Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

name, first displayed at Intermot in 1998, may hold rightful claim to producing the first example of what sounds at first like a contradiction in terms - the terms "sport" and "cruiser" are generally held to be mutually exclusive - the fact is that the Sachs project bike still hasn't hit the showrooms. The V92SC, on the other hand, is here and now, and yours for $13,999 - the same as the V92C provided you'll take it in Monotone Black (is there any other kind?). If you opt for red or gray, that'll set you back an extra $300. And, as the chance to ride the Victory SC (as in "Some Contradiction") for a day's sport-cruisin' in Central Florida underlined, this is a very different kind of product than anything coming out of Milwaukee, and as such expands the envelope of the cruiser concept, while delivering added choice to customers in doing so. Just a look at the Victory emphasizes its idiosyncrasy, with the cobbylooking collection of a job lot of parts that appears to comprise a Harley or any of its clones replaced by a clean, modern appearance to the air/oilcooled 50-degree V-twin engine, complimented by somewhat staid styling for the whole motorcycle whose appearance is frankly rather understated. So, no attempt to design each individual external component as a separate entity - like an H-D engine's chromed pushrod tubes, shaped cylinders, sculpted cases or distinctive cylinder heads (so distinctive, they used to name the engine generically after them - Shovel head, Panhead, Knucklehead etc.). What you have here is an integrallydesigned product, and some would say it's all the better for that, while others will bemoan the lack of creative-looking componentry which in turn delivers added personality. Anyway, now you have a choice. Fuel injection comes courtesy of Victory's own 44mm throttle bodies and a selection of bought-in electronic hardware, including a CDU sourced from Britain's MBE Systems, but with the air cleaner centrally located under the five-gallon fuel tank to avoid owners having to ride with their right legs permanently cocked outwards as on other products, while the five-speed transmission employs a belt final drive in what is the only real design feature the new kid on the cruiser block shares with the designs of its 98-year-old competitor. Though there's a gear-driven counter-balancer within the V92 engine, it is designed and weighted to still retain a measure of what Victory hopes will be customer-pleasing vibration that's further accentuated by the fact that the engine is mounted solidly within the double-cradle tubular steel frame to deliver a very strong chassis package, with cantilever monos hock rear suspension using a Fox shock and triangulated steel swingarm. On the SportCruiser, front suspension comes courtesy of a massive set of 50mm Marzocchi forks, which while not as claimed the biggest motorcycle forks yet made (the 51 mm Paiolis fitted to the Bimota VB 11 take that dubious honor) are a little longer than the 45mm Italian company's front end package for the V92C, and thus responsible for its 0.3 in. (7.62 mm) longer 63.6 in. (1615 mm) wheelbase. Almost everything on the Victory is B-I-G and slightly over-dimensioned (er, bigger is better, right?), and that includes the rear 180 55B/17 Dunlop D205 Sport Touring tire sitting on its 5.50-inch cast-aluminium Hayes wheel, which I would guess must by some way be the closest ever to a sportbike rear end yet found on a cruiser. Same thing up front, while here it's not so much the 120 70B/17 Dunlop that catches the eye (though the fact that both tires are 17 -inchers tells you something about which way Victory is headed with this motorcycle) but the twin 300mm Brembo floating brake discs gripped by fourpiston calipers, which announce this as a bike designed to be ridden hard and stopped fast. Sling a leg over the SportCruiser's low 28.5 inch seat, grope around beneath the left flank of the fairly bulky fuel tank to find the ignition key, pull the handlebar-mounted choke lever which it's a surprise to find fitted to a fuel injected motorcycle - why no automatic cold-start enrichener? - thumb the rather noisy electric starter's button, and the Victory engine spins into life with a satisfying but muted boom from the single twin-exit exhaust silencer which is another design cue for the bike's sporting pretensions. Well, by cruising standards, anyway. While relatively sporty for a bike of this type, with the V92C's footboards replaced by 'proper' footpegs which are however mounted quite far forward, the riding position is pretty stretched out, thus adding to the impression of size, with the flatter, less pulled-back but still high-set handlebars compared to the V92C imposing more of a reach forward. However, low speed maneuvering through crowded parking lots or city streets seems rather cumbersome even by