Cross Country
CW RIDING IMPRESSION
CROSS COUNTRY
Victory seeks a new tradition with its Cross Country and Cross Roads baggers
JOHN BURNS
S0 THERE I WAS, LOW-RIDING MY WAY BACK TO the Austin, Texas, airport on a lovely green two-lane aboard a shiny black 2010 Victory Vision 8-Ball whilst contemplating the sorry state of my affairs, when I made eye contact with some farmer up to his ankles in mud (or worse), throwing something in a state of advanced decay on the back of a rustbucket ’70s pickup, next to a farmhouse that might’ve been held together by paint if it had had any paint left. The guy’s bearded jaw actually dropped, and his plight snapped me back to how genuinely excellent it was to be riding this two-wheeled Batmobile around on such a perfect day, and what a lucky sap I am most of the time.
The original Vision was unusual enough, but the new 8-Ball Vision—slammed and black as the tomb—is something else entirely. I nearly circled back to tell the guy, listen buddy, this bike’s not mine and my personal riding gear is not nearly this nice.. .don’t feel bad, pal, things are tough all over. But things like that never go as planned, and I knew if I stopped he’d turn out to be named Getty or Buffett. Or Dahmer. So I just kept rolling. Luckily, a bad drought had just ended in Texas, a golf ball-swallowing drought so dry I was told that when you spat, the ground in certain areas would actually rise up to meet your saliva. It then proceeded to rain so hard, I’m told, some of the drops were observed to actually turn around and head back upward to avoid the crowd on the ground. Fortunately, my couple of days on the new Victorys were perfect.
While I really like the new Vision 8-Ball, the big news in 2010 are the two other new bikes, the Cross Country and Cross Roads baggers. The reason these machines have joined the lineup? Because what you’ve got is a continuum of touring riders, according to Victory’s VP of Motorcycles, Mark Blackwell. At one extreme, says Blackwell, you’ve got your luxury-seeking, progressive, globe-trotting motorcycle people who can’t get enough modern technology; they want it all. For them, Victory builds the Vision Tour (and for 2010, equips it with $1K optional ABS). At the other pole, there is a bunch of heritage-minded touring traditionalists rolling around who want just the essentials: a windshield and saddlebags. Now Victory builds a bike for them in the form of the Cross Roads. While they were at it, Victory built a bike it hopes will be just right for those in the middle—the Cross Country. I keep it straight by thinking of the Country music pouring out of the Cross Country’s stereo as I roll through the Texas hill country with the cruise control on, very nice... Lone Star beer and Bob Wills music have kept my heart alive since you 've been gone, sniff...
The Cross Roads, with its basic windshield, lone speedo and saddlebags, is intended more for meandering along backroads, quite probably in traditional, heritage-minded wife-onback mode. The Cross Country gets a bigger, fork-mounted batwing fairing (the Vision fairing is frame-mounted) packed with electronic gear, including the aforementioned stereo with MP3 capability, a multifunction LCD dashboard, and most importantly for people who like to cover longer distances, cruise control. You might carry a non-traditional person on the back or let the wife drive. Or your girl might buy one and take you for a ride? (And on the Vision, you might carry an outer-space alien or chorus girl, who knows?) They’re all long, low motorcycles built with two-up cruising in mind.
From the fairing back, the Cross Roads and Cross Country are practically identical, each packing a pair of easy-toremove locking saddlebags with a combined capacity of 21 gallons. The Vision carries its fuel in a pair of bilateral aluminum tanks up front; the Cross models use traditional steel tanks, but the all-new, model-specific cast-aluminum frame—built using technology developed for the Vision tourers—saves enough space that the tank can hold 5.8 gallons, which, at around 41 mpg, should provide very respectable range. (The other difference is that the Cross Country has a pair of unique, chromed, forged aluminum crash bars, pre-drilled for highway pegs.) Weightwise, Victory says the 765-pound Cross Country weighs 104 pounds less than an ABS-equipped Vision Tour, with the Cross Roads coming in at 745 pounds.
