The Yamaha is heavy, 467 pounds (212.0 kg), and has a very solid feel when you first get on it.  The Tank is more like 286 pounds (130 kg) and has a noticeably lighter feel.  These scoots run on a set of 12 inch wheels for the Tank and 14 inchers on the Yamaha and the front tread is close to the same whereas the Yamaha is way wider in the rear tread department.  For fuel capacity the Majesty has a 3.7 gallon (14 liter) tank while the Tank’s tank holds 2.9 gallons (which is way more than most 150 cc scooters).  A surprise to me was that the rated capacity of the Tank was 400 pounds while the Yamaha shows only a 432 pound maximum!  Given that the Yamaha is a 400 cc beast and the Tank is 150 cc’s you would expect and be correct that the acceleration of a Majesty is screamingly better than the Tank (TK150).  What might get your attention is that the Tank pulls strongly away from a stop light and has good acceleration throughout its range.  It may not have top end that a bigger motor generates but it gets out in traffic and in city riding has quite a bit of ability to stay with the traffic flow.  The difference from 0 to 45 mph is there but is less significant than you might think.  So, yeah, the Majesty is faster in the clear than the TK150.

     When you look at the handle bars next to each other there is less height difference than you would expect and the seat heights are very close as well.  What really opens your eyes is that the TK150 has way more leg room than the Majesty.  You give up the storage space you have on the Yammer in the two glove boxes but at my 6’2” height that seems like a reasonable trade off.  Since controls have been standardized for so long on single track vehicles another surprise that I liked about the Tank was the “Passing” momentary switch for the lights that is missing from the Majesty.  This little convenience was something I liked right from the start.  It flicks your brights on as long as you hold the switch down but turns them off as soon as released.  Great feature and, yes, I wish the Yamaha had it. 

     This leads to a problem I have had with the Tank from the beginning.  The lights can be adjusted but on mine the gear for that adjustment was broken at the outset.  I removed the cowling and disassembled the knob with stripped gear and have shipped it off for a fresh one.  Since these are plastic gears they probably won’t have a super long life span but hopefully you can have better luck with yours.  I have used the screw on the inner gear to adjust the lights somewhat and while I am still not happy with the results it is better than where I started from… lights aimed at the ground 10 feet in front of the scooter on the high setting.  Since I was mucking about with cowling off I took the opportunity to add a set of running lights with a separate on/off switch next to the ignition.  I also drilled a hole next to the radio volume knob and set the LED on indicator light there.  When I saw that the light was there and deduced why it might be there I could not figure out what the logic had been in not putting a lens there or, as I did, simply drill a hole and use a dab of glue to hold it in place?  The Yamaha has superior lighting to anything I have ridden to date.  We are talking a daylight kind of light, so this was and is one place where the Tank fell down a notch.  On a recent ride along a very dark twisty road the Majesty was very fast and still could not out run its lights.  The Tank has a hard time in these conditions but then I do not see myself making a thick darkness speed run on a town cruiser any time soon.

     There are a few small things that make a difference that are not noticed right away.  One is the position of the turn signal lights.  The blinkers are higher on the Tank and therefore closer and coincidentally larger than on the Majesty.  It is much easier to see these when you forget to release the blinker after a turn and you are more likely to look at them.  The distance of the glance down and the lighting is actually better for the Tank.  The Yamaha instruments tell you a world more information but it is not all totally necessary all the time.  Another small issue is that the cowling and related bodywork is modular on the Tank.  It takes a Phillips head screw driver and a ten millimeter wrench to field strip the Tank almost entirely.  If you want to do the same on the Yamaha it would be a much larger project.  For a vehicle that may want to undergo some customizing at its owner’s hand this is a very useful feature.

     Finally the riding part!  The Tank has a wheel base of 1450 mm (57.08 inches) while the Yam’s is 1565 mm (61.61 inches).  The Yamaha has this slam dunk steadiness that lets you run at speed even up on the freeway.  It does not flick joyfully around with this heavier longer wheel base, however.  The Tank can be flung from side to side and reacts in an almost flick of the wrist sort of way.  This flick factor is definitely fun in traffic.  There is no way you find me riding the Tank up on the freeway but I feel confident that I could keep up with the Yamaha in thicker traffic around town.  One thing standing in the way on the TK150 is that the mirrors were hard to adjust correctly.  It took some creative grinding on the spacer and few other innovations to get anything like a good view in the mirrors.  The Yammer definitely has an edge here with very steady and perfectly adjustable mirrors it is easier to see if I have a lane change opportunity.  There will be more work on the Tank’s mirrors because over all I like the fact that second signal flasher is there and if I can get them both steadier and set a little more above the brake fluid box I will be much happier.

     The wind screen on both scoots is good for my height and the ride quality so I cannot think of anything in that department that a different shape or size would help me with.  These are both very steady and straight on tracking which is proved with a slight release of the grips while running on a level and smooth surfaced roadway. With a ride exchange every few miles you get the picture that the Tank will turn with less effort and it has a less complicated set of instrumentation than the Majesty but isn’t that what you want in a daily driver use?  Get on and zip all over town on less gasoline than anything else you can ride while keeping up with traffic?  With Tank’s steering geometry and smaller wheels favoring moving around the road as you wish you will find yourself in the right place in amongst the cagers.  The Tank suffers a few quirky things like the fuel gage that works intermittently (I know I’ll find where it’s shorting out some day) or the lack of storage (the Yam has more than I can tell you about) but frankly with a kick start (the Yam is electric only) and an uncomplicated persona I like the Tank Touring for what it is.  The Tank is a fun uncomplicated ride that can do the job around town at a very economical dollar amount.  There may be jobs it cannot do but overall it is as much as is needed most of the time.