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Did folks here consider the HD Street Bob??

21K views 32 replies 17 participants last post by  saddlebag 
#1 ·
Hello,

Both HD and Vic make great looking bikes. I’m torn between the street bob and the high ball. Did anyone here consider the street bob (or any dyna line bike) before purchasing your victory? What swayed you to Victory over the HD?

I perform my own service, and the only customization I’ll do is forward controls, exhaust… nothing wild. I tend to hold on to bikes for 1-2 years max. Just torn between these two bikes…

THANKS
 
#2 ·
Everybody will have 2 cents for this type of question. The answer for you is in the test ride. Ride them both, and your decision will be a lot easier. thumb up
 
#10 ·
Ditto... What he said..... I considered the Street Glide test rode it and didn't like the vibration when slowing down to a stop. I know it's the way the HD motor is, but after riding a Vic for four years, I couldn't fathom putting up with it. It's a nice bike but with smaller bags, a 4 grand difference, I decided to "settle" for the XC AG. Settle... Get it? :ltr:
 
#3 ·
The Street Bob is cool looking.....
But I didn't want a Harley and the Street Bob is still a Harley (for better or for worse). I rode a few Harleys before I bought my Vic and I do NOT regret buying a Victory!
 
#5 ·
If you only keep it for a couple of years and buy it new and the Street Bob is a 103ci then it won't matter. If it's a 96ci the Vic will smoke it every time.

If you were looking at keeping it longer; the Vic is the better buy since it is a proven reliable long-term machine.

Just be careful how you wash the wheels on the Street Bob. The wheel bearings can have problems if they get a little water in them and sometimes they just go out prematurely.
 
#6 · (Edited)
If the Street Bob is a 103ci then it won't matter. If it's a 96ci the Vic will smoke it every time.
Yeah.... no.





The significance of that much of an advantage across the tach and 18 HP at peak cannot be denied. I have seen it in print several times that the HD 103 engine has better low end grunt than the Victory engine. I have always thought that was crap. Hopefully this will settle it.

Personally, I wouldn't buy the HighBall when the Vegas 8-Ball is the same bike and so much cheaper (The only differences are wheels, paint, handlebars). You can easily pick up a leftover Vegas 8-Ball for 11.5K or less if you shop around.

http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2012-Victory-Vegas-8-Ball-102956643

http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2012-VICTORY-Vegas-8-Ball-106651152

http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2012-Victory-Vegas-8-Ball-99690241

http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2012-VICTORY-Vegas-8-Ball-99452697

http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2012-Victory-Vegas-8-Ball-103444559

http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2012-Victory-Vegas-8-Ball-104349225

http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2011-Victory-Vegas-8-Ball-106038820

And for the price of a 1200 Sportster, this one with 3000 miles:
http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2011-Victory-8-Ball-Vegas-105508090



Want something a bit more sporty? How about a Hammer 8-Ball with 1400 miles for $12,900?
http://www.cycletrader.com/listing/2012-Victory-Hammer-8-Ball-105335783

Already has a stage one with pipes...




You can ship a bike almost anywhere in the US for like $500-$600... I sold a bike and shipped it from Maryland to Seatle Washington for $500 and didn't even have to drain the fuel.
 
#7 ·
i like the fat bob more, its closer to the highball msrp too. where the street bob is right close to the vegas 8ball price.

If you really want the HighBall look, its cheapest to just buy the HB, if you hadn't stated that you plan to leave it relatively stock, i would agree with Half crazy and say to get a vegas 8-ball and do your own customizing, might cost alittle more in the long run but it would be custom. (your not going to put paint, wheels and bars on for under $2k unless you do all the work yourself and find a hell of a deal on the wheels and thats still pretty tough)

i'd guess and say cost of ownership would probably be the same over over a 2 year span. ride'em both and see what you like.
 
#8 ·
Between a Vic cruiser and any HD Dyna, I'd always pick the Vic.

