Victory Cross Country Extended test ride

I got the opportunity to take an extended test ride on a Victory Cross Country so I figured I would share my impressions.

First a little about me, I currently own a BMW R 1100S and a Yamaha Royal Star Venture. I use the BMW for solo stuff and the Yamaha for two up riding. I am looking for a different bike for two up stuff. I am 6 foot 2 inches tall, but I have short legs, a 32 inch inseam. Because of that I sit a bit taller in the seat (My torso is long to make up for my short legs).

The Victory sounds nice on Paper, and it is. The bike looks nice and has some nice amenities. It has a radio, cruise control, very nice luggage and built into the right saddlebag is a hook up and pocket to hold your IPod or iPhone 4s or older. It also has a trip computer with several functions. It has dual trip odometers, average fuel economy, distance to empty, average speed, instant fuel economy and time since reset. Each of these functions is reset individually and all is controlled by a trigger on the left grip you operate with your left index finger. I found it very easy and intuitive to use. There is also an outside temperature gauge to let you know what the ambient temperature is. I have been trying to figure out how to add this to my bike, so needless to say I like that little gadget.

The bike also has a gear indicator, but I don’t really like it. It does not read position of the shift drum and let you know what gear you are in, it looks at engine RPM and road speed and calculates what gear you are in. Because of that any time you pull in the clutch the display goes blank. This gear indicator is also very large, about 3 times the size of any other information on the display. Very small nit to pick, but it bugs me

The cruse and the radio work nice, I will give more details in the body of my ride report, but the controls look like an afterthought. Not that they are bad, they are just kind of stuck on under the switchgear. Radio on the left and cruse on the right.

I picked the bike up in Fort Collins and Decided I would ride up to Walden for lunch. Highway 287 up to Highway 14 and I am on my way.

AS I turned off 287 to 14 to head up the hill I stopped to fill the tank up. The filler is in a slightly odd place compared to what I am used to. I can’t look down the filler neck as I fill the bike up, but this does not hamper refueling in any way, it’s just not what I am used to. In fact the neck seems to be designed well and gas will bubble up in the neck and not overflow to let you know when to stop. So I guess I didn’t have to see in there anyway.

The engine is very smooth, no paint shaker when you are stopped and very smooth when under way (remember I am used to a BMW twin). The fuel injection is spot on. This bike has what Victory calls a “Stage 1 Kit” so a different exhaust and re-flash of the computer from stock, but it works very well.

Engine power is very good for a bike like this. I had no issues climbing up the pass, or passing cars on the way up. I did not ride two up but I feel the power would have been plenty to carry two as well.

The suspension and brakes were up to the task of the canyon as well. No you can’t ride it like a sport bike but you can ride a spirited pace in the twisty bits. There was no wallowing around the corners and any irregularities were soaked right up. The front fork is an upside down unit, rear shock is hidden so I don’t know what it is. The brakes also have no trouble hauling the bike down from speed, just use at least three fingers. Not because of effort required but the lever moves close to the bar and will trap your fingers if you leave two there, one didn’t seem to be an issue.

It was a very pleasant ride. The bike flowed through the corners well and engine, chassis and brakes made it an easy task for me to simply enjoy the ride up to Walden.

After a break for lunch in Walden I headed up Hwy 125 to Laramie Wyoming.

This is where I first used the cruise control and it works as well as any I have ever used. It has all of the features you would expect to see in a cruise control, set, coast, accelerate and resume. It performed flawlessly.

I played with the radio as well. In town you can listen to music. But at highway speeds there is too much noise to hear the speakers that are built into the bike.

Since I have an iPhone 4s I also tried hooking that up to the provided dock. The cable fit as expected and the pocket for my phone was perfect. The handlebar controls allowed me to switch from listening to the radio to listening to my iPhone. They also allowed me to change songs with the tune button provided for the radio.

I have a blue tooth intercom which I normally use. With my iPhone mounted in the saddlebag my Bluetooth was still able to connect to my phone in the saddlebag, so I was able to have the phone constantly on charge as I listened to my music through my in ear monitors.

As I was heading up to Laramie I also played with the on board computer. I selected the instantaneous gas mileage display and watched what the computer thought I was doing gas mileage wise. I had he cruse set to 80 MPH and the display said I was getting 50 MPG. I reduced speed to 72 and the display now said I was getting 60 MPG. Very good.

The amazing fuel mileage did not last forever though. As I left Laramie and headed South again down Highway 287 toward for Collins the same 72 MPH set point that was just recently netting me 60 MPG was now getting only 40 MPG. Ah, a headwind. I had been being pushed into Laramie by a tailwind which since I had reversed course was now a head wind. This brought up my only complaint about the bike, wind noise. Up until I turned south the front windscreen was doing a very good job of keeping the wind off of me. My chest and hands were completely protected. At speeds above 65 I did start to notice buffeting around my helmet (remember my comment about me sitting tall in the saddle?) Now facing the headwind this buffeting became worse. I was able to hear my music, but the wind pushed my head about a bit and there was a bit of noise along with that too. In fairness, I also get wind noise on my Yamaha. Not sure if this is worse, it was different however. Victory does offer three different windshields for this bike and this one was quite low, it was well below my field of vision. So a taller screen could easily be fitted and should help the buffeting and still allow me to look over the screen with no problems.

I filled the bike up twice on my loop, once at Walden. Then again when I got back home. Climbing the canyon up to Walden I got right at 40 MPG. The leg home fighting the wind back to Fort Collins I got a little better that 43 MPG. Both times the Average MPG on the trip computer was less than 1 MPG different, but both times higher than calculated.

Overall I would say this is a very nice bike. I would take on for a test ride and see if you have the same issue with the wind noise I do, or if you can get a screen on it that solves that issue for you because I think mechanically this is a very nice bike.