5:45 Thursday, Estherville, IA

Good morning all.  This is my first bike rally of any kind and my first exposure to a full-blown Victory sponsored event.  I'm doing this for all you newbies out there who want to learn all you can about the American Victory Rally. 

I came in with VisionTex.  He and I have become great riding buddies over the past couple of years and he is a veteran Victory owner (Kingpin prior to the Vision).  This will be his 3rd AVR.  We are staying at the Super 8 in Estherville, about 15 miles east of Spirit Lake.  I booked the rooms in March and the rate is $55 Wed/Thurs $65 Fri/Sat nights.  The room is clean and totally adequate for what I'll be using it for (crash pad).  We got in about 4:00 yesterday (perfect riding weather by the way- high of 77).  State Troopers were really thick within about 75 miles of Spirit Lake.   VisionTex and I are calling this trip our "No Tickets Tour" and are keeping the speed limit at 4 over (on the GPS), max.  Probably saved us at least five times coming in yesterday.  We hit one section of highway that had a real mild sweep to the right and back to the left.  We called it the "Iowa Twisty" because it was the only time we leaned the bikes except for turns at intersections.   After getting settled in at the motel we headed for Spirit Lake. 

The highway into Spirit Lake (Hwy 9, coming in from the east) takes you literally to the Polaris factory.  The factory is at the corner of Hwy 9 and Hwy 71.  It is bigger than I thought it would be.  I have just seen pictures online of the Polaris sign on the side of a metal building and had no idea of the actual scale.  I'll be taking pictures later today of the actual building and parking lot.  They have a dedicated section of parking right next to the building just for Victory bikes but there were a whole mix of bikes throughout the parking lot.  Harley Fat Boy, BMW RT, and several Japanese bikes.

The Polaris factory workers are the volunteers that make this rally happen.  There will be factory tours available but the rally itself is held about 5-10 minutes down Hwy 71 at Arnold's Park.  This area surrounded by lakes and has got to be one of the most gorgeous spots in all of Iowa.  Going down Hwy 71, Spirit Lake turns into Okoboji (I hose that name up every time if I can't see it spelled out) which turns into Arnold's Park.  Arnold's Park is the town name but the is an actual amusement park here with that name also.  There is a small rollercoaster sticking up over the wall and a big parking lot at the entrance.  It is right on the shoreline of Lake Okoboji.  A grassy area under the trees will be where the vendors will be set up and we can park our bikes there. 

Lloyd's rig will be set up in the parking lot at the entrance.  We were hoping to meet him yesterday but he had vehicle issues around Chicago (transmission seal) and was not scheduled to arrive until around midnight last night.  That is all well and good except I have a 9:00 appointment this morning to get my cams done by him.  (All that stuff going through your head about that, yeah, I was thinking about that too.)  He is booked all day and I hope he and his crew make it through ok.  Gonna be a long day for those guys.

When V-Tex and I got to the parking lot at the park, the Victory 18-wheeler was parked there along with a trailer from Conquest Customs.  Nobody was around.  V-Tex gave me a tour of how it was going to be set-up and as we were mounting up to leave, a truck pulled up.  Scott Kietzmann from Conquest Customs.  Right behind him was the driver of the Victory rig (forgot his name, will post later) on a blue Cross Country.  Scott is a very outgoing guy and passionate about Victory stuff.  He makes high quality "bling" for  Victory bikes and pulled a really nice looking custom Hammer out of his trailer. 

Five minutes later a Ford Taurus pulled up with four senior citizens in it.  They got out and proceeded to take pictures of our Visions.  They were just driving by, saw the Victory trailer from the road and the Visions parked next to it and pulled in out of curiousity.  One couple was retired locally and the other was visiting from Florida.  We talked Visions for an hour with them.  Another couple pulled up on a bike and knew the Victory driver and they chatted off to the side.  At about 6:15 we left the parking lot and went down the road for dinner.  Sat out on the deck overlooking the lake and ate some really good bar food as the sun went down.  Great day.

Forecast for today is partly cloudy, high of 84.  I'll be taking photos all day and will get a video of Lloyd thrashing my bike through a dyno run with the new cams.  I look forward to making a lot of new friends over the next couple of days.  If you have any requests for photo's or videos you'd like to see, let me know here and I'll try to accomodate.  Watch for updates tonight.