cruisebike standards, but once you get up to 30 mph or more it becomes a much more controllable package. Though sportcruisin' the American way means a longer, lower and leaner mount targeted at a more purposeful drag down a four-lane freeway, rather Big is the word most employed when describing the V92SC, whether it be directed at the ellhaust (Far left), the rear brake disc (Above) or the fuel tank (Left). keeps the rear tire well in contact with planet earth, and means the only thing you have to worry about is making the turn without running head-on into oncoming traffic by crossing the center line. However, you do have a weapon to protect yourself with against such an eventuality, and that's the truly excellent braking for such a big, heavy bike delivered by the combination worthy of a Ducati Monster of the twin front Brembos and the same-size rear disc's twin-piston caliper. Singledigit leverage on the front stoppers is sufficient to stop safely and fast from quite high speeds, i.e. 70 mph, without resorting to the rather woodenfeeling rear, which I ended up using only for panic stops. Well, just the once, in fact, when one of Florida's typically mature citizens pulled out from a side turn on the Stetson University campus in downtown Deland in a beautiful early-'60s Ford Fairlane he probably had from new, and proceeded to glower at me when I dared to screech the rear Dunlop standing on everything to avoid putting a newmillennium dent in his classicchrome side panel. So it works, then, the rear brake but the nice thing about the Victory is that it doesn't get squirrely when you squeeze the Brembos hard: the combination of the long wheelbase and low build means weight transfer is minimized, and the much stiffer springing of the 50mm Marzocchis compared to the V92C's smaller ones than an agile, quick-handling device with which to tool the twisties of a junior Alp, the Victory does corner well, within the limits of the arrested ground clearance of the Triple-L concept. Long before you start to explore the limits of the Dunlop rubber's grip, you'll be dragging the footrest on the right and the easy-to-use sidestand on the left at anything approaching a spirited cornering SPeed by sportbike terms, though it must be said the Fox shock and Marzocchi forks seem quite capable of handling more if it could be thrown at them - especially if you take advantage of the Fox's one-inch ride height adjustment, which allows customers to crank 'er over a little further after jacking the rear end up by that amount. Steering is sharp and surprisingly precise for such a long-wheelbased motorcycle with kicked-out geometry, as evidenced by the 30-degree head angle and massive 120mm of trail, though you do have to work at telling it what you want it to do via a good tug on the high-rise handlebars. But the payoff for this is the rocksolid stability around faster turns, or slower ones with a bump on the apex that even the stiff springing of the front fork can't upset. No risk of upsetting the bike when you do ground out, though, thanks to the hefty 657-pound dry weight which Where the Victory undoubtedly scores is in having a clean-sheet engine design that breaks free from the historical baggage of 100 years of tradition. So, instead of a 45-degree cylinder angle, it has 50 degrees; instead of two valves per cylinder, it has four; instead of pushrods, it has a single chain-driven overhead camshaft on each cylinder, with self-adjusting hydraulic valve lifters; instead of a chain primary drive, it has a unit-construction five-speed gearbox with gear primary; instead of carburetors, it has multipoint fuel injection. Built at the Polaris engine plant in Osceola, Wisconsin, alongside those engines for its other products that Polaris don't source from Fuji Heavy Industries in Japan, whose Subaru car division is their Japanese distributor (so, it was a close call for a fiat-four Victory engine derived f,?m the World Rally champion car's motor, then?!) and thence trucked to the company s motorcycle assembly line in Spirit Lake, Iowa, the powerp!ants were developed 100% in-house at Polaris, rather than by an outside consultant such as Ricardo or Cosworth - or Porsche.. Measuring 97 x 102 mm for a capacity of 1507cc, or 92 cubic inches, the V92 englOe is Identical to both models, with a lowly 8.5:1 compression from the German·made Mahle pistons running in the same company's Nikasil chrome-bore cylinders delivering 63 hp and a hefty 80 ft./lb. of torque. This is more than the '99 Victory managed to produce, thanks to concerns about meeting noise and emissions levels which caused engineers to rein in performance on the early bikes: the 'DO version has revised camshafts and a bigger airbox, as well as remapped fuel injection and, of course, in SC mode, that sportIer exhaust. cu cle n e vv 50 • MARCH 29. 2000 19

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