Taking Spins On Three Victory Motorcycles

September 3rd, 2012
Victory Demo Rides 2012

Victory brought in the truck loaded with bikes and I went riding.

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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Racing: A Prod And An Impediment To Motorcycle Development

August 30th, 2012
An entrant in this year's Craig Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge.

An entrant in this year's Craig Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge.

Racing has a long history of pushing motorcycle development forward, as solutions to punishing conditions on the track migrate to street bikes to make them better and better.

What is less well known is how some areas of motorcycle development have been blocked by the rules promulgated by the powers that be in racing. Specifically, today’s motorcycles would probably be a lot more aerodynamic were it not for limitations imposed by racing.

Craig Vetter is renowned for his fairing designs as well as a lot of other work on motorcycles. As Grand Marshal at the American Motorcyclist Association’s Vintage Motorcycle Days a few weeks ago, he also hosted the Craig Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge. The Challenge solicits entries of bikes that can move at highway speed while getting the greater mileage based on fuel cost, all the while serving as a viable alternative to a car. As the key to meeting that last demand, the bikes are required to be able to carry four bags of groceries.

In the presentation he gave on the purposes of the challenge, Vetter also covered some history that had much to do with why motorcycles look the way they do today. Following World War II, he said, German, Italian, and Japanese designers worked to make motorcycles more aerodynamic, and therefore more economical. The designs they were coming up with looked a lot like the designed used today on the bikes that go to the Bonneville Salt Flats to set land speed records. That is to say, they have a rounded nose and come to a point in the rear, with smooth body paneling over the rest of the bike.

Said Vetter, “They were looking . . . not like what you could buy. Remember the old adage, ‘Win Sunday, Sell Monday’? That’s what motorcycle dealers said. Well, these motorcycles didn’t look like anything you could buy on Monday. And so the FIM, which was the world sanctioning body for racing at that time, was under pressure from the people with money–motorcycle manufacturers–to eliminate streamlining. Now, they could have said, ‘You motorcycle manufacturers, you should change your ways,’ but they didn’t. They bowed to the pressure of the motorcycle industry of the time, and this is what they did. This is why the motorcycles on the track out here today look like they do and do not look like real streamliners, which is very significant.

“We already know that this is real streamlining (showing slide of round-nosed, pointed tail, enclosed body bike). It only takes 3 horse power to take you 60 miles an hour. Here’s what the FIM did with their rules. In one sweep at the end of 1956 they said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to see the front wheel. Oh, you’ve got to cut it all off in front of the axle. You can’t have anything sticking in front of the front axle. Oh, you can’t have anything sticking behind the rear wheel either, behind the rear axle. This is now illegal. Plus, you’ve got to see the rider from the side, everything, you can’t cover him up. You’ve got to see the rider totally from the side. The back end can’t be high either. You’ve got to cut it off 5 inches high. You can’t have anything on the back. The fairing can’t slope any more than 30 degrees.’

“And that’s what we have on the track today. They intentionally gave us dumb streamlining. They could have said, ‘No, we want technology to advance. We’re gonna require tracks to be better, to handle faster speeds.’ They could have said, ‘Hey you guys have got to come up with better brakes. You guys gotta come up with better cooling.’ But they didn’t. They intentionally slowed motorcycles down and made them . . . made it hard to go fast.”

Now you know.

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Bicycle Race Aborts Ride To Estes Park

August 27th, 2012

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.

Motorcycle on the Peak to Peak Highway

Cruising on the Peak to Peak Highway.

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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An Opportunity to Ride Some Victorys

August 23rd, 2012
Me on a Victory motorcycle.

That's me on a Victory in 2010 at the Laughlin River Run.

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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A New Motorcycle I Would Love

August 20th, 2012
Jon Siedel and the Honda CB1100

American Honda's Jon Seidel poses with the CB1100.

I saw a motorcycle it was impossible not to love recently. At least impossible for me not to love.

That’s it in the photo above, a Honda CB1100. Of course I’m partial to a bike like that, considering that one of my rides is a 1980 CB750 Custom.

I saw this bike recently at the Motorcycle Sport Touring Association’s STAR 2012 rally up in Avon. Jon Seidel, who works in the motorcycle press department for American Honda, had brought the bike to show and to solicit responses from potential buyers.

As Jon explained, the bike went on sale in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand in 2010 and was made available in Europe this year. The question is whether it will be brought to the U.S.

Here’s a quick run-through of some of the specs:

  • Inline 4
  • 1100cc
  • Air/oil-cooled engine
  • Dual disks in front, single disk in back
  • Latest generation combined braking system–only linked rear to front, so use the front brake and only get front, but use the back brake and get front and back braking
  • 4-gallon tank
  • Wheelbase 68 inches
  • Seat height 30-30.5 inches
  • 4 into 1 exhaust
  • 18″ wheels
  • Chain drive

Jon was a good one to be showing the bike because he loves it.

