I have a VStar 650 and I love it, for a more comfortable driving position, remove the foot peds, put regular pegs and add a crash bar with pegs so you can lengthen the legs on the highway. Other thing i found, removing the windshield reduce a lot the vibration problem, otherwise it's a light bike with a big heart!

Loved mine. Me and the girlfriend, now wife, toured all over the country on it while loaded down with camping and cooking gear and supplies. Longest trip was 8000 miles over 5 weeks. Nothing fancy but it gets you there.  Stock bike leaves a lot to be desired, but plenty of mods out there to fix most things like doing a good carb sync to fix the vibrations at higher speeds

Pretty good and generally fair review. I had an 05 custom v-star and loved it. Vibration was there but not to bad. I put a DYNA 3000 ignition module, a hyper charger(which required jetting) and v&h pipes. The ignition let me raise the rev limiter to 9000rpm and also provided a more aggressive spark advance curve. All together it was like a totally different bike. I recommend the DYNA3000 to anyone with a v-star. It was the most noticeable upgrade I made.

I learned to ride on a V Star 1300, at night. Solid bike, like a Road King but reliable.

Okay, so my son and I just got back from a road trip from WV to WI and back on our 650s. 1500+ miles round trip. It was a great ride. My V Star was very comfortable and even loaded down with all my gear had plenty of power. This bike does everything I need a bike to do. 

I have a 99 V Star 650 Classic and have none of the issues you have. Very light vibration, extremely quick pick up and go, and a pretty comfortable ride. Have no issues riding two up with my girlfriend and still getting all of the above with her on the back. I have no problems picking up and getting up to 75-80 for interstate riding getting up to 60 in just about 5 1/2 - 6 seconds. My bike is all stock other than removing the 1st baffle in each pipe. I don't have much of a problem riding for a few hours at a time. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I have a 2010 V Star 650 Midnight Custom that I got new and I love it. I use it for both local and long distance riding. I think it is very comfortable and smooth. I don't experience the vibration you mention at 60 - 70 MPH. Nor does she drag her foot pegs in tight curves. Perhaps the difference is that mine is a Custom rather than the Classic.

Just bought one yesterday for 2k, going to pick it up in 2 days and can't wait to take her out.

As far as the floorboards and shifter, both of those are pretty easily swapped out. You can get standard pegs and highway pegs on the bars to stretch your legs. The shifter can be replaced or you can even cut off the back shifter if you wanted. Its a pretty nice riding bike

My 01- 650 v-star rides great at any speed no vibs 70 on the inter'' state no problem i had some of the problems you spoke of took the wind shield off that was all i needed to do. good review tho thanks, i have have mine to Ky from Indiana and back loved the ride with some friends.

Going to look at an '01 tomorrow for a decent price $1600 Canadian, with 30,000km on it... anyway.. in 'Canadian numbers' I think its still a good deal. Can't wait to throw a leg over it. Thanks for all the info.

most v-stars have 4 hole mod on the exhaust not loud but defiantly sounds better than stock i put cobra slant cuts on it, sounds great now.

Thinking about getting one of these for longer trips.  I have an R6 now (won't be getting rid of, just adding to the garage) and it starts to suck after about 3 or 4 hours.  I've done one 8 hour trip on it and I'll never do it again.

Looks like the windshield is a Slip Streamer Falcon 20".

im 6'2 300 pound and own that same bike mine has vance hynes pipes and hyper charger air intake it powers me just fine and I have no issues keeping up on the hwy with my friends Harleys only once have I scraped floor boards leaning and I leaned right over aggressively to do it.