In cruiserdom, baggers are still all the rage, and more makers are getting into the act every year. To parapwhrase our sister publication
Baggers, these bikes are designed to straddle the line defined by Custom Touring. While the more popular sub-niche of the genre sports a fork-mounted fairing, riders more concerned about handling often opt for bikes with a frame-mounted fairing, which puts more weight on the front wheel, but less north of the steering head.
The models we assembled are not simply stripped versions of their full-boat touring cousins, either; in fact, the Road Glide Custom beat its fully-dressed cousin to market by over a year (or 12, depending on how you’re counting). But more minimal they are, with a generally lower trim level than the top-of-the-line touring rigs, sometimes dramatically so.
The most spartan of the bunch is the Victory Vision 8-Ball. As a lowered and stripped-down luxo-tourer, you could say it represents a paradox. The original Vision is designed to eat miles in style, and this one carries much of that design, but without virtually any of the bells and whistles. This is a Vision without a sound system, electronic windshield, reverse gear, ABS, cruise control, and a top box. It’s also lowered four inches at the seat via a shorter shock and less padding in the saddle, and it’s blacked-out in all the right places.
Harley-Davidson’s Road Glide Custom isn’t so much stripped (the previous Road Glide standard was equipped similarly) as ripped. The frame-mount-fairing-ed twin to the ever-popular Street Glide in nearly all facets, it’s lowered and sports nice custom touches like fancy floorboards and no central taillight, but doesn’t skimp on the fluff, as its sky-high price tag attests. Additionally, ours came very well-equipped with the Power Pak upgrade (consisting of ABS, security system, and the larger Twin Cam 103 motor) and cruise control.
With the newest entry in the category, Kawasaki opted to tweak their Voyager (rather than just strip it) to come up with the new-for-2011 Vaquero. Based on their Vulcan 1700 platform, it’s a model set up to straddle the line between Tour and Cruise and fulfill a multitude of roles, though it skewed a bit more toward cruising than the other two. It rocks a version of the Voyager fairing without the spotlights, a smaller fairing lower, briefer seat, and loads of glorious dull black paint to offset the brilliant red paint job.
Style is where all these bikes start, so we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention it. The Vaquero cuts a narrow path between old school bagger and modern custom, totally nailing the look, and impressing all the test riders. The Harley, on the other hand, rocks a New Wave ‘80s look that was slightly updated in the ‘90s, but has changed little since then. While it can cut a mean profile as a full-on custom bagger, as a stock bike, it’s past its prime. The very forward-looking Vision designers took risks (and are quite proud of them), but that means visuals that are far from everybody’s cup of tea, with folks loving it and hating it in fairly even amounts.
[Harley-Davidson]
[Kawasaki]
[Victory]
Aside from aesthetics, the engine designs are fairly different as well. While all are powered by large-ish V-twins, you’ve got a couple of overhead cam models in the Victory and Kawasaki, and the de rigueur pushrod motor from Harley. On the chassis front, Harley is once again in the traditional camp with a steel frame, but so is the Vulcan, while the Vision boldly employs a cast aluminum skeleton and unconventional layout, with the gas tanks up around the steering head. For all these differences, the running gear is pretty close, with similarly-sized rubber on all three machines; only the Vulcan is significantly different, with a 16 inch front wheel, to the other two’s 18-inchers. Weights are fairly close, despite appearances, as are the wheelbases, with the Roadie coming up a couple of inches shorter than the other two, thanks to offset triple trees. Just a few years ago belt-driven 6-speed touring bikes were fairly rare, but all three of these are equipped exactly that way.
As these bikes are a blend of custom street ripper and high-mileage tourer, we made sure to give them a hearty mix of in-town riding, interstate, and mostly the delicious rural roads that fall somewhere between the two. These bikes might look and feel very different, but the intent for all the three is pretty clear: comfortable, cool, convenient, and rideable.
Around town the Road Glide ruled. The torquey 103-inch mill was in its element, as was the quick-steering chassis, easily maneuvering through the craziness that is an urban environment. The short-travel suspension wasn’t ideal, but at least was easily adjustable with the air-pump (and you can say that about the others as well). The Vision was clearly out of its element; while not totally unwieldy, it did require a little more space and forethought to avoid getting into trouble, just like you’d expect of a touring bike. Like so many other times in this comparison, the Kawasaki did the job just fine, not particularly shining or failing. The Vaquero does seem to carry its weight higher, causing one of our testers fits in tight maneuvering.