Honda's monster V-twin brings bragging rights for maximum displacement. Just saying that it's packing 1800cc will elicit raised eyebrows and low whistles and make the uninitiated step back and give it another long look. That bigger-than-life liquid-cooled long-stroke 1795cc V-twin has a 125cc advantage on the next-biggest bike here, the Warrior. Breathing a fuel-injected mixture through three valves per cylinder, it appears to pack the technology to ensure that it will blow the side panels off the competition. It's nestled in a frame that is as long as the V-Rod's with a 67.5-inch wheelbase, and the low muscular lines of the VTX promise to deliver a whupping when the throttle cable is jerked.
But there are good and bad things about being big. Though its size makes it roomy and stylishly stretched, it also makes it heavy. It was startling to discover that the "simple" VTX twin is 20 pounds heavier than the massive-looking six-cylinder Valkyrie, the second-heaviest ride in this group. All that weight is just anti-power, since some of the power is consumed just hauling that extra tonnage. As a result, the VTX's performance figures don't live up to those big displacement numbers.
There's nothing like getting edged out at the lights by a bike of the same brand that's armed with just 42 percent of the displacement (over 1000cc less!) and leaves an extra $5000 in your jeans when you buy it instead of the VTX. The VTX couldn't quite overcome the inertia of all those pounds off the line to run down the Magna in the quarter-mile, though it was going 2.2 mph faster than that pesky 750 at the end of the strip. The VTX got to show its muscle more effectively in our top-gear acceleration measurements, where it eclipsed all but the V-Rod and V-Max. We suspect it would have done even better if the test was conducted at higher speeds.
Weight is also a liability when you are trying to stop or turn. Though most riders grumbled about the linked actuation system for the brakes, they provide great power and surprising levels of feedback. You also get a lot of feedback--too much of it--from the suspension. Bigger bumps hammer you through the rear end, and the ride can be herky-jerky on concrete-slab roadways. The jacking reaction of the shaft final drive system also makes it pitch around when throttle settings are changed abruptly, and since the carburetor doesn't like to react subtly, this is often the case. All of these modest shortcomings plus the considerable mass of the bike gang up on you in corners, where the VTX is reluctant to make sudden direction changes and bumpy surfaces can make the bike stutter. Cornering clearance is modest too. Still, most prefer the tank-ish VTX to the hard-to-point Warrior on bend-infested roads. The riding position, with the low-rise bar, semi-forward footpeg position, and roomy saddle, is comfortable both for long rides and short shots down the strip.
This C version of the 1795cc VTX family has an obvious street rod flavor, with its purposeful lines, aggressive posture, hardware like the inverted fork legs, and the long two-into-one pipe. We always decry the VTX's ignored details like the dangling turn-signal wiring and the eye-catching tank seam, but in this company the absence of a tachometer seems like the most glaring oversight. It is easy to spin the engine up into the rev limiter when trying to accelerate hard, and the limiter cuts in very hard. It takes a lot of experience with the bike to be able to hear and feel the optimum shift point. It needs a tach.
If you just want everyone to know you have a big one, the VTX is the musclebike for you. But if you want to actually flex your bike's muscles, the VTX is just too much.
Playing David to the VTX's Goliath, the comparatively diminutive VF750C showed precisely how less can be more and efficiency can overcome brute displacement. Though the Magna is the smallest bike in the group, it's also the lightest, which helped it get the jump off the line. And it makes horsepower by spinning up its 16-valve V4 to a higher rpm than any of those monster V-twins. It takes a bit more clutch slipping to get it away from a start quickly, but with 80 pounds less weight to accelerate than the next-lightest bike, the V-Max, the Magna will get moving in a hurry. That in turn enabled it to burn through the quarter-mile a beat quicker than the VTX. That big bad 1800 was going faster and catching up at the end of the quarter-mile however, and it put the pipsqueak in its place in the top-gear contest, which requires torque and power at a lower rpm, not the Magna's strong suit.
As you might expect, the Magna has the peakiest engine here. There isn't a lot of grunt down low. It likes to be revved a bit and shifted frequently. Still, the power is predictable and easy to control. You do need to know how to slip the clutch for a strong launch, but the Magna seems perfectly content to absorb a lot of this kind of treatment.
