Only if the Duc rider is very new, very bad, or very scared. Come on now, I love my Road King but any sport bike with a halfway decent rider will eat my lunch. And that's ok.
Bring it... We have roads out here that make the tail of the dragon look straight. I would be happy to school you folks on how to ride a bike through the twisties, and I will do it with the cruse set, the music blaring, and sucking on a star bucks macchiato. Yes... Them are fightin words. I don't ride a Road King.
Wow has this gotten off topic No Harleys are not made to compete with Ducatis or that type of bike. Why would they even bother, it's not who they're trying to sell to. Someone looking at an Electra Glide could care less about what most Ducs have to offer. Having owned Ducs in the past they're fine bikes and do everything they should do well (except fuel smoothly at low RPMs) but putting 3-4000 miles on in week isn't one of them. Maybe I'm just a pussy but after a 500 mile day on my 1198 I didn't ride it for a week (not to mention having to stop for gas every 100 miles which just pisses me off). If your thing is burning up canyon roads and keeping an eye open for cops - the Duc is a fine tool
OK I NEED to see this victory vs duck ride... classic. Some people are just totally full of shit. My road king is nowhere near the performance bike a victory is. But its a far superior cruiser. Thank god I was shopping for a touring cruiser. I found the best one I could imagine. The cross roads vic I road felt like a REALLY nice Honda shadow. That's not a compliment. It seems like their engineers spend a lot of time developing anti HD qualities. No shit one drain bolt? Was I having a hard time with three? Seriously? A belt change that saves me two hours out of every 3-5 years? Did they Google harley maintenance complaints, write a brochure, then demand a bike to match from engineering? Who cares about those two hours really. Trying to hustle a heavy touring cruiser is dumb. Don't try to race me. Squid.
You should do a little research before you try to establish your self as an expert on a motorcycle you don't own. re; hydraulic lifters - you still don't have it figured out. Also, I like the idea that my clutch pack is isolated from my engine oil, and vice versa. I am glad you enjoy your Victory so much.
I used to be a Harley tech... so I can answer some of the service questions. Valve adjustments stopped in 1984 / 1985. Shovelheads had hydraulic lifters, but adjustable pushrods, so you had to adjust the valves every 5,000-ish miles. Shovelheads ended in 1984/5 depending on the model. Ironhead sportsters had solid lifters and solid pushrods, so they erquired valve adjustments every 1,000 to 2,000 miles. 1985 was the last year for the Ironhead sportster. The Evo motor came out in 1984 for some models and and in 1986 for the Sportster. Evos are basically no maintinance other than oil and filter changes. Evos were 1984-1999. Twin Cams came out in 1999, and are also very little maintinance. Some wear out cam chain tensioners, so you should check yours every 20,000 miles. This is an easy job, less than 1 hr. Early (1999-2000) Twin Cams had a cam bearing recall, but these should all be fixed by now. In my opinion, the 88'' is the best Twin Cam. The bigger ones tend to have overheating issues in really hot weather, and that can get expensive. Belt drive came out as early as 1978 on some special edition Shovelheads and in 1991 on sportsters. A well maintained belt should easily last 50,000 miles. Checking belt adjustment takes about 10 seconds and wiping it clean once a week takes about 2 minutes. On some models, specifically the FXR series and some swingarm based touring bikes replacing the belt is a HUGE job. You neet to remove the entire swingarm and the inner+outer primary (including primary drive and clutch). On these models the swingarm pivot shaft is what mounts the rear of the transmission, so that usually need to be un-bolted too, in order to align everything for re-assembly. This will take an experienced harley mechanic 2-ish hours. If you have never done it before, its a weekend project with a buddy helping. Belts only needs to be done every 50,000 miles though!! Thats a lot of riding time. Think about it, at that point it doesnt hurt to open up your primary to check your clutch and primary chain and to inspect your wheel bearings and swingarm pivot while its off. I fall under the 'better safe than sorry' mindset... so even if I didnt need to take all these things apart to replace the belt I would WANT to inspect them anyway. It only takes ONE unexpected part failure to do serious damage to you and your bike... ride safe and dont skimp on maintinance. My favorite low maintinance Harley are the 1986-1999 Evos. They are rock solid bikes with great build quality. 1986 was the first year that all the big twins got the new style ball and ramp clutch setup and new style 5 speed tranny. Both are big improvememts... the pre 1985 5 speeds and 4 speeds were one of the main causes of the 'Harleys leak' reputation. These older (1985 and older) trannies almost always got BAD mainshaft seal leaks, which requires the whole primary to be taken off to fix. Plus, a nice 1986-1999 Evo Harley can be had for a fraction of the price of a Twin Cam... and give you just as many (if not more) trouble fre miles as a Twin Cam. For ultimate low maintinance, get a 1986-2003 sportster. They are 'unit construction', so the primary and tranny fluid is all one, so its one less fluid change. Plus, they do not have seperate trannys or primary drives to leak (but this isnt really a problem on 1986 and newer Harleys anyway).
