2016 Victory Magnum X-1

2016 VICTORY MAGNUM X-1

IGNITION

FIRST RIDE

Big bagger sound from Victory's rolling jukebox

Peter Jones

"Loud what saves lives? What? I can’t hear you. I’ve got 10 speakers blasting 200 watts of sound at me from each end of the Victory Magnum X-1 sound machine. I’m the meat center in a music sandwich. Huh?” We tested the magnum X-1 during Daytona Bike Week, which isn’t a quiet place to begin with. We made it less quiet.

“What? Yes, it is ‘Spirit in the Sky’ but as performed by The Upsidedown.”

The Magnum X-i is a showroom-available modified Magnum, beefed up with custom black billet wheels, featuring a 21-incher up front, black bodywork with detailed red pinstriping, an LED headlight claimed to be 74 percent brighter than the one on the Cross Country, and a musicmaker boom box of serious note. The speakers also look great, matched in style and color to the bike, three in each side location up front and two atop each bag.

The 21-inch front wheel doesn’t much hinder steering, and the front suspension provided a surprisingly nice ride, with the rear as good as usual for Victory, which is pretty good for a bike with this profile. Parking-lot crawls required a bit more steering management than typical, but that’s likely due to inner-ear issues of the rider.

After plugging in your personal music source inside the right-hand bag, operation of the Magnum X-i’s music system is pretty straightforward, with the controls hanging off the left handlebar. Selecting modes, then tunes, is nearly intuitive, if you arrive with some motorcyclemusic history, but when starting at the beginning of your playlist you can only scroll alphabetically from “A,” which might not impress Zappa fans.

That aside, finding and

selecting a playlist, and then a particular song, is easy. Plus, the up-and-down volume buttons are nicely responsive, without lag. Of course, the system also features an auto-volume that’s synchronized to the speed of the bike. We’re not sure if its presets can be altered or not, which would be a good feature because it increases in volume a bit too much too quickly or it ends up being too soft at a stop. We couldn’t find a desired compromise.

These days, booming-bagger competition is a new sport, particularly at bike rallies. The traffic-light cacophony at times at Daytona was intense, between ratcheted-up rock and roll and opened-up exhaust systems. Cranking on 200 watts is a good way to win the battle, but a solution without permanent hearing damage is a lonesome highway.

Possibly the best thing about the Magnum X-i’s serious stereo system is the ability to use it with the bike parked, sans the sounds of wind, pipes, road noise, and so forth. When parked, the sound of this boom box on wheels is clear, with high fidelity for P-Funkadelic, psychedelic, or whatever -delic you select to serenade your beach-blanket bingo party. Just please don’t play the same song by Steppenwolf all day long. Rock on. FIR

2016 VICTORY MAGNUM X-1

SOHC V-twin, 4 valves/cyl

DISPLACEMENT 1731cc

SEAT HEIGHT 25.7 in.

FUEL CAPACITY 5.8 gal.

CLAIMED DRY WEIGHT 761 Ib.

PRICE $24,499