If the only criteria we scored were brute power and torque, the VTX would have gotten the position. Since it hasn't been given a bit of attention for a decade, the Magna is beginning to look a bit dated. Its suspension isn't as sophisticated as most of the others and its tires feel a bit less connected than the rubber on the newer bikes. But the absence of mass makes up for a lot of plainness in matters of chassis performance. On a tight road, the Magna steers so quickly and with so little effort that it won our sport-cruiser comparison a few years back. None of the musclebikes are light enough to keep it in sight on a twisting road with rapid-fire corners. It is steady and confident while leaned over and has lots of room to lean, rarely dragging anything.
The Magna's most noticeable chassis-performance shortcoming is its brakes, the only single-disc front and drum rear units here. The bike deserves more powerful binders and stickier tires to exploit them. As it is, the VF750C can't stop with the power of most of these other performance cruisers, though its "added lightness" means that it doesn't need as much power, either. Whether touring on the open road, strafing apexes on a meandering mountain lane or ripping off the line at the dragstrip, the Magna's conventional riding position backs you up.
Despite its four-pipe exhaust system, the Magna isn't likely to turn any heads if there is a V-Rod or Warrior in the vicinity. But you can comfort yourself with the $10,000 you have left over because you didn't buy the V-Rod. This bike is the undisputed performance cruiser bargain.
Five years ago a lightweight, high-tech modest-displacement Harley poised to do battle with a big air-cooled, pushrod Yamaha and a huge, slow-revving Honda would have seemed like a flight of fancy. And the notion that a Harley with two-thirds of the displacement could best bigger bikes from those Japanese makers would have seemed like pure fantasy. But it has happened.
With the second-smallest engine here, Harley's V-Rod ran away from all but the V-Max in a quarter-mile sprint, and was the only other bike to break into the 11-second bracket at 11.91 and top 110 mph with a 112.6-mph terminal speed through the traps. Most impressively, it outran them all in what is perhaps the definitive test of cruiser power--top-gear acceleration. It goes to show what you can do by keeping the weight down and spinning the engine up.
The VRSC V-twin powering the V-Rod is a complete departure for H-D. Liquid-cooled with a comparatively wide 60-degree V angle, it has double overhead cams and four valves per cylinder and turns a lot more rpm than any previous Harley. And in an era where 1500cc no longer impresses, rolling out a new V-twin with just 1130cc might have seemed like madness. But the V-Rod turns convention on its ear and proves that a performance cruiser needn't be big, heavy, low-revving or have a traditional narrow-angle V or other "essential" features (like a conventionally placed fuel tank) to be accepted and outperform the pack. The only possible loss is in exhaust note, which lacks the traditional narrow-V cadence.
The V-Rod does have one traditional Harley shortcoming: the handling is disappointing, especially since the bike is so light. Although it has good ground clearance when leaned over and responds readily to steering inputs, the suspension is unimpressive, and the cornering manners display an unsteadiness similar to the Warrior, presumably for the same reasons. It loses more ground to the least comfortable riding position, one that also doesn't mesh well with the bike's high-performance potential. The feet-forward stance combines with a high handlebar to place the rider in an awkward position for hard launches or strong acceleration. The 'Rod was the hardest bike to get away from the starting line at the strip without spinning the rear tire. It was also the least comfortable for day-to-day riding, though that was a minor issue in this contest.
Many of these shortcomings stem from Harley's desire to give the bike unmistakable, if radical, American lines, presumably because so many aspects of the V-Rod are departures from Harley and American tradition. There is no question of the origin of its raked-out, low-slung style, and though completely unique among American bikes, the anodized alloy bodywork turns heads wherever you ride. However, the compromises forced by the styling overshadow the VRSCA's impressive straight-line performance and keep it from exploiting all its potential. Though some riders thought it should be ranked higher, most felt that its overall performance felt short of the Valkyrie, and it missed second place by a whisker. If your priorities are weighted differently, though, you can easily make a case that the Harley should have been second, perhaps even first. And when people are paying a 100-percent premium to own one, the bike is clearly a winner.