: Excellent
• Quality of Product: Excellent
• Supplied by: BrakeAway Products
• Reviewed by: RoadStarMagazine.com (this review is subject to the following disclaimer)

For most of us extended hours out on the road can lead to a pretty sore throttle hand, arm and shoulder as there is rare opportunity to give yourself a rest unless you take regular stops.  There is also people like myself who suffer from shoulder problems and an enjoyable day on the road is often tempered by a very sore back at the end of a run.  One of the answers to these problems is to invest in a throttle lock for your Road Star, as a throttle lock can hold your throttle in place on the road while you give your arm a rest.  The downsides to throttle locks is they can be a little cumbersome and awkward to use, plus they can be dangerous, especially if you need to come off the throttle and onto the front brake in a hurry.  Well now you have an answer to those problems, introducing the BrakeAway Cruise Control which is so simple to use with push button control (no levers!) AND automatic disengagement when using the front brake!

This is such a good looking piece of hardware that you could easily be fooled into thinking it came mounted on the bike straight from the factory.  The brushed aluminium blends very well into the ignition housing so the BrakeAway doesn't stand out like a sore thumb as most throttle locks can tend to do.  It even follows the lines of the Road Star's ignition housing to an extent so it is all very easy on the eye.  On my setup there is a bit of a gap between the BrakeAway and my ignition housing, but this is due to the Yamaha Chrome and Rubber grips that I have installed because the BrakeAway will not go all the way over the grip as it should.  People with stock grips and various other aftermarket grips should see less of a gap.

Where the BrakeAway Cruise Control differs from the competition is not only its ease of engaging and disengaging with its simple push button control, but there is also the fact that if you grab hold of the front brake lever the BrakeAway will automatically disengage the throttle.  Most throttle locks have a lever type operation and to disengage them in a hurry generally tends to be awkward and you have to manually roll off the throttle to take the power from the bike, providing you haven't set your clamp too tightly!  The effortlessness of which you can use the BrakeAway is amazing: when your throttle hand needs a bit of a break just push the lower button to set the lock in place, if you find your speed isn't quite right you can adjust the throttle with fingertip control, and the unit is so easy to disengage by either pressing the upper lever or just by pulling slightly on the front brake.  The best example I could point you to of all of that in motion is a downloadable video that is on the start page of the BrakeAway Products Website, you will find it listed at the top of the page.

The most enjoyable part for me is that I can now give my shoulder regular breaks on longer rides.  The Road Star will do an easy two to three hours worth of riding between fuel stops and unfortunately not every road has good reason to stop once in a while, such as for photo opportunities. Plus if you are out on a day trip you may be on a long stretch of road at a fixed speed for quite a while, and it is that type of riding condition that will make my shoulder flare right up.  All I have to do now is set the BrakeAway every fifteen minutes or so, give my shoulder a good rotation and stretch, push the lever to disengage the BrakeAway and I am good to go. And I can do all this without having to stop or lose speed, fantastic!

I do have to say the install process did not go easy for me, but this was only because of two mitigating factors - One was the Pro-One 4" risers that I have that caused me to move the brake housing down the handlebar an inch due to my front brake line being a little bit stretched. The other was my Yamaha chrome and rubber grips which have a flared grip on the thumb side of your hand that the BrakeAway barely fits over. If I only had one or the other of these two things, I think my install would have been easily completed in the estimated thirty minutes it should take, but for me it took closer to an hour and a half and the frustration was getting pretty extreme.  

The BrakeAway Cruise Control is designed to work on a number of different bikes - so not just the Road Star - and to that end it is very adjustable in its install process.  My issue was because my brake housing was down the handlebar an inch or so due to the 4" risers I have, and the BrakeAway would only fit flush with the inside end of my grip, it meant that the BrakeAway was at the maximum length of all its adjustable tolerances.  Every time I thought I had it setup properly, I would then tighten up all the bolts which would raise everything fractionally, which then prevented the BrakeAway from being able to engage because it was pushing up against the brake lever. Part of this problem is due to the BrakeAway being such a precisely machined product because it doesn't allow for the very small vertical movement that you will find in your front brake lever.  I finally got it all working in harmony by moving my brake housing up the handlebar enough whilst also tilting it forward to keep some slack in the brake line, but boy did that take some time.  At the end of the day all of my frustration was worth it as the BrakeAway is now installed properly and performs exactly as it should and I won't have to concern myself with it again.

I won't go into the rest of the details of the install process as BrakeAway Products have an excellent instruction sheet that you can download off their website at this link so you can see for yourself how it is done.  There is a lot of adjustment during the install but once you have it all in front of you, you can see how it all ties together and you will agree it is time well spent.

At $199US the BrakeAway Cruise Control is certainly at the premium end of the market, no doubt about that, but you will be hard pressed to find a better looking, better functioning or safer unit.  Anything that will hold the throttle of a motorbike in a fixed position is a danger to one extent or another, but the ability to have the BrakeAway disengage itself when you pull on the front brake lever puts it miles ahead of the competition.  In addition to that the simplistic ease of which you can engage and disengage the BrakeAway with the click of a button by your thumb really does make it so effortless to use.  I would honestly say that if you do a lot of touring on your Road Star, or you like the idea of a throttle lock but want some added safety, then the BrakeAway Cruise Control is for you.  You can contact BrakeAway Products at this email address, or visit their website for further details.

RoadStarMagazine.com
December 2002