| | | | Road Test : Victory Vision Tour and Street : Cruisin’ with the alien |  Written: 04/07/2007 : 16:06. Read 6307 times (18/day). | | The integrality of this filed article is for Premium Members. | In 1998 Polaris launched Victory motorcycles and six years ago started work on the Vision luxury tourers. Ten years and 20 million dollars later the Vision Tour and Street is a finished product. We were granted 450 miles in the seat of the Vision touring bike in Minnesota, USA.
  34 votes | |
| |
I am outside of a posh hotel in the city centre of Minneapolis and have just entered the cockpit of this alien looking piece of American design. The first and most important thing that I do is to connect the iPod Nano Victory gave us as a launch gift to make use of the stereo system.
Victory chose to launch the Vision in Minnesota as the factory and the whole Victory team are based here. Not only would we get to ride the new leviathan, we would also get to see it being built at the factory.
The Vision Tour sails straight into a scarcely populated part of the motorcycle market called luxury touring. This is where we find the Honda Gold Wing, Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic and BMW K1200LT full-on touring bikes. The Vision Tour is all about comfort and design to make touring as effortlessly and stylish as possible. Lower and longer than the rest has also been Victory’s motto during the development period.
After the correct map is loaded on to my onboard GPS I am ready to tackle the morning rush hour out of Minneapolis and towards the endless corn fields in this rural part of America. We have got about 300 miles to cover in the states of Minnesota and Iowa following the Mississippi river.
A low centre of gravity and a low seat height (673mm) allows for easy low speed handling taking me safely out of town. The Tour weighs in at a heavyweight 365kg and the first gear has been lowered to make take-offs easier. I really feel like I am cocooned in a nice place and you really do sit in the bike rather than on it. Stereo on, 1731cc of V-twin muscle and a big comfortable seat to sit on makes me relaxed and in no time we are out on the motorway.
The handlebars are gigantic and stretch back towards me. They are bolt-ons and very little vibration comes through to my hands. Around 3.000 rpm where almost all torque is already available (90% at 2.000rpm and 100% at 3.500rpm) I can feel some vibrations through the big and long footboards. So I kick the shifter up into sixth and the overdrive gear and at 60mph I feel more like surfing than cruising. I have time now to settle in on the bike and play around wit ...
The integrality of this filed article is for Premium Members.
(9 pictures - 2732 words. remaining).
|
Please register if you want to write a comment:
Clic here |
|
|
|
| | Public Poll
Who will be the 2008 Moto GP world champion?
|
| | THE BLOGS | | | | PICTURES TOP 10 | | | |
|
