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.
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2011 Cross Roads Sunset Red
OEM short windshield, passenger backrest, crash bars, saddle bag bars, heated grips, vinyl closeouts. WD lay down licence plate.
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.
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 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:
The average person doesn't know a crank shaft from a cam shaft. All they see is paint and chrome, and hear that exhaust tone. Hence my "cool" statement. That's where I was going with that. And if flat out performance is what you think defines cool, why not go with that MG, or any other top end Super Bike ?
Sweet ass bike!!
But if it's about cool+performance, there is one clear choice........
(With what was supposed to be a picture of a V-Max)
The V-Max goes like stink, but there's not a drop of cool in it. A V-4? Kidding me?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jaysonL
The average person doesn't know a crank shaft from a cam shaft. All they see is paint and chrome, and hear that exhaust tone. Hence my "cool" statement. That's where I was going with that. And if flat out performance is what you think defines cool, why not go with that MG, or any other top end Super Bike ?
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 quess 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 quess what? He's still cool.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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. ImageUploadedByMO Free1351992048.003548.jpg (My girl likes my Vic)
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by half_crazy
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by half_crazy
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by half_crazy
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by half_crazy
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?
Quote:
Originally Posted by half_crazy
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.
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.
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.
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.
Until some clever aftermarket guy makes some go fast parts for it anyway.
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