I left the house this morning around 7:00 am with my friend and his newly acquired Road King taking the long scenic route to the HD dealership in Sherman, TX. A ride that takes ½ hour turned into a 3 hour trip through the back roads of North Texas passing every cow, farm and abandoned house on the way. Got to the HD around 10:00 and was surprised that they were selling Victories on the HD showroom floor and the salesman was throwing keys and me begging for me to take a test ride. Not wanting to disappoint him, and having NEVER ridden a larger HD motorcycle, I gladly accepted the offer.
Test ride 1:
HD Dyna Spong Bob ( or is it street bob? LOL).
Turned out of the parking lot strait into the mall parking lot that was empty and proceeded to do a number of figure 8’s, start/stops, backing up etc.,…basic slow speed, parking lot type maneuvers to get the feel for the bike and how I would ride it on a daily basis if I decided to buy.
The sponge Bob gets an "A" for parking lot/slow speed maneuvering but a "D" on braking. Where are they?????!?? Scary how bad the brakes operate on those bikes. When I my SM I usually stop with one or two figers on the brakes 99 percent of the time. In order to stop the Sponge Bob I had to grab a full hand of brake lever and stomp on the rear brake. Bad.
I next hit the twisties behind the dealer hitting some good speeds and getting some good lean action going. It handled very well in this environment and put more than one grin on my face. "A" for its handling in the 0-65 mph category.
The freeway was a complete disaster. The bike’s front wheel felt jumpy/jittery (?) when running above 75mph like it wasn’t balanced correctly. I sped up to 85mph (I know, stupid) and my sphincter muscle was so tight I got a cramp in my right butt cheek. I quickly hit the brake (what brake?) and eventually slowed the bike down, turned around and slowly rode back to the dealer. I told the salesman about it who got a mechanic to ride it around only to tell me there was nothing wrong with the bike?!? He told me that all bikes with smaller front tires experience some wobble and pointed at my SM as an example which I immediately shot down.
Power. Surprisingly lacking. The bike has 600ccs on mine and my bike felt quicker from the start and my throttle more responsive. My friend who was a bike mechanic in his past life stated that the gearing was different and the HD had probably 200lbs more weight than my bike. Not a mechanic but his logic does make sense but offers no comfort to me a possible potential buyer.
Test Ride2:
FLH
I ran it through the paces above and overall was genuinely impressed with the bike’s handling in all aspects. Even the brakes were better but still wasn’t anything to write home to mom about. The salesman told me that all large bikes have problems slowing down because of the weight. The power, however, was still not there but the salesman told me there are kits you can buy to beef it up. Asking price for the black FLH was 16K which I thought was pretty fair price for the bike.
Test ride 3:
Still no Victory Key! Went to lunch returned and found out one of the mechanics had it in his pocket. I ran the Kingpin through the same paces as the other bikes and it outperformed the FLH in ALL categories! The last Victory I rode was the 92cui 1999 victory and was completely amazed at the improvements made in the bike. (not that the 99 was shabby by any means).
Power: A+ that bike has power everywhere in the band. Ate the HD for breakfast.
Brakes: A+ I asked the salesman why, if the two bikes were relatively comparable in weight, the Victory didn’t have the braking issues that the HD had? No response. A little irrated at this time.
Handling: The FLH handled well and would place both bikes about equal with the Victory edging it out by a nose. I would have to do a much longer test ride and one back-to-back without lunch to get a true comparison.
Victory will not sale out of that HD dealership (maybe all of them?) because the salesman there just don’t like them. Sure, if you go in there and buy one they’ll take your cash but they will NOT steer you towards the Victory lineup. My friend refused to take the Victory out for a test ride and just kept talking about resale value and dealership support etc.,… Oh well, they do have a very strong point on the dealership gripe that I hope Victory is striving to rectify.
Unless a huge financial windfall hits me, I am likely a couple years away from purchasing a new bike. I like my SM but sure do miss the torque the Victory puts out and coupled with the improved handling could see myself with one in the garage in the near future.
