Victory Cross Country Tour
Victory Cross Country Tour
ROUNDUP
NEW FOR 2012 FIRST RIDES
Putting the H-D Electra Glide on notice: There’s a new touring cruiser in town
TAKE A GAMBLE ON UNUSUAL STYLING and you risk obscuring a machine’s goodness. Example? The Victory Vision Tour, a fine motorcycle with a polarizing appearance. Maintaining the Vision’s dynamic excellence but putting on a more familiar face gave us the Cross Country for 2010. Now, says Victory, comes its new flagship tourer, the 2012 Cross Country Tour.
To the Cross Country’s superb foundation-driven by a torquey and smooth 106-cubic-inch, 50-degree V-Twin mounted to a stiff, cast aluminum chassis— Victory has added new touring accoutrements. A massive tail trunk, an option on the Cross Country, becomes standard. Together with huge hard saddlebags, this carryall gives the CCT what Victory claims is the “world’s largest storage capacity.” Hyperbole aside, the 41.1 gallons of stowage is impressive. More than a Gold Wing. Way more than a Harley Electra Glide tourer.
New for the CCT are plastic lowers hugging a tubular crashbar in place of the Cross Country’s stylish open castings. Not only do you get generously sized storage compartments—the left with an iPod/iPhone connection to the integrated audio system plus a 12-volt outlet—but also Victory’s clever airmanagement system. Swinging doors allow you to close off the flow to the area behind the lowers or admit either some or a lot of air for cooling.
Working in concert with the new lowers are two hinged, translucent panels beneath the upper fairing that help route air either away from the rider or directly at him. By tweaking the vanes’ angles, you can aim a stream of air anywhere from your elbows to your chin. Victory says that this system, along with an 8-inch-taller windscreen, dramatically reduces turbulence for the rider. The CCT’s setup provides a nearly buffet-free comfort zone, with just a trickle of air reaching the shoulders, top of the helmet and elbows. Even tall rid •ers will be looking through the screen, however, so it’s a good thing its optics are first-rate.
The chromed tiller-style handlebar places the grips farther forward than you’d find on an Electra Glide, and the smooth (and optionally heated!) seat offers more than one locked-down position for your cheeks. The swoopy floorboards are crazy long (18 in., to be precise), further adding to the seating options. The CCT’s riding position is more cruiser-ish than the Gold Wing’s but much more open than the Harley’s.
The rest is familiar. Softer in power than a 103-inch Harley Twin Cam at low rpm, the CCT’s air-cooled, 8-valve mill responds with a strong midrange and just a modest falloff toward the 5200-rpm redline. Victory claims 109 foot-pounds of torque; Harley says 97 ft.-lb. for the TCI03. On the road, the CCT hits a sweet spot at 80 mph (3000 rpm in the overdrive sixth gear), where the engine is a muted thrum between your knees. You’ll drain the contents of the 5.8-gallon tank before you actually want to stop.
Works great; fine value, too. At $21,999, the CCT undercuts the base Gold Wing (not that it’s a direct competitor to the big GL), plus it’s lessexpensive than any of Harley’s Electra Glide models with similar equipment. Watch out, Milwaukee. —Marc Cook
