Quick Summary

• Good looks.
• One of the best motors in motorcycling
• Affordable price
• Did I mention the motor and the styling?

Cons

• Transmission a little clunky
• Throttle is a little light
• Both of those are nitpicks really.
• Just needed to fill out the space here a little

“Hey! Is that thing fast?” asked the really cool guy sitting next to me at the light on a real chopper with a suicide shifter/clutch combo and skinny rear tire. “She gets the job done” replied the slightly geeky motorcycle magazine editor sitting on the new Victory High Ball trying to look cool. “It’s good looking” said chopper-dude.

That pretty much sums-up the responses from everyone who saw the bike; from the tattooed guys that would cause most fathers to yell “Martha get my shotgun, I think Victoria’s date just got here on a motorcycle!”; to the weekend warrior “Rolex Riders” who are more banker than bad-ass; to the hardcore Harley riders that travel in packs and wear matching vests - they all thought the High Ball looked good. I expected the “weekend warriors” and such to like the bike but I was shocked that the guys that build custom choppers and bobbers would also like the High Ball. Major congrats to Victory for hitting the styling out of the ballpark.

Styling, as I’ve said before, is what riding a cruiser is all about to most people and while Victory imbued the High Ball with killer good looks it also endowed it with its 106 cubic inch, 50 degree Freedom V-Twin. The motor is actually the best part of the bike even though it is the styling that will get you noticed. Twist the throttle and, even with the too quiet stock exhaust, the sound that you hear is unmistakably NOT the normal v-twin sound. Think of it like a cross between a v-twin, a turbocharged flat-six, and a jet turbine; it’s intoxicating and just cries out for an exhaust note that doesn’t sound like it’s in church.

While you’re straining to listen to the sounds from the motor the rush of the wind past your helmet will remind you that, not only does the motor sound great, it also puts out 97 horsepower and 113ft-lb of torque. My daily ride is a modified FJR1300 and not once did I ever wish for more power on the High Ball; the motor pulls just at hard at redline as it does down low in the RPM range. I banged off the rev-limiter a few times as there is no warning that you are about to slam into a hard limiter; no slackening in power, no struggling to breathe – nothing, just a steady pull all the way to redline.

Complicating this “rev limiter avoidance” is the fact that Victory didn’t put a tach on the High Ball. Oh there’s a little digital readout tach in the display area of the speedo but it only reads in 50rpm increments. Couple that with the Freedom 106’s quick revving nature and all you see is a blur of tiny numbers when you decide to take your eyes off the road to look down at it when accelerating. I’m not usually a proponent of putting a tach on a cruiser but this 106 motor really could use one if you’re going to flog it.

The display in which the tachometer is found is at the bottom of the easy to read speedometer. On the front of the left handlebar switchgear housing you’ll find a button that sportbike riders would mistake for a passing light switch. It’s not. What it does is toggle between the odometer, the tripmeter, and the aforementioned useless tachometer display; I left it on the trip meter after I realized how silly the tach was. There is also a digital clock display as well as a gear indicator. The gear indicator goes to a dashed line whenever you squeeze the clutch lever and will sometimes indicate not the gear you are in currently but a gear you were in before shifting; kind of like a trip down gear memory lane, if you will. This doesn’t happen too often and is only an issue if you are a new rider who is constantly worrying about what gear you happen to be in.

With great power comes great responsibility to provide a good transmission and Victory has done that – mostly. I say mostly only because the 6 speed transmission feels a bit, umm, pedestrian compared to the rest of the bike. Everything works but downshifts, which only require a light press on the shift lever, are accompanied by a clunking noise that is, to me, louder than it has to be. Upshifts are firm but noiseless and can be accomplished without using the clutch under normal shifting. This is good as the clutch lever is a bit on the stiff side and rotated downward on the bars a bit more than is comfortable. The gear ratios inside the transmission are spot on from 1st through 6th with that overdrive 6th gear allowing the motor to turn a lazy 2700rpms while cruising at 75mph.

Over in Suspensionville the little Suspensioners have been busy building a shock and forks that do a very good job of dampening out the rough stuff. Their work also enables the High Ball to handle more along the lines of a performance muscle cruiser than a “retro-rod”. I watched other softail style bikes bounce around on bumps that the High Ball shrugged off with nary a comment or wiggle. I did scrape the peg feelers a couple of times but I take corners a bit more aggressively than most cruiser riders do so I’d say the cornering clearance is acceptable. Having a “skinny” 150 series rear tire and a “fat” 130 series front gives the High Ball a light nimble feeling as well; why anyone would want a fatter rear tire on a cruiser is beyond me.

Looking over my notes I can see that I’ve covered just about all the bases except one; brakes. This is the only area that I’m a bit let down about with the High Ball.

Let’s start with the good part first; the rear brake. Possibly one of the best rear brakes I’ve ever felt - with good power and feel they are very easy to modulate. I actually found myself going against all my training and practice and using the rear brake more than the front. This was mainly because the front, while ultimately strong and powerful, required such an effort at the lever and offered such little feel that I gave up using it. If you really need to stop quickly the front brake will be there for you but in normal everyday situations the rear brake will do the job. (I can’t believe I just wrote that.)