Victory Motorcycles Kingpin Tour takes on Harley with high tech
WARNING: Dozens of bugs were sacrificed for this review.
That’s what happens when you ride a weekender the way it’s meant to be ridden, as I did over four days and 1,100 miles through forest, desert and near-lunar landscapes. After a whirlwind trip between L.A. and Tucson, the windshield on my 2007 Victory Kingpin Tour was caked with squished entomological specimens.
Not bad for a city boy that’s been dressed up for country cruising.
The Kingpin Tour is the touring version of Victory’s 2-year-old, 100-cubic-inch Kingpin. The only differences are the windshields (out front, as well as on the fork tubes) and luggage. Otherwise, it’s the same compact, 50-degree “Freedom” V-twin, with single overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder -- valves that don’t need adjusting because they use hydraulically adjusted cam chains and hydraulic lifters to self-pressurize and stay at the correct spec.
If you’re wondering how a small American cruiser line can compete against Mr. Davidson, those valves are part of the answer. The Victory concept: Technological advancement is a good thing, which is how the Kingpin Tour can justify its Harley-comparable premium price of $17,999. Manufactured for nine years by Minnesota-based snowmobile-maker Polaris, Victory motorcycles may not have the heritage, looks or status of those from its Midwestern neighbor, but they’ve got the goods under the hood.
On a touring bike, that’s especially valuable, since the last thing you want is to be stranded in “Deliverance” land. The closest I came to dueling banjos was when I got so low on gas in the middle of nowhere along California 371 that I had to coast down an entire mountainside. That’s probably the biggest negative to this bike: the 4.5-gallon tank is too small. The farthest I ever got on a tank was 140 miles, and that was from top-off to fumes. Otherwise, the light came on about every 100 miles.
Like every Victory motorcycle since the company’s inception, the Kingpin Tour is fuel injected and air/oil-cooled. Even riding for nine hours straight, it never felt hot or pitched a fit in any way. It was smooth sailing, due in part to a torque compensator on the primary drive, which decreases vibration from the power pulses of the cylinders. The final drive is a low-maintenance and lightweight carbon-fiber-reinforced belt, rather than a heavy shaft drive, which allows more horsepower from the motor to transfer to the rear wheel.
The Kingpin Tour isn’t especially torque-y, which is fine since a lot of times on a tourer you’re just holding the throttle steady. For the 150 or so miles I ventured through two-lane twisties, it performed fairly well for a bike that’s long as a Dodger Dog and heavy as the people who regularly eat them, though I learned it was best to add no more than 10 mph to posted corner speeds because it wants to go wide.
I only scraped the hinged floorboards once, and that was pushing the limit on a 15-mph corner. The Kingpin Tour has a good 5.8 inches of ground clearance, which I inadvertently tested when I pulled over at a ghost town cafe and made the mistake of choosing a lumpy, motocross-style dirt exit that, to my surprise, didn’t bottom out the bike. It did throw me off balance, but I was able to save myself from a dumping because the saddle height of 26.5 inches makes the ground so reachable.
Dry, the Kingpin Tour is 736 pounds, and I was grateful for every one of them on that stretch of Interstate 8 that’s so windy there’s actually a wind farm. I didn’t get blown around except for the occasional breakthrough gust, and I was never bullied into the next lane. On stretches of freeway, the windshields kept me well protected.
Overall, the Kingpin Tour performed beautifully. My only issues, aside from gas capacity, are minute. I would have liked a clock on the instrument panel, and I’d ditch the rainbow of colored plastic on the gas, oil, engine and other gauges. I’d also up the capacity on the side bags (which hold only 4.5 gallons each) and give them a single key. There were four -- one for the ignition, each side bag and another for the trunk -- flapping within range of my left kneecap.
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susan.carpenter@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
2007 Victory Kingpin Tour
Base price: $17,999
Powertrain: Air/oil-cooled, 50-degree V-twin, four-stroke, SOHC, four valves per cylinder, electronic fuel injection, six-speed
Displacement: 100 cubic inches
Bore and stroke: 101 mm by 102 mm
Seat height: 26.5 inches
Dry weight: 736 pounds