11:20 p.m. Wed night

I uploaded all the pics and videos to the laptop and started uploading Dyno video to YouTube about an hour and a half ago.  With 16 minutes left, the WiFi kicked off and the upload was terminated.  "Crud" as they say here in Iowa.  Will try again after this update.

Ok, today was Cam Upgrade Day.  V-Tex and I got to the parking lot at about 8:45 and the Lloydz crew was busy unloading the truck and trailer to set up shop.  We parked the bikes, walked up and said "Hey, what time did you guys make it in last night?"  Lloyd said "About 45 minutes ago."  I said "From the hotel?"  He said "Nope, we just pulled in."  Yeouch!  They were amazingly active and alert for what they had gone through just to get here.  We basically stayed out of their way while they set up.   There was Lloyd, his wife Brie, a young kid from Lloydz shop - Andrew, and Rylan Vos - Victory wrench from Iowa - "vicbuilder" here at the forum.  Rylan and Andrew were in charge of equipment installs and Lloyd ran the dyno all day.  Brie was flitting about setting up displays and organizing appointments and paperwork.  Quite the team.  Rylan and Andrew put my bike on the lift at 9:05.  Unbelievable.

Ok, it's late at night and this update will just address the cam upgrade.  A big question about the cams is why are the '08 models so much cheaper to upgrade than the '09's and later.  Here we go.  (The captions will be at the bottom of each photo.)

See that bronze colored box with the studs sticking out of it?  That's called the cam carrier.  (The end of the cam is sticking out of the front of it.)  Notice how the carrier unit is split horizontally.  There is a top half and a bottom half.  This is an '08.  In order to cut production costs, Victory changed that design and made it a one piece unit that cannot be split.  Not a big deal, unless you want to put bigger cams in.  The newer, one-piece units have exactly enough clearance to slide a stock cam through but the Lloydz cams lobes are too big for the one piece hole.  He has to basically take out the stock one piece unit and install an '08 spec carrier that he can split and seat the bigger cams in. 

Here is the stock cam coming out.  Loosen the nuts at the top of the studs, lift up the top half of the carrier, and the cam comes right out.  With the newer cam carriers, that whole box has to come out, studs and all.  $460 difference in parts just because of that design change.  (Not sure what the story was with that honkin bandage on his - Rylan's - thumb.)

Stock vs Lloydz.  You don't have to be a master mechanic to see how much more aggressive the lobes are on the Lloydz cams.  That's why they won't fit through the one-piece carriers.

Rylan, Lloyd and Andrew.  Just after my dyno run.  Total time from start to finish - a little over two hours.  My H.P./Torque values went from about 87/105 to 107/109 (Stage 1/Level 1).  For another $225 I could have extended the rev limiter to 6,400 rpm but decided that I need something to save me from myself for a little while.  That would have added about 5/5 to the numbers. 

Well, it's now after midnight and I'm a punkin.  Will start the YouTube upload of the dyno run again and see if it succeeded in the morning.  Hope you all enjoyed this update, I  learned a lot today, not the least of which is how nice Lloyd is.  I peppered him all morning and he was way more gracious than he had a right to be.  Rylan is a great wrench and Andrew is an up and comer that has a wealth of knowledge surrounding him.  I hope those guys sleep good tonight.

Hey Jeff,   Sorry you couldn't make it.  I was trying to be considerate with the photo bandwidth so went conservative.  From now on everything will be this size.  I start a whole new post about this cam stuff for the Tech forum when I get home.

"

I'll take a picture of the Dyno sheet I got so you guys can see the numbers (oops, sorry Kevin, I mean curves)  more clearly.

Visioness - will work on Brie today.  She is terrific.

Raining this morning.  Factory tour at 9:00.  No luck with the video so far,  will sort it out tonight.  Lots of pics tonight.  Later.

Thanks for keeping us up to date at the  "American Victory Rally".

I plan on attending the 2011 Victory Demo tour tomorrow at  Bill's Service Center  .

Tom

Songfan,

I think I owe you a beer for all your help several months ago on LED lighting. I'm here at AVR (actually live here in town). Give me a call 336-456-4550. I just stopped by and secured a time with Lloyds this Sunday morning. You going on Poker Run?

To anyone else here on the board that is attending AVR,

If you have any questions or need any help while in the area (unless you need bailed out of jail, then call Songfan), pls give me a call. Have fun at the AVR!

Thursday 5:30

I got a hold of Man314.  We'll hook up tomorrow at breakfast.

