Because of my size, I had been skeptical about the pulling power of its 500cc motor. Most $ales people had tried to steer me to the 750 or 800. I'm glad I stuck with the "little" Vulcan. Lighter, cheaper, easier to manuever and - believe me - PLENTY of punch even with a 200-pounder aboard!

Pulling away from the first red light on my way home, I was immediately impressed by the effortless acceleration available with this [motorcycle] in 1st and 2nd gears. It has the same water-cooled inline twin powerplant as the Ninja 500 sportbike, although tuned more for cruising.

The 1800F wears a new look for the VTX series that's sort of a tough rendition of the VTX1800C. It shares that bike's 4.8-gallon fuel tank (now with a seamless configuration) and footpegs, but the style is made more aggressive with bobbed fenders, 18-inch wheels with low-profile radial rubber, a smaller headlight, its own echausr system, a new high-rise handlebar, flush LED taillight, wedge-shaped mirrors (shared with the C), and other details like new fender rails, visors on clear-lens turn signals (also shared with the C), and LCD instrumentation that includes a