With no downtubes, the aluminum frame lets the Cross bikes carry Victory’s air/oil-cooled, 106-cubic inch, 50-degree V-Twin nice and low (the battery’s housed in the chin fairing ahead of the engine). This helps the seats on the new bikes reside a mere 26.2 inches from the pavement. There is an optional saddle an inch lower still, and with a thicker bolster on back to move shorter-armed persons closer to the handlebar. Even at that low elevation, there’s a nicely plush yet well-controlled 4.7 inches of rear-suspension travel, with airadjustable preload like on the Vision (and a nice little adjustment pump included in the saddlebag). Instead of the Vision’s 46mm conventional fork, the new bikes have a 43mm inverted fork.
For the kind of riding these bikes will be used for, all is peachy, but I’d be remiss in my duties as an elitist motojournalist snob if I didn’t mention that the Vision 8-Ball, with its stiffer suspension settings, works a little better, with less upand-down, and a little more feel, when riding like a maniac (a thing we of course discourage).
Anyway, for “touring”machines, the Crosses can be hustled along at a truly invigorating pace. They turn light and quick enough, trail braking is not a problem at all, and that aluminum frame/stressed-engine chassis keeps the wheels in good alignment and aimed in the intended direction quite nicely over some of Texas’ finest twisty pavement; you’re going at a pretty good clip when the floorboards let you know to chill a little. Texas 336 down around Leakey (home of the Leakey Eagles), part of what they call “the three sisters” roads, is highly recommended. The 336 can’t decide which side of the Guadalupe River it wants to be on, so it just keeps dipping back and forth across a bunch of low-water crossings. Or was that the Fria River? Never mind, that’s not important right now.
When you’re just cruising, 3000 rpm on the tach nets a
relaxed 80 mph thanks to the overdrive sixth gear. Victory claims the 106-inch Twin produces 92 horsepower and more than 109 foot-pounds of torque, with 100 ft.-lb. on tap anywhere between 2000 and 4700 rpm. It also produces quite a bit of vibration right around 4000 rpm in spite of its counterbalancer. As for that overdrive, to get rolling when you’re already cruising, you really need to kick it down to fifth for that passing opportunity. The Victory gearbox isn’t the slickest-shifting of the big V-Twins, either. Be deliberate in the lower gears when you’re making like Joe Dragstrip.
When you’re cruising along, though, these are some blissfully nice motorcycles—smooth, controlled and very stable. Negative fork offset helps provide excellent stability up to well past illegal speed even with the Cross Country’s big fork-mounted fairing parting the seas. Wind buffeting is sort of a perennial problem on these kinds of bikes, but the Crosses have been extensively tested in the wind tunnel, and Victory offers several different windscreen height options for them: Pick the one that’s right for your height, and you’re in for a reasonably smooth ride. Bring your earplugs anyway. Big floorboards give your dogs lots of options. The Cross Country provides passenger floorboards also, while the Cross Roads passenger will make do with pegs. (Good for spiked heels?)
What price Victory? From $15,999 for a Solid Black Cross Roads to $19,499 for a Black/Graphite w/Extreme Skulls Cross Country (California bikes run $250 more). The murdered-out Vision 8-Ball is a striking-looking machine in the flesh and goes for a relatively reasonable $17,999. It feels like you sit a bit farther back in the 8-Ball, but the engineers tell me that’s just an illusion since the seating position is same-same as on the new Cross bikes. The 8-Ball is lowered an inch and gets a lower seat compared to the Vision Tour, which adds up to your hindquarters riding just 24.5 inches above the pavement—perfect for my shrunken-Greek-god, 5foot-7 body. And though it’s like 69 pounds lighter than the full-boat ABS Vision, the 8-Ball retains that bike’s slightly firmer suspension settings—a good thing if you occasionally like to mix it up with the three sisters. Who doesn’t?
