Kevin Ferguson and I just got back from our 15 day 8,000 mile motorcycle trip on our Victory Vision’s.  We left Dallas, TX early Friday morning on the 22 of August and arrived back in Dallas on Saturday September 6^th. We researched and planned our trip for weeks and programmed into our GPS’s all of our routes. We traveled some of the best roads and visited some of the best sights in TX, NW, CO, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, WA, BC, AB, ID and MT. On the last 24 hour leg of this 8,000 trip we rode 1,438 miles straight through only stopping for gas and a 30 minute cat nap at a rest area. We were a little tired but not a sore spot on our body.

The Bikes: The Vision’s are absolutely the best bike you can buy for touring. In our 8,000 mile trip we rode in temperatures from 119 degrees F down to 32 degrees F. We rode the twisties, the sweepers and the interstates averaging over 500 miles per day and no matter what you throw at the Vision it handles it will grace and comfort and trouble free.

Most appreciated features and accessories: The Garmin Zumo 550 GP’s we both used kept us on track, helped us find lodging, restaurants and gas and are an item we would not leave home without. Both of us have the CB radio option installed and used Arai classic helmets with J&M built in speakers and microphones and they enhanced the trip immensely. Being able to talk with each other during the ride and share information like your clear to pass around the corner or over the hill, gravel in the corner, deer on your right, radar picked up, or let’s get gas here or eat here or just discuss great things we saw along the way. The lower wind deflectors are a must and worked perfect in both the heat and the cold. The heated grips and seat where a life saver and the cruise control was totally awesome. The Utopia backrest is a must and the sheepskin covers we had made for the seats also added a level of comfort. The power adjustable windshield was awesome also. The electronics kept us informed and in tunes all through the trip. We both had XM radio and listened to all the political convention speeches on FOX News. For music we mostly listened to our iPods.

It would take too long to cover all the great roads we traveled but I think the top riding roads where Highway 12 between Lewiston, ID and Missoula, MT, and highway 1, 36 and 299 in northern CA. The scenery around Jasper, Lake Louise and Banff in Alberta CA was breath taking. Highway 141, Gateway Canyon in CO is also a terrific road. I will try to post more on the roads and sights in another post.

I now have 20,200 miles on my Midnight Cherry Vision Tour Premium in just 6 months. My Vision has performed flawlessly and you couldn’t pull it from my cold dead hands. I have never bought anything that I have so intensely enjoyed and been so happy with. I got my first bike at the age of 9 and I have ridden almost everything and the Vision is by far the best bike I have ridden yet.

In 8,000 miles we only saw 2 other Visions on the road. One was by Bend, OR and the other was in Washington State. 

One more thing, the Vision got attention everywhere we went. A super model on the back of the bike wouldn’t have gotten more attention than the bike unless she was nude. People love this bike and always want to talk and ask questions.

Arkainzeye - 2008-09-08 11:06 AM Thats an amazing trip. How was tire life on such a trip? Did you guys do or need any oil changes during the trip?

Both Kevin and I are using Amsoil 20-50 in our Vision's and we changed oil just before our trip and never changed oil during the 8,000 miles. The bikes rode smooth and neither bike used any oil. The Amsoil after 8,000 miles still looks very close to the color it was new. I am very impressed with the Amsoil.

Arkainzeye - 2008-09-08 11:43 AM g1nomad - 2008-09-08 12:31 PM Arkainzeye - 2008-09-08 12:06 PM Did you guys do or need any oil changes during the trip? That was my first thoughts too. Victory states a service every 2,500 miles. Just got back from a 1,090 trip on the Goldwing. It has a $800 aftermarket seat & a $165 air cushion. My butt still hurts, but I was almost crying on the last trip without that air cushion. It crossed my mind plenty of times about how the Vision would have felt. Can't pull the trailer or mount the Zumo yet on the Vision, and we have another 4 day trip coming in 2 weeks, so the butt scorcher will be the bike of choice again. When i had my vn2k, i was up to 7000 mile oil change intervals. I would get my oil tested from blackstone labs so i knew the amsoil i was running was still serviceable in the engine. hell i could have gone further on the oil, but i got rid of that bike and got the vision. Now with the vision i know amsoil could go further than 2500, but if you have the extended warranty and if you read the fine print you will see they want receipts for the oil change OR receipts for the oil and filter you bought and the mileage and date you changed it at logged into your owners booklet. Victory seems very detailed about keeping records for warranty related issues. Which is fine. they would be stupid to not ask for such a thing. I recently seen that amsoil raised their prices on their motorcycle oil. And since i am forced to change my oil at 2500 miles i might look into a cheaper source of oil. Im almost wasting the amsoil at 2500 miles.

I plan on buying an extended warranty before the end of my first year but I am not worried about all the receipts. The only time they would ask for oil receipts is if the claim was related to an oil issue I would think and I am not concerned about that type of failure on the Vision. I am more concerned about electronics and other non engine issues. If they want to get tough I will have my attorney handle them and it usually only takes a letter from them to break the grid lock.  I will also riley on my dealer to handle any issues with the warranty company.

Lotzafun - 2008-09-08 1:21 PM Two bikes....8,000 miles...not a single problem with either bike.....PRICELESS !! Besides using the GPS for the stops did you use them for anything else? Would you have done the trip without any route planning? I'm thinking about doing a two week trip early next year. I think I want GPS for finding stops along the way, but I don't want any type of planned route. Just leave...without a plan.

Yes and even better than that I have 20,200 miles in 6 months on my Vision and Kevin has over 15,000 miles on his and neither one of us have had one single issue with our Vision’s. They have been ROCK SOLID and TROUBLE FREE!

I would not think of doing this kind of trip without a GPS! The GPS is invaluable from several aspects. We spend weeks researching all the best roads to ride in each state and province and selected the best ones that tied together to keep us going in the right direction. If we had to use maps it would have taken a lot longer time with a lot of stopping. The GPS also lets you see the direction and tightness of the turns in the road.  There are times when a road is closed or you need to reroute sections due to time issues and the GPS is invaluable. You can quickly on the fly know how many miles to a certain point, what your elevation is , add new way points and find gas, lodging, restaurants, attractions and much more along the route. This year we would look for hotels along our route towards the end of the day and call to get reservations from the phone numbers listed on the GPS which was priceless. Even with the range of the Vision’s we had coasted into stations twice on fumes and we managed that buy taking fuel conservation initiatives based on distance information given by the GPS.

We have done the trips without a route before and then after the trip heard about many great roads we missed that we could have taken so now we do the research to find the best roads and plan our routes. There are a lot of factors that go into this but a plan is always better than no plan in my opinion.

One resource we use is http://www.motorcycleroads.us/. We also view roads from Google Earth and talk to others who have traveled this area. I have found the information on this site to be very good.

sandman - 2008-09-08 3:03 PM Sounds like a great trip spock, Did you run into any severe weather ....hail, heavyrain or snow? glad to hear some of the owners are actually using these machines as they were intended.

We had really good weather on this trip. We ran into a few rain showers that only lasted for short durations in the mountains of Washington State and Alberta Canada. We did get some small hail for a few minutes in the Alberta.