The Dynas are nice, but the vibration is something that I could never get past. I have ridden all major HD models and the only one I ever liked is the Road Glide Custom that I currently own. Totally different bike from the rest. The vibration on a Dyna is unnecessary and annoying as hell. I'm also not a fan of the ergos or handling.

The Highball is simply badass, and when I am ready to buy another cruiser, that's what I am buying. I needed a bagger this time around, but the next cruiser will once again be a Vic in my garage.

If they could make a Dyna as smooth as my RGC though..... ;)
 
#9 ·
If the fatbob had not had an HD emblem on it I would have bought it instead of my Hammer. The fat bob is just soooo comfortable for a cruiser... I really liked it, but I can't get into the HD thing and the Hammer is just a better looking bike. Now I just have more modding to do to get comfy on it....
 
#11 · (Edited)
It is all in what floats your boat, both great bikes. I was seriously looking at either a Streetglide or a roadking when shopping around this summer. HD has the best paint/chrome in the business IMO but both bikes felt cramped to me (6'1" with 34" inseam). The first Victory I sat on was a 2012 XC and knew right then that was the bike for me as far as fitting me goes. Came back home and did some research on the Cross bikes and pulled the trigger on my XR a couple of weeks later.
 
#12 ·
The 103 is an option in the Street Bob, just keep that in mind. I owned two current generation Dynas (06 and 07). Both were decent bikes that I had a lot of fun with. Harleys are as cool as they come, period. Now, any Victory will out perform almost any Harley. They are made with better crank shafts, better oil pumps, and just better over al quality, which leads to better performance. The Highball will out handle the Dyna by a little, not by tons. I bet you will get way more attention on the Highball, if that matters, because it's different. What ever you buy, come back and show us some pics.
 
#13 ·
Harleys are as cool as they come, period.
Any Victory will out perform almost any Harley. They are made with better crank shafts, better oil pumps, and just better overall quality.
I dream of the day when performance and engineering are considered "cool" and anything else is just "lame".



I give you the new Moto Guzzi 1400 California:
 
#19 ·
The V-Max goes like stink, but there's not a drop of cool in it. A V-4? Kidding me?
No likey V-4s? I love 'em. From what I understand, they are complex and expensive to manufacture, hence their rarity.

I've ridden a V-Max and thought it was pretty comfy and handled reasonably well. It had atrocious on/off throttle response that would be deal killer enough for me. The fact that I could put more fuel in my pockets than it's capable of storing makes them completely useless IMO.

My favorite V-4 is the one in the old VFR 750s. Excellent sound, buttery feel, like a fine tuned triple that engine.

Cool... yeah, that's not something you can buy or wear or put on you. If a guy is a dork, he can ride a $150,000 custom bike and guess what? He's still a dork. If a guy is cool, he can ride up and down main street in Daytona during bike week on a pink Vespa wearing a ballet tutu and guess what? He's still cool.
If he's wasting his time parading up and down Main St in some avian like display of plumage trying to entice the females, I'd question his kewlness. After all, kewl guys today pick up chicks by demonstrating their command of text message abbreviations and knowledge of cell phone apps.

Performance... That's a package deal. Performance is useless if I can't ride it 100 miles without being in pain. My son has a CBR 929RR and I can't last 15 minutes on that thing. If I had a dollar for every time I heard "If you want fast get a sport bike" I could pay cash for the new Guzzi. I usually chalk it up as clueless babble from a window licker (not you, Jason, I like you). People don't understand about TORQUE.
Torque can be achieved through gearing. A lot of sport bikes are geared tall in first gear so they can take off during a race and keep the front wheel near the ground and in the high gear for top speed. Even my Duc STs had silly gearing like that (surely a parts bin thing). A couple of sprockets later, she's as "torquey" as you like.

And there are plenty of aftermarket gadgets to make sport bikes more comfy. My riding partner has a little Ninja 650 that he absolutely loves. He's closing on 60 and rides his Wing more now for the comfort, but last we talked, he was thinking of putting some peg lowering brackets and a new seat on the 650 to make his featherweight more geriatric friendly on our day long scoots.

