Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Down Time: Bikes in North Carolina

While in North Carolina on September 15, made a stop to check out the new motorcycles at RideNow in Concord, NC. My bike is still in the shop, but may be out and back in my hands this weekend! I ride a Kawasaki Vulcan, this is the Kawasaki Concours 14. The engine for this bike is the powerful ZX-14 engine, and it can really move the 688 pound bike with its 131 horsepower and 88 foot pounds of torque. This bike also uses shaft drive. The bike is a very good (I have read) sport touring motorcycle I am a big fan of the ZX-14, but would this version in my case to be a lot more practical for the manner in which I ride.
In a previous review I rode a couple of Victory Motorcycles, but did not get to ride the Victory Vision. This bike might be a 2012: Victory like Harley-Davidson come out with the new models earlier than foreign manufacturers. The Victory is a fine motorcycle though. I for sure like (though many don't) the sci-fi look of the bike, it is certainly a very interesting motorcycle. I found Victory transmissions to be clunky in the two bikes I rode a few weeks ago, can't speak to this one's, but found the v-twin engines Victory makes to be very impressive. Victory also has a very good customer satisfaction rating, they seem to be here to stay.
Does not currently seem to be in the 2012 Harley-Davidson lineup, but the Rocker models (there were two at one time) were/are interesting bikes. The seat has a trick feature; the passenger pad unfolds from under it. Of course this is one of the "factory chopper" bikes-Honda also had a bike like this (and still does) called the Fury. At any case, the HD came with the 1584cc Twin Cam 96B engine, a 90mm front tire, and a 240mm in the rear. A sharp looking bike, but not sure how it would handle with the extended front end (choppers tend to be great in a straight line, but curvy roads can be interesting. I have seen some 2012 models, will be showing them in a upcoming post. Thanks for visiting my page.

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