Victory V92sc

VICTORY V92SC

One year into production, Polaris broadens its line successfully, and still has a little work to do

CYCLE WORLD TEST

THE NEW VICTORY V92SC IS A BIG, STRONG LUG OF A MOTORCYCLE, THE two-wheeled equivalent of a comic-book superhero. It's not refined or pretty and lacks a few social graces, but in compensation, it ripples with masculine muscle, a machine as honest and forthright as Clark Kent-and no more able to smooth-talk Lois Lane.

Polaris’ engineers created the SC by enhancing what they had already in the Victory V92C: arguably the best-handling chassis in cruiserdom, powered by a big, torque-rich engine. The transition from Cruiser C to SportCruiser SC came with some obvious additions: low-profile 17-inch radiais (a wide 180mm in back) substituting for 16-inch bias-plies, a husky 50mm Marzocchi fork replacing an

already beefy 45mm unit, an extra front disc and four-piston Brembo caliper, slightly rear-mounted footpegs replacing floorboards, and a low and wide handlebar. And, of course, there’s the signature piece: a carsized oval muffler capping a 2-into-l exhaust system, replacing shortie duals and completely changing the image of the bike.

You sit down into the new machine, leaning forward ever so slightly, hands stretched wide on the bar. Your feet are low and forward of your center of gravity-a compromise between sport and cruising not unlike that of just about any “standard” motorcycle of the Seventies.

The first thing you notice, though, is that the SC is one big motorcycle. It feels heavy when you wheel it out of your garage, and the scales confirm it: 702 pounds with a full tank of gas. The wheelbase stretches out to 64.1 inches, and, despite a 29.9-inch seat height, the SC feels tall. At the lowest speeds-under 10 mph-the steering is noticeably imprecise and floppy, adding to the feeling that the SC is controlling you, rather than the reverse.

Roll the throttle on and accelerate past a brisk walk, and the SC sheds pounds. The big, 1507cc, 50-degree V-Twin pulls strongly from under 2000 rpm into a fat midrange, revving out strongly-unlike earlier Victories, which came on strong and faded early. The steering that was so imprecise in the driveway becomes knife-like at road speed, responding to inputs immediately but with stability and grace; this is a machine that only does what you ask it to do. At 60 mph in top gear, the engine rumbles along pleasantly, a deep full-bodied beat emerging from the exhaust, vibration existing only to the extent that you’re aware the engine is doing its job without stress or strain. Dial it up further, and the engine’s heartbeat eventually turns into a buzz, but by that time you’re traveling above 80 mph and the effective speed limit anywhere in this country.

The willingness of the SC’s engine comes from a thorough retuning that’s shared with that of the year-2000 V92C. It’s no secret that prototype Victories-including the one first ridden by editors of this magazine-ran much stronger than 1999 production machines. A good 10 horsepower or more were given away late in development in the search for acceptable emission and noise outputs, as well as for durability concerns. But with another year and more experience under their belts, the Polaris engineers went back looking for the missing horses inside that big, fourvalve, air/oil-cooled engine. By adding a larger airbox that quieted more while at the same time cutting intake restriction, they could also add a freer-flowing muffler-boosting high-quality exhaust music in exchange for some intake honk that no one would miss. New cam profiles and a fuelinjection recalibration complete the package.

The results are a torque curve that peaks 5 foot-pounds higher at 80 ft.-lbs. while not falling off as quickly at the top end, and a horsepower peak of 62.9, fully 8 stronger than last year’s Victory. Those numbers demonstrate themselves in every one of our tests: The quarter mile is covered .4 second more quickly, 0-60 mph comes .5 second more quickly, and top gear roll-ons of 40-60 mph and 6080 mph are roughly a second quicker. More importantly, though, you reap the results in every ride; on the SC you feel as if you’re the king of cruiser V-Twin midrange, with torque to burn.

Of course, even a brief ride will convince you of the next task for the engineers: quieting the infernally noisy gearshifts. It’s not that the SC’s transmission causes you to miss shifts. We didn’t suffer one missed gearchange while we had the bike. And it’s not even that the shift action is overly notchy, imprecise or too stiff; in fact, the shift quality is not that bad, only slightly high effort. It’s just that when you rack up an upshift or downshift, it sounds as if you’re hammering the gears together with a six-pound sledge. Occasionally, you’ll hear the momentary grind of gear dogs rattling past each other before full engagement takes place, but more often it’s simply a loud clang that rings through the engine structure. It’s a sound we could do without. Additionally, first gear on the SC is too low for the newfound power; you run into redline unexpectedly quickly, at approximately 30 mph. Closing up gear ratios overall would fix that while likely improving both shift quality and noise.

Similarly, there’s still work to be done by the Polaris stylists. In particular, the rear fender treatment looks ungainly—too big, too deep, too elevated above the tire. And who thought of the crinkle-black finish on the headlight shell?

