The Vision has gone ... sniff. It might not have been classically beautiful, but what a bike!

And in its place? A bike that we should've ridden months ago: the 8-Ball Hammer.

Victory's budget muscle bike is missing a second floating disc and 4-pot caliper up front, but makes up for it with a trip through the paintshop, coming out dripping of night with a liberal dose of attitude. The 250-section rear tyre lets anyone behind know that they've been passed by something special, if they can see past the blinding multi-array LED taillight, and the word from Victory is that this will be staged during our time with it, so it'll soiund as good as it looks.

This is going to be fun!

We're putting the photo libraries of our long term roadtests, projects and staff bikes on-line because ... well, because we can.

Either scan the barcode with your mobile phone, or follow this link!

The pace is picking up as everything starts to finally come together on the project. Last weekend I drove South and delivered the last large item down to Geoff at Cycle Enterprises, the Progressive Suspension Monotube fork kit for Touring and Softail models.
This is intended to replace the whole internal open bath damping assembly and promises to offer a high-performance ride, considerably improving the fork’s handling under braking and cornering. I’m really hoping that the Monotube kit will drop into my old 1994-5 forks without too much bother, which if they do, in effect will become low-tech retro skins over 21st Century gas charged monotube and progressive spring fork technology. New for 2011, neither Geoff or Tony had seen the Progressive Suspension Monotube fork kit before so they caused not a little excitement.

... and it could be said to be from another planet, and not just for its other-worldly looks!

Try this for size: a 24.5-inch seat height, 4.1-inches of suspension travel and the damn thing just won't touch down in the corners, despite having the tightest frame on any tourer I've ever ridden and tipping into bends with relish!

See Part 1 of its story in AmV45.

Ignore the blog time/date stamp: this a retrospective update while I get things back up to date: the timings and workload weren't conducive to the real-time update that will follow from this point forwards.

Sunday 11th April 2010: 22.00am

I'd briefly considered staying over in Darlington after the Adrenalin Moto open day, but Amanda was going stir crazy and needed to get out and go somewhere – anywhere – and the weather was set to hold fair for the Sunday. Fine by me, the mileage was cranking up but I still wanted the 1,000 mile out of the way ASAP, so pulling the Buell back from the warehouse – because I really didn't want to end up sitting behind the FT500 for a day – we retraced her rain-sodden training route up to Lake Vyrnwy.

Excellent A-roads all the way were a welcome change after the necessary evils of motorways and a roadwork infested A1M up to Darlington, but the best of it was that Amanda was making good progress on the Buell. Actually, she was making bloody good progress ... she was off! Gone! Brilliant! Bloody hell, that girl can ride! She's reading the road well, and her improved confidence isn't at the expense of caution. It's going to be a good day.

Thankfully, she's happy to stay within posted speed limits so I was able to keep pace relatively easily without compromising my running-in regime - which it turned out was stricter than the one posted in the owner's manuel. Apparently I only needed to cosset it for the first 500 miles, but then it also suggests I should be able to shift into top at 55mph but should avoid lugging the motor, which suggests that either UK bikes have taller gearing, or that I have a different definition of lugging the motor.

No matter: I'm not out to prove anything, just enjoying throwing it around on increasingly tighter bends, practising the outboard footpeg weight distribution thingie, and remarking upon the fact that while I've scuffed my heels a few times, the rubber on the footpegs is still unmolested. That shouldn't be a major surprise, really, as the fat front tyre matched to the wide rear means the whole centreline of the bike moves across when heeled over, and it really seems to make a difference.

The tyre compounds, too, seem to be well-matched to the handling characteristic, or else define them, and I can't help but wonder whether Michelin are developing a specific tyre for next year's Fat Bob, or whether it'll stick to Dunlops. There is one strange thing you notice from the tyres, possibly because of the abbreviated mudguard, but more likely because of the tread pattern: the front of the motor gets a good coating of road dirt. It looks to be more than the regular Dynas get, and something to keep an eye on, and add to the cleaning regime.

There's no doubt that the Buell was the more agile of the two bikes, but the Fat Bob gave a very good account of itself. It might have an FL's wheel fitment, but it is truly an FX in its behaviour, and a sporting one at that. Those twin discs up front bring it to a halt quickly and efficiently, and the only negative side of that is I'll need to keep an eye on the alloy wheels: brake dust is horribly caustic, and it just needs a spot of rain to distribute it further and draw it into the aluminium. We might have missed the salted roads, but that's no reason to scrimp on the cleaning regime.