“This is the motorcycle I want to buy. I love this motorcycle. I love the look, everything about it,” he said. “It’s a period-type piece. Our thought about it is that, for a Honda fan, this has a lot of Honda signature DNA in it. It’s an extremely enjoyable motorcycle to ride. It puts a grin on your face.”

One point of interest for me is the chain drive. My old CB has chain drive and I do not miss it when I’m on my shaft-driven Kawasaki Concours. Apparently, times have changed.

“Chains nowadays are nothing at all like they were even five years ago,” said Jon. “These are sealed o-ring chains, they will go thousands and thousands of miles, and require minimum — almost no maintenance or lubrication. If you knew what chains were in the past, this is nothing like that any more.”

That’s good to know.

So yeah, I’d love to have this bike. But Honda better not count on me buying one if they do bring it here. At least not unless my old CB dies. When I buy a bike–or a car–I stick with it for years. If everyone was like me our whole economy would grind to a halt. But if I can pick up a used one in maybe 10 years, that could happen.

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OFMC Rides 24th Annual Bike Trip

August 16th, 2012
The OFMC at the Grand Canyon

The OFMC at the Grand Canyon.

You’d hardly know it from reading this blog but the OFMC took its 24th annual summer trip a couple weeks ago. As always, it was a good one. We’ve never had a bad one.

I’ve already told the story of how it started out with all of the group gathering in Grand Junction, except me, because I had a flat tire and ended up spending the night in Eagle. The following day they all rode on to Marysvale, UT, and after my bike was rideable again I headed there, too. I rolled in around 9 p.m. to finally join the gang.

Up to the point of turning off I-70 to get to Marysvale, the ride was nothing special. I mean, it was interstate. But then heading up that canyon on U.S. 89 was another thing entirely. I’ve never been on that stretch of road before but I’m sure I will be again. Very, very nice. Utah is just gorgeous, you know?

The place we stayed was pretty interesting, too. It’s called the Big Rock Candy Mountain Resort. It’s named for the hills around there. That gives you an idea.

We followed U.S. 89 south through Panguitch and took UT 143 over to Cedar Breaks National Monument, the first in a series of national parks and monuments we visited on this trip. UT 148 took us down to UT 14, which carried us down Cedar Canyon to Cedar City. Then we hopped onto I-15 and blasted down to Mesquite, NV.

After two days of gambling, golf, and sitting in the pool, we backtracked as far as St. George and caught UT 9, which took us to Zion National Park. We hadn’t come to see the park this time so we just passed through on the highway, but that’s a pretty spectacular ride on its own. East of the park we picked up U.S. 89 again and cruised down to Kanab.

Just beyond Kanab, U.S. 89 splits off an Alternate 89, which we followed to Jacob Lake, AZ, which sits at the intersection to the road that runs down to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. That was our stop for two nights as rode down into the park on the intervening day. Our first night there it was chilly and rainy so we sat around on the deck of one of our cabins wearing our rain gear. The rooms were too small to get all of us into one and there was no roof over the deck. So it was rain gear.

The ride into the park was especially satisfying for me considering the troubles I had experienced the last time the OFMC came here about 20 years ago. I got to see the sights I didn’t see then and I got to drink that beer on the patio of the Grand Canyon Lodge, overlooking the canyon, that I missed out of back then.

We backtracked from Jacob Lake to Kanab and almost to Panguitch on 89. Just a tip: if you go this way some time, the view headed north, coming down off the plateau that forms the North Rim, is kick ass. We didn’t realize it coming the other way but heading down it was an “Oh my goodness!” moment.

Just south of Panguitch we turned east on UT 12 to Bryce Canyon National Park. Having been there pretty recently, and having been without WiFi for four days, I didn’t go into the park, choosing instead to sit in the Best Western and use their internet connection. The rest of the guys went in. One thing we saw again and again on this trip was the amazing number of foreign–mostly Asian–tourists. They thought we were pretty interesting and in several instances asked to have photos taken with us. That happened again in Bryce, but one of the kids didn’t realize Randy’s exhaust pipes were hot and as everyone crowded together he got a pretty bad burn on his leg. Yeah, he’ll remember that part of his trip for a long time.

From Bryce we continued on 12 to Escalante, Boulder, and up to Torrey. From Torrey, U.S. 24 carried us through Capitol Reef National Park, to Hanksville and up to where we got back on I-70 heading east. A little east of Green River we turned south on U.S. 191, which cruises right along the boundary to Arches National Park on its way to Moab. We took a sidetrip that would have taken us into Canyonlands National Park if we had gone one way, but took us instead to Dead Horse Point State Park. The view there is of the confluence of the Green River and the Colorado River.

After a night in Moab we rode UT 128 along the Colorado River as it continues to form the boundary of Arches, along the Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway, and back up to I-70. Then it was a blast on I-70 to home. Another OFMC trip in the books.

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