Fortunately, most of the time, styling is the last thing you’re thinking about when you ride the SC. Instead, you’re enjoying the delightful character of its engine and the machine’s handling. The exhaust note sounds almost too deep a baritone bark to be legal-but it is. The engine talks to you with the relaxing rumbles that travel through the seat and bars, rumbles that only turn into annoyances as you use the last quarter of the rev range. The wide handlebar gives you the leverage to quickly roll the SC into a comer, and the tires are still velcroed to the pavement when you run out of ground clearance-when you’ve about doubled the speed on the yellow advisory signs, the small-diameter footpeg feelers touch down, rattling your foot as they track every tiny decrevity in the pavement. A jgjj k few degrees more ƒ ^ of lean, and the hard-mounted footpeg bracket 1 f begins dragging on either side, as well as the exhaust pipe on the right. You’re flying past traditional cruisers, the SC so stable and sure-footed that you wish the ground clearance were greater. Still, there’s plenty of warning before the hard parts hit, and even when they do, the SC keeps its composure.

Just as in handling, the braking of the SC sets cruiser standards. With twin 300mm front discs and four-piston calipers, you’d expect the SC to stop strongly, and it does. But with the long wheelbase that reduces weight transfer, the performance of the rear brake is important as well, and a third 300mm disc and four-pot caliper take care of that. It’s hard to argue with stops from 30 mph in 29 feet, or 60 mph in 120, or with the sense of power the SC’s brake controls give.

The SC’s size pays off on the highway. The roomy riding position and the broad, densely padded seat translate into a platform that works surprisingly well for interstate-based touring. In fact, you may end up wishing for better fuel mileage or a bigger gas tank; the fuel warning light comes up when a little more than 3 gallons of gas has run through the 5-gallon tank, just 120 miles since the last fill-up, and at that point, you’re still comfortable and ready to run another hour or so without a break. When night falls, the big, round headlight casts a wide pattern, and the miles keep flowing past naturally. For something called a “sport cruiser,” the SC is an amazingly well-rounded motorcycle.

Overall, then, the Victory SC is an almost uniquely distinguished cruiser, with performance that sets it apart from 95-plus percent of the breed. And it’s a machine that has seen significant improvements from the first Victory released just over a year ago—even if it’s still a strong and relatively unpolished lug. Of course, even Superman had to start somewhere. □

EDITORS' NOTES

IT MAY JUST BE ME, BUT "SPORTCRUISER" seems to be a non sequitur, you know, like "military intelligence" or "corpo rate morality." The problem with a bike like the SC is that it handles well enough that you want to ride it hard, yet if you ride it hard you run out of ground clearance long before you run out of traction. Of course, if Victory were to jack up the bike enough to eliminate that problem, it would likely end up too tall and L~~p-heavy to still fit the cruiser category.

In other ways, the SC is a nice enough machine, except for that noisy gearbox; I simply couldn’t live with it on an everyday basis. The problem appears to result in part from unwarranted Harley emulation: The SC has a roughly 3.5:1 or so ratio spread between first and top, just like a Big Twin. That’s a wide range to cover with five gears, and if there’s anything unsynchronized dog-clutch gearboxes don’t like, it’s big gaps between gears. Drop the ratio spread to 2.5:1, and the torquey engine would easily pull the taller first gear, and the closer-ratio box would shift more easily, smoothly and quietly. -Steve Anderson, Contributing Editor

VICTORY'S NEWEST MODEL STIRS WITHIN me long-dormant memories of midEighties Japanese bikes, namely Honda's V-Four Sabre and Kawasaki's musciely Eliminator 900. Positioned semi-standard-like between apex-mag net sportbike and boulevard cruiser, those machines offered upright, rational riding positions, dual front disc brakes and broad, meaty powerbands.

Much the same can be said of the V92SC. The made-inMinnesota Vee-motor delivers abundant torque (up considerably from previous iterations), and boasts a newly tapped revvy nature. Lazy, it’s not. Thumbs-up, too, to the brickwall brakes and firmed-up suspension.

Where things fail to jibe, for me, is in the SC’s appearance. The rear fender, for example, is nothing more than a (badly) chopped version of what comes standard on the V92C. Different model, why not a different fender?

-Matthew Miles, Managing Editor

I 1-IADN'T GONE 50 YARDS ON lift SC before I pulled over to see if the front tire wasn't 10 psi low (it wasn't) or the steering-head bearings hadn't been over-tightened (they were okay)-that's how vague the Victory's low-speed steering is. Everything comes right in the twisties, where the SC puts some serious distance on most other cruisers. Don't harbor any intentions of hangin' with repli-racers, or even sport-standards like Kawasaki’s ZRX1100, though.

Enough’s already been made of the V92SC’s (lack of) looks, so let me focus on something a little more esoteric. This bike is important because it advances the trend-started by Harley-Davidson and Moto Guzzi-of cruisers having some blood in their veins. Gone for good, we hope, are the days of 1500cc V-Twins that couldn’t crack 50 horsepower or had a hard time negotiating on-ramps at anything over Buick Regal cornering gs. Good on ya. Victory.

Now, can we please do something about that rifle-crack gearbox? -David Edwards, Editor-in-Chief

VICTORY V92SC

PECIFICATIONS

$14,339