For all that, though, you're always aware of the front wheel. You know it;'s bigger than it needs to be, and there's a sense of the gyroscopic effect when cornering sharply, but the trade-off is that you know it's not going to skip, and that the tyre's footprint will give you the grip that you want, once you've established full confidence in the tyre's tall, round-shouldered profile, which sometimes makes it feel a little awkward – like getting used to a big rear tyre – until you work with it and let the bike roll through the bends.

By the time we got home, as disk was falling, I was starting to look forward to the circulation pads that will accompany the touring upgrade in May/June, which is probably a result of yesterday's 300 miles as much as the 160 of today, but the bike's first thousand miles were nearly up. Just fifty to go, and Chester Harley-Davidson is thirty-five miles away. Shame I've got another hundred and some to do before I can get it booked in, but I'm told that we're within acceptable tolerances so all's well with the world. Well, except for forgetting to take some pictures

Ignore the blog time/date stamp: this a retrospective update while I get things back up to date: the timings and workload weren't conducive to the real-time update that will follow from this point forwards.

Saturday 10th April 2010: 22.00am

Okay, so the bike's running well. Rumour has it that the parts for the first upgrade will be around by sometime next week, and we really need to get the first service and that upgrade sorted out before Rich takes the Fat Bob, rather than having to continually swap bikes. So, where to go?

Adrenalin Moto are having an open day in Darlington. That'll put a good few hundred miles on it. Okay, so 311 to be precise - or about 300 if I stick to the motorways. So 311 it is.

North to Preston, cut across the A59 to Harrogate and up through Ripon onto the A1M. A slight detour on the way back, picking up the more challenging Pateley Bridge road out of Ripon, down through Skipton for fish and chips and back via Rich's on the east side of Manchester for a magazine debrief and to find out when he'll be ready for the Fat Bob.

Highlights? The sheer number of Harleys out on the A59 in the morning sunshine. Low points? The endless roadworks on the A1M that made me regret not knowing the roads better and taking the country roads further North to Leyburn.

An excellent cross-section of roads, with motorways, fast A-roads and hairy twisting B-roads, the Fat Bob dealt with them all ... far better than it had any right to. I keep banging on about this being the first FL Dyna, but even with the balloon tyres front and back, this rides like a streetbike. It truly is the European streetfighter of the range and you can easily see why it is the best seller that it has turned out to be among the performance-oriented Brits.

The seat is wearing after 150 miles in the saddle - a tank's range is do-able but only with the last twenty-or-thirty miles shifting from cheek to cheek: the touring kit is coming with a touring seat and a couple of circulation pads and I'm looking forward to seeing how they work. Still, better news for a pillion. Amanda went all of five miles the previous evening on the small styling flourish that masquerades as a pillion seat and has made it very clear that she's not in a hurry to repeat the experience.

It's the first time I've needed to put fuel in to the tank, and I've determined to keep a log of mileages. Filled-up it shows a range of 197 miles which is bloody impressive. Not as impressive as it will be if it delivers that but my hopes aren't high. At least not until the engine has bedded in. Dullard that I am, I'm going to put those numbers into a spreadsheet and produce a graph off the back of it showing fuel consumption, which I'll link into here, reproducing the exercise that taught me how to use a spreadsheet all those years ago.

I take it pretty steady on the way North, cosseting the engine and with an eagle eye on the speedo, but as I get increasingly confident with the bike I push it a little harder. On the bright side, as the miles accumulate, the engine will take a little more, and I happen to know that 80mph is about 3,000rpm in top so I know I'm not going to hurt it providing I don't race or rally it. What I don't account for is just how happy the bike is to do 80mph in 5th without breaking sweat, which is thankfully identified easily in the dark by the lack of an illuminated '6' on the white-faced speedo, but it's hard to see in daylight and all-but invisible at dawn and dusk.

The engine feels really happy. Crisp on the throttle with the revs decaying quickly when it's shut down, and the only concern is over-revving the motor at this early stage. You start to get used to when you're in the wrong gear, and it's typically as you run across slower moving traffic, cog down to make sure you've got plenty of passing power without  lugging the engine, and then forget to change up again afterwards. Easily done: the engine is that happy.