For you guys that have never been here before, the catch phrase for the whole weekend is "Laid back".  Probably less than 20 vendors set up in the park and the bikes parked in the grass number in the hundreds, not thousands.  You get the feeling that this is about all that anyone wants to deal with.  The riders and vendors that have come in from Sturgis are really glad to have the relative peace and quiet.  Here are a few shots to put it in perspective.

"

This is the local Sheriff patrolling around on his ATV (donated by Polaris).  It has over 18,000 miles on it.  The Sheriff's name?  Arlen.   (Perfect.)

This is a view of all the vendors.  The registration tent is at the far right edge of the photo.  Manned by factory employees. 

The bikes park out under the trees in the grass.  This view shows about half of the total of what was parked out there.

This update will give you a feel for how small it is.  When the locals find out we came in from Houston and Memphis for this their eyes fly open "Wow!  No kidding!"  I get the vibe that this is about as big as Spirit Lake wants to put up with.  It is a major effort by the factory employees to put this on and they are super friendly and sincerely want you to have a great stay.  There are no lines at the vendors so you can actually hold a conversation with them and not feel like you are holding someone up behind you.  This is not the money maker for them that a major rally would be but you get the feeling that that's ok, it's nice just to be here and relax.  More updates tonight...

Friday night, 10:30

Factory Tour - We showed up at about 8:45 for the first tour scheduled at 9:00.  It started off on time with about 12 of us in the initial group.  They took us to the cafeteria where they had some bikes on display plus a Vision frame and Cross-bike frame sitting up on some tables.  No cameras, cellphones off please.  We left the cafeteria and walked to the part of the assembly line that was closest to the cafeteria.  Not the begining of the line.  The frames with motors installed were coming around a curve and the guy at the station where we stood was mounting tires and putting brake rotors on wheels.  (I had struck up a conversation with a couple while standing in the lobby waiting for the tour to start and they were Harley owners, currently on a Road King but tired of Harley and interested in the Cross Country.)    We were at the back of our group and it quickly became obvious that there was no tour guide at the front of the group.  We were left to just mill around and watch the guy mount tires.  (What the?.....)  So, I started filling this couple in on the production line.  The frames currently in front of us were for an 8-Ball Vegas, a white Cross Country, a black Cross Roads and a Vision up on the second floor coming down next.  We could see the next station down the line and see the saddlebags and fairings for the Cross bikes, the fenders for the Vegas (to go with the blacked out motor).  Couldn't tell what color the Vision was going to be.  Just saw a silver frame instead of the black Cross bike frame.

After about 10 minutes with no guide, someone showed up and herded us to the dyno station.  From where I was standing at the back of the group, I could tell an engineer was talking to the people up front but couldn't hear the conversation.  Could not see into the dyno booth at all.  I saw a bike go in there but didn't hear anything.  After about 10 minutes with that guy we were ushered out, tour over.  Seriously?  That was it!?  We didn't see 90% of what was going on in there!  No paint booth, no welding shop, no end of the line where they are crated for shipping.  If VisionTex hadn't told me, I would never have guessed that there was a whole other section making ATV's at the same time.  He walked out and was extremely disappointed.  It wasn't like that in the past.  Everybody in the group who had been on a tour in previous years asked the employees what the deal was.  Why was it so lame this year?  Nobody had an answer.  Apparently it didn't get better throughout the day because every single conversation about the tour was centered on how disappointing it was.  Friday was the big day that everybody wanted to see it because it was going to be in action.  They will have it Saturday also but no one will be working it.  It will be static.

I was going to post some pictures but don't feel like taking the trouble.  All I have is the parking lot, some employee bikes and the outside of the building.  I didn't expect pictures inside but I did expect something interesting to write about tonight.  I would say that half of our group still has no clue about how a Victory is assembed from beginning to end.  (The other half had been on a good tour in the past and had come back.) This was not the workers fault.  They were inside doing their thing.  Someone up in the chain really restricted access for some reason and even though I was glad to say I've seen part of it, it was really hard to put a good spin on the whole experience.  The most common word I heard about it was "Cheesy".  Hopefully won't happen again.

The good news is I had almost 30 minutes of uninterrupted conversation with the Harley couple and by the time I was done with them I am as sure as I can be that they will be buying a black Cross Country with the leather-like bags. 

It's 11:30 and I'm toast.  Still trying to get the videos uploaded to Youtube.  Tomorrow I'll have pics & stories of interesting people I've met here.  Ciao.