Who the hell decided that cruisers are supposed to be slow and cumbersome? That Guzzi is nice and I love the concept of something between a standard and a cruiser, but I figure my Kingpin would spank that thing.
Until some clever aftermarket guy makes some go fast parts for it anyway.

If people would refuse to spend 20K for "cool" and demand better motorcycles... we would get better motorcycles. But no... Victory has seen the writing on the wall. What sells is apehangers and whitewalls. What's next? Girder front ends? Kill me now...
Starting to feel that Guzzi now aren't ya?

The Kingpin was SO CLOSE to the total package in a cruiser... all it needed was some horsepower, big saddlebags, a better seat, some radial tires, and to lose the goofy floorboards. Easily done. I bought it because it was the only cruiser platform that didn't need complete re-engineering to be MY BIKE. The way things are looking, my next bike will be from Italy because I'm too old to start conforming now. My friends and family would think I had lost it and put me in a home.
Better than living on the street I suppose.
 
#24 ·
No likey V-4s?
I didn't say that. Like the man was telling us, cool is about paint, chrome, and that badassed sound that 64 HP makes through drag pipes. The V-Max sounds like a Singer sewing machine on steroids so it will never be considered cool by the masses.




Torque can be achieved through gearing.
Big torque comes from big displacement, hence the old saying "There's no replacement for displacement". Like the difference between a quarter horse and a draft horse, or a 350 Chevy vs a 454. The 350 can make the same HP, but it will never have the balls the 454 has.




Until some clever aftermarket guy makes some go fast parts for it (that Guzzi) anyway.
 
#18 ·
I was looking at both of these bikes. I like them both. The H-D Street Bob was my original bike of choice before I found out about the Victory High Ball. My requirements were an all blacked out look, mini apes, and forward controls. With the H-D configured the way I wanted it, the MSRP was $16k. The HB had all this standard from the factory with and MSRP of $13.5k, plus it had a bigger engine, a cool retro unique look, and a bullet proof engine. I opted for the Vic. I've ridden to a few bike nights around town and I found that a lot of people ride Harley's and they all look the same. No one had a bike that looked the way my HB did and I had a lot of people come over to look at it and ask me what it was. Harley's are great bikes and they hold their value more than any other bike brand out there. If you plan on selling it in a few years it'll still be worth a pretty penny. If you want to stand out and be the envy of the group get the HB. If you want to blend in with everyone else get the Street Bob. Land vehicle Vehicle Motor vehicle Motorcycle Automotive tire
(My girl likes my Vic)


Sent from my iPhone using Motorcycle.com Free App
 
#21 ·
First off I NEVER buy new when it comes to bikes or trucks.Let the first fool loose his butt and get me a good deal.That said I have test drove a Street Bob and the dealer pissed me off first thing.I rode in on my 1972 FLH and he had the nerve to ask if I was trading that Shovelhead in.Replied "I wouldnt trade that old bike for 2 brand new ones" " I am just looking to go a little newer "
Well the test ride wasnt bad 96in had decent power but hated the bars and controls.Hated the MFSP more.
Ended up with a 2004 V92TC for a third of what the HD was.Got a better all around bike with no payments.Still ride my FLH but when it comes time to travel the TC is hard to beat.
 
#22 ·
My XR is the first new vehicle I have ever bought in my life but I knew that for my next bike I was going new and keeping it for many years. I do think the HD's are over priced but IMO Victory is not much better. I would have never given the $17k+ price that my XR MSRP + extras would have originally cost, the bike is not worth that much.
 
#27 ·
HD doesn't have anything made lately I have any interest in .. Went through enough cash trying to my 09 Ultra at a decent rate of Power that should have been delivered OTD stock like Victory does .. However do have a classic EVO back when Harley built them right .. That ain't for sale and never will be ..


 
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