More disconcerting, however, is when snicking back up the box you realise that the tell-tale is still not lit and you were running in 4th ... and it was just as happy. It might well be happy, but while 80mph corresponds to 3k in sixth, it's closer to 3,300rpm in fifth from recollection and 3,600 in fourth, which isn't best practice when running-in, At least not over protracted distances.

While the motor is still a long way from being run-in, I've settled down with the bike and can pronounce myself content. The low fuel light came on before leaving Darlington, which means the 197 mile range is closer to 157 at this point of its life, but that's only to be expected. It was slightly worse on the return journey, which I've attributed to a couple of longer stops: stopping and restarting the motor, especially when it's had chance to cool down, has some impact on the consumption, which is either the instruments having had chance to recalibrate themselves, or else needing a little more choke.

The last  experience of the day was something of a surprise: I'd started the day with incoming on-line comments saying nothing positive about the twin diminutive headlamps, and finished riding down known but unlit fast sweeping A-roads and surprised at how good the headlamps were. We're still looking into why that might be the case and will keep you informed.

PS. Thanks to Debbie at Adrenalin for the pic: inexplicably, I spent all my time avoiding getting the Fat Bob in the shots.

PPS. watch the main blog and the magazine for more details on the Cafe Racer, 'cos I took that out for a blast round the country lanes ... well, wouldn't you?

Ignore the blog time/date stamp: this a retrospective update to get things rolling: the timings and workload weren't conducive to the real-time update that will follow from this point forwards.

Friday 9th April 2010: 18.00am

At last: a chance to put a few miles on it, blow the cobwebs away after putting the magazine to press, and deal with some important business that was deferred while the production crises loomed all at the same time.

Still plenty of the first tank of fuel, the tyres were scrubbed-in and the sun was up.All three couldn't have been better. I dug out my Hood armoured jeans, and the Switchback jacket that has been tucked away since last summer and set about packing the FXRG waterproofs that we're testing in to their small sacks before heading out to the bike.

Must have spent half an hour working out where I could stash them without them falling off or risking marking the paint/powder-coating with the bungees that were at hand, so I left them in the shed and struck out. Looks like I'll need to be more creative next time.

It didn't matter: it felt like summer, the sky was clear, the forecast positive and I was only going to the other side of the hill that represents the backbone of the country this far south: if it rained, I'd get wet. How wet could you get in fifty miles? What a stupid question! I'd not really thought about it before, but the more time you spend with big lazy American motorcycles, the more that the word 'only' creeps in when talking distances. I used to commute twenty-five miles a day each way and knew all too well that all but the best waterproofs would breach within twenty. But what the hell! The magazine was being printed, the stress was over.

First time out on proper dry roads on a Fat Bob since the CVO model twelve months earlier, I was very aware of the weight of the front wheel and suspicious of the tyres: the Fat Bob is the last Dyna that still runs a sixteen inch rear, and a Dunlop at that, but it was only a matter of adjusting myself to the bike.

It had felt unsure in the wet, but all 'new' bikes do and it doesn't do to push your luck.

I'd resolved to consciously ride this 'properly', which is to say without touching the footrests down unnecessarily: they'd arrived intact, and the great and the good of the motorcycle press weren't going to get their hands on it, so might as well practice 'the technique' from the outset.

Didn't need to on the first fee roundabouts: too busy getting a feel for whether it's going to drop-in as much as it feels like it will - yes it does on the first roundabout, but successively less with every new encounter. And then you scuff your heel, so revert to a the technique of a protectionist riding style.

A what?

Stand on the outside footrest ... well, apply your weight. It's something I picked up from Axel Scherer, CCE Germany's PR man, when we were road-testing kit bikes aeons ago, as about the only way to get their low-riding 'Bomber' with its super-low and unbending footrests round corners. The sight of him hurtling round sweeping bends almost upright has stayed with me, and it was my turn to try it.

It's something else to think about, and it makes corners even more fun, but at the expense of lapsing into laziness on the straights, which is when I discovered that it really doesn't like to do seventy on fast dual carriageways.

