One might argue that Victory Motorcycles only ever had one good idea. Actually, no, that’s not true. It had a lot of good ideas, but most were either abandoned or – toward the end – gifted to Indian.
The Cross Country offered a revvy engine, ridiculous levels of comfort, and a chassis that’s about as nimble as is possible for a vehicle weighing more than 900 lbs. It was an excellent bike and Victory never really managed to top it. More broadly, one might argue that Polaris (parent company to Victory and now Indian) hasn’t been able to top it. Take a look at the modern-era Indian Chieftain and you’ll spot some very familiar styling cues.
Victory Motorcycles was launched on July 4th 1998, in those heady days when Harley-Davidson was so successful that it simply couldn’t produce enough bikes to keep up with demand. Many brands sprung up to try to fill the void but most quickly fell by the wayside. Victory had the advantage of being run by a powersports company – Polaris Industries – that’s been in the game since 1954.
Through luck and shrewd management decisions (read: penny pinching), Victory managed to survive its first few less-than-great attempts until 2003, when it produced its first success: the Vegas cruiser. That bike remained a stalwart of the Victory line-up until the brand was closed down in 2017.
The Cross Country platform was unveiled in 2010, using many of the elements introduced a few years earlier in the space-age Vision touring bike. The fairing on the Cross Country was handlebar mounted, so steering was arguably a little heavier than with the Vision, but the bike managed to somehow feel less unwieldy than its predecessor. It also looked better.
Driven by a 1731cc ‘Freedom 106’ V-twin engine promising peak power outputs of 92 horsepower and 109 lb-ft of torque, the Cross Country easily outgunned the competition. At the time.
Unfortunately, Victory seemed content to stop pushing at that point. For the next seven years, its touring platform remained pretty much unchanged but for aesthetics. The 2014 Magnum was billed as the “boldest production bagger ever to hit the road” but it was just a Cross Country with a 21-inch front wheel and paint schemes that felt out of date.
The difference between a Cross Country and a Cross Country Tour is basically just the presence of a top box and lower fairing. Both of these things can be easily removed, to streamline the look of the bike and remove some weight.
Despite the fact it has 80,981 miles on the clock, this example looks to be in good condition. Victory engines were pretty reliable, so that high mileage is only a concern because of the challenge of finding parts. When the brand was first shuttered, Polaris promised riders it would continue to supply parts for at least five more years. Those five years ended in 2022. Polaris still runs a parts and service website for Victory, but I haven’t dived into it enough to know whether it offers much more than bits for basic service.
A mechanically inclined individual who knows his or her way around internet forums would probably be the best sort of person to own this machine. If that’s you, you can find this Cross Country for sale for $5,999 in Elmhurst, Illinois, here on eBay.