Choppers, cruisers, customs. Whatever you want to call them everyone who rides one seems to be going through an age-related crisis and has hit the bank account to buy anything and everything Harley related. With a few years until I'm of a distinguised age my mission was to prove that you can be youthful on a cruiser.
The spec-list was simple, long forks, low to the ground, minimalist flair, big engines and a spread eagle riding position. Apart from Victory Motorcycles most other manufactures have very little in the way of hard customs to offer.
We settled on the Victory Vegas 8 Ball, a 1731cc American bread cruiser. And from the Japanese corner, the Honda Fury - Japans 1312cc V-twin proper custom chopper, in fact it was the only bike of this extreme style we could find available to buy through an official UK motorcycle dealership.
After a trip to the respective dealers, we collected the thumping loud and shiny V-twins and pretty much from the off the bikes were getting stares and smiles from everyone around. At one point a chap took a picture of the Fury whilst we sat at some traffic lights.
We rumbled down the A route to Cornwall collecting the smiles, waves and stares that we had come to expect on this type of bike. I can honestly say you enter into a kind of exclusive biking fraternity when you sling your leg over something so different. Normal bikers don’t nod at you, BMW riders still don’t nod at you, but instead you get a huge appreciation from the no biking public, it’s really weird.
On our first petrol stop no less than three people walked up to chat about the bikes and as we left, three different people were taking pictures of us. Interestingly none of them had heard of a Victory, they thought it was some kind of Harley-Davidson. And know one had a clue that the Honda was a Honda because there are very few badges to say so, a good move from Honda there we think.
We had a 300 mile run to get to Newquay where were staying at the Carn Marth hotel, a five minutes walk from Fisterall beach and from the town centre. To be honest, the run was pretty uneventful. Things slow down when you cruise, we averaged 80mph, all the way in tight formation. We were stopping for fuel every 100-115 miles because the Fury petrol light comes on at 100 miles with a reserve to get you to 130 which, is when the Victory’s light comes on.We had a real sense of 'brotherhood' riding these bikes and not do dissimilar to the cult film Easy Rider we found ourselves smiling, gassing, a cruising side by side on many occasions, owning the road man!