It's partly to do with the aggressive riding position, a few people have suggested the tyre characteristics have something to do with it, and I'm not the only one who's noticed it. You'll need your 10% speedo error +2mph and a friendly traffic cop until you get a feel for the feel of the engine, but with a Davida helmet, stock pipes and no tacho, you slip into a cruise-control state that seems to be set at eighty. Uncanny. Slow down consciously, and slip back into it again. Always eighty, almost always automatically. I'm going to dig out my old Momo and see if that lets any more engine noise through to curtail those tendencies. I'm glad it arrived with nearly 400 miles on it.

The fifty-odd miles were covered ridiculously easily, and even a phone call to explain that there were big holes in the magazine where the ad pages didn't match the spaces for them on the magazine's flatplan didn't dampen my spirits, and I managed the return leg in fading light and reducing temperatures without once regretting leaving the waterproof behind.

If this was going to be how the summer panned out, bring it on.

But then, of course, I'll be handing the Fat Bob over to Rich when the Vision arrives, but at least I'll have somewhere to put my waterproofs ...

We're delighted to be able to announce that we'll be putting some serious miles onto Victory's 8-Ball Vision through the summer, capitalising on the long-legged tourer's mile-eating capability in this, its most austere finish and specification.

Introduced a couple of years ago in Street and Tour form - with or with a trunk/top box - the Vision has long been considered the Marmite bike of its generation: you either love it or you hate it. The number of people that love it are on the increase, largely on the basis that many more people have now actually ridden one, and with this black-on-black edition looking more like a long black limousine than any touring motorcycle before it, and - to my eye - better than any previous Vision, it's going to be an interesting few months.

This bike belongs in music videos, but it also belongs on the street beneath a hard core rider who not only wouldn't miss the stereo, cruise control, electric screen, heated seats and grips, and all the frippery that marks the regular Vision out as a superb 21st Century Tourer, but who wouldn't have expected them in the first place because they wouldn't have featured on the bikes they will have ridden to date: a rider who wants the distilled essence of the freedom that a motorcycle offers without the distractions of electronic gadgets.

This is the nearest thing that an uncompromising hardtail chopper rider can expect of a comfortable retirement this side of the Big Bear GTX, which has styling issues of its own: low in the saddle, tough on the street, oozing attitude and celebrating the minor victory of form over function in its sweeping panniers, while acknowledging the practicality of lockable storage to complement a big touring pack when the open road calls.

Victory are unsure of how the market will react to it - especially in the light of their impending Cross Roads / Cross Country touring model, which are much more conventionally styled - but we're really looking forward to seeing how the 8-Ball Vision is received in this remarkably conservative market.

We're pleased to announce that we'll be running an FXDF throughout the summer of 2010, which is great news for us, but also for anyone considering the potential within their 96-inch Twin Cam, and their FX Dyna in particular.View Blog

The benefits compared to a regular two-week slot is that we will be able to follow the bike's evolvution over the summer, and rather than being restricted to a near stock bike in a world where owner modifications are prevalent, Chester Harley-Davidson have been charged with reshaping it month-on-month along sensible themes set our by our old friend, Allan Brownridge at Harley-Davidson UK.

Having put a few miles on the motor at the end of March, April will see some simple personalising touches that typically accompany a bike off the showroom floor, before we explore the touring potential of the bike with a wealth of QD accessories in May and proving that potential with a lot more miles. Come July, it will be back in the shop for the 1690ci / 103ci upgrade and some performance accessories, and again in August from a serious make-over with a radical paint kit, and finally in September to prepare it for the long dark nights again, with some serious attention paid to the lighting.

Yes, I am underplaying it at this stage, but then the art of blogging is keeping it short and simple: there'll be plenty of time to get massively enthusiastic once the process begins, and we're going to be giving this, and its as-yet unconfirmed running-mate, plenty of frequent coverage here – it's one of the reasons we set it up – and in the magazine.

We're a couple of final conformations away - hopefully by the end of next week - from revealing the long term testbikes we'll be running in 2010, which were instrumental in our setting this blog up.

If you think our normal roadtests are in-depth, they'll pale into insignificance compared to these two, although our unfolding experiences will be in bite sized chunks for easier access. Both bikes are awaiting the new plate in March, and will sneak into AmV40, but then you can follow them here on an almost daily basis ... and no, you can't borrow them when the regular roadtests come in.

At least one of them will be evolving over the summer, which will just about write its own story, while the second will be a common sight on British roads throughout the season, because we're going to ride the wheels off it.