You're cute.... I love the name calling. It's never about the bike but the skill of the rider... There are a lot of unskillful riders out there, a lot of them own sports bikes or HDs. They are easy targets on any Victory in skilled hands. But if one wants a big twin American cruiser that actually handles well, has power out of the box, cost less to own, requires less to maintain, and was actually engineered in this century, HD isn't the manufacture to buy from. Before I bought my American cruiser, I test road both HD and Vic. The HD was so incredible unimpressive, it makes me wonder how HD is still in business. I guess as more younger bikers enter the cruiser arena, that HD is shedding market share like it means too. Hiding behind "heritage" and "tradition" is a shitty excuse to design and build sub par products. The best bike to roll out of HD in a few decades is the V-Rod, and that power plant is German. There is nothing wrong with hustling a heavy cruiser, I do it all it the time, the Vision was built for it, but I also have the skill for it. Sounds like you Road King handles like a school bus... I'll pass, I don't like making 4 point turns around sweeping corners.
Glad to hear someone besides me likes EVOs. I think the 80 c.i. EVO is the best Harley engine ever. And this is a Harley thread, or at least a cruiser thread. No Ducati rider is going to have any interest in a Harley, Victory, or any other cruiser. Two completely different things. Not that one is better than the other, just different. Way different.
Hahahahahhahaha! Wow. Whatevs, dood. Chill out. You don't like Harley. Don't buy one. Yep. I have an older neighbor with an 89 Electra Glide Sport. The one with the windshield, not a fairing. Gorgeous bike. I'm just waiting on him to finally sell it, lol.
Oh I'll disagree with that. I've got a Harley Road King myself. But the Ducati Diavel is one of the most interesting modern made bike I've sat on. I'd be very interested in spending some saddle time on one. That seems like it might be quite the touring machine.
Only issue I see with that if you really want to tour a Dival is fuel capacity. They spec it at 17l or 4.5 gallons which in my experience with Ducati means you'd run dry at less than 4 gallons used. Knowing how hard it is to ride a bike like that without pinning the throttle I'd be lucky to get 120 between fuel stops. Your road king can probabaly do 200+ without sweating...
I'm too lazy to go back and get all your Harley bashing quotes. It's always entertaining when somebody buys a non Harley cruiser and then tries to convince everyone else (and themselves) in post after post that their bike is better than the Harley because blah blah blah....... Guess what, we really dont care why you bought whatever bike you bought. Enjoy your motorcycle.
He wasn't asking about a Victory, he was asking about a HD and I wouldn't buy a Victory with a stage 2 that I didn't know who did the work either bullet proof or not. Too many cam profiles out there that I have zero interest in. It could also void the factory warranty depending on what brand and who did it. Totally not worth it IMO
Somebody PLEASE show up with a Ducati (especially if your other ride is a horse) and a helmet cam. Please.
I think Harleys are fine bikes. I don't want one, but its because I don't like the seating position/style. I much prefer my BMW's. If Harley build a bike that had a riding position like my BMW's and similar performance I'd give it a look. But they don't.
As this thread has become a "which bike is better" thread, I would like to say that all of the comparison tests that I have read show Harleys and Victorys to be nearly equal. I could be happy with either one. Plenty of power, breaking, style, and engineering improvements. Either brand is light years better than any bike we had in the late sixties. Buy what you like or can afford and enjoy!
