Passes & Canyons Blog

There really wasn’t all that much that struck me as appealing when I went to demo ride Victory motorcycles last weekend but the one bike that did appeal was the Boardwalk. That’s it in the photo above. So I rode it.

The very first thing I noticed was that as soon as I threw my leg over the seat my calf came to rest against the hot pipes. That’s a good thing to learn quickly, and you don’t forget.

The very first thing I noticed when we started riding was that the windshield was too tall for me. The top hit right in my line of sight. That’s not a deal-breaker though, you can cut it down or get one not as tall.

The handle bars were wide, which I like, but the reach forward was too much for my comfort. I would swap them for the kind that come back toward me more so I wouldn’t have to lean forward so much. That’s another thing that can be fixed.

The Boardwalk does handle nicely. The seat is quite low, which makes for good stability, and the seat is comfortable. Still, I would want a back rest because with the forward position for your feet I know that my back would be hurting if I rode this bike for long.

The brakes are good, though not the kind that will throw you over the front end if you squeeze too hard. Acceleration is not rocket-like in any gear, although it’s best in middle gears. From a stop it takes time to get up to speed, just as stopping takes some time. I think this is a bike built for people who aren’t terribly concerned with going fast; they want an easy, mellow ride.

As with so many bikes today, the mirrors are too small. That may be good for how it looks overall but it’s not good for actually riding.

As for the particulars, the Boardwalk comes with chromed spoke wheels, floorboards, a windscreen, bags, and a backrest for your passenger. The tank holds 4.7 gallons. The tranny is a six-speed overdrive.

All in all, I liked the Boardwalk. In fact, having ridden quite a few Victorys over the years, I think I like it best of them all. But it’s just not the kind of bike I would buy. If it’s the type you like, however, it could be a very good option.

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I did make it over to Grand Prix Motorsports to ride some Victorys, as I said I was going to, and of course it was fun and interesting. How can riding some new motorcycles not be?

But what was particularly interesting was the way the whole event was so unstructured. Maybe the ride leaders hadn’t done this sort of thing before, I don’t know. Usually you register and sign the waiver and then you sign up for particular bikes on particular rides. Before each ride the leader runs through everything you’ve already heard countless times before, such as ride staggered, no passing, no slingshotting, no wheelies, and on and on.

Not in this case. Heck, they didn’t even have the bikes lined up in any systematic way. They had about 12 bikes to ride and early on there were maybe 10 of us to ride, so at one point the leader just said, “OK, everyone pick the bike you want to ride and mount up.” As far as the rules, he pretty much just said no wheelies and he asked us to ride in a staggered formation. Not that they actually enforced that latter part. Some people did try to ride staggered but others ignored it so you were pretty much on your own.

And guys were passing. Don’t like where you are in the line? Zip on ahead to where you want to be. I’m not offering this as a criticism, I’m just remarking about it because I’ve never seen this before on a demo ride.

It got fairly comical at some points. One time we were about to head out and everyone began pulling their totally disorganized bikes into readiness. Two guys backed out of where they were and turned the opposite direction of everyone else. Are you guys blind or what? We’re not headed that direction. Finally by about the fourth ride they had decided they needed to get that part more organized so when the third ride came back they had us line the bikes up all in a row, the way you would have expected it to be done all along.

Anyway, no big deal. It was fun and I rode three bikes, a Boardwalk, A Hard-Ball, and a Hammer 8-Ball. I’m not going to rehash my take on the bikes; I’ve already done that on Examiner.com. Suffice it to say that I’m not a cruiser guy so while they were all capable machines, I won’t be buying any of them. I like my pegs underneath me, not way out front. But if you like that type of bike you might like having a Victory. My friend Randy, who accompanied me (not the Randy who left me behind out by Rifle a few weeks ago), didn’t care for the Victory Vision he rode. He said, “If I want a bike that shakes a lot I’ll buy a Harley.”

Doesn’t matter. It was fun and interesting to ride some new bikes. And sometimes when I do this I discover a bike I love. Just not this time.

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It shows you what can happen if you ignore other events going on around you. I don’t care about bicycle racing, so I didn’t pay any attention to the USA Pro Challenge races that were going on around the state last week. Apparently neither did Judy or Friggs.

So we met up on Saturday morning, took a ride up to Black Hawk to have breakfast, and then headed north on the Peak to Peak Highway headed for Estes Park. What a beautiful day for a ride in the mountains.

Then we reached Nederland. Coming into town the traffic was stopped, advancing slowly, car length by car length. As we worked our way ahead we could finally see some flashing lights, so we thought maybe there was an accident.

Getting even closer we were now seeing a lot of cars pulling out and turning around or else taking a left turn into the business district. There was nobody coming the other direction so some braver folks just pulled into the oncoming lane and drove a block or so to get across the creek that divides the town. Then they turned left.

OK, we’re on motorcycles, and motorcycles ought to be allowed to lane split, regardless of whether our legislators think so. I pulled out and cruised along and we made the turn. Now (I thought) we’ll be able to skirt around the roundabout in the center of town where the blockage was centered and get onto the road going west before it swings north again.

Wrong. All access to the highway was blocked by tape. It was apparently part of the route of the bicycle race. But it didn’t make a lot of sense. We could see that the highway was open to the north and the road was then shut down just barely to the west of where we could get to. If they had positioned the barricade about 50 yards further east, everyone could have come that way and gotten through. Couldn’t they have possibly modified the route that much?

Oh well. Nothing to do but go back the way we had come and head down Coal Creek Canyon. Still a beautiful day for a ride in the hills, just not quite the ride we planned.

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I’ve got a pretty good idea where I’m going to be tomorrow. Victory Motorcycles is bringing in a truckload of bikes to Grand Prix Motorsports, down at 3105 W. County Line Road, in Littleton, and they’re offering demo rides. Oh boy, a chance to ride some new bikes! Count me in.

In fact, they’ll be around on Saturday as well, so if you have to be in the office on Friday you can still get out there and try out some bikes on Saturday.

I did some test rides on some Victorys a couple years ago, when I was down at the Laughlin River Run. I was surprised how much I liked the Kingpin. It was a very good-looking bike, sat low, and the reach to the foot and hand controls was comfortable. I’m not a cruiser guy but if I had unlimited storage space and unlimited cash I could see owning one.

That’s one of the things I like about doing demo rides. You never know when you’ll test ride a bike and find that it is wonderful. And you also might get to find out that the bike you’ve been developing a hankering for is maybe not so well suited to you and your style of riding as you thought. Nothing beats a test ride.

So if you see me at Grand Prix tomorrow, say hi. I love to actually meet the people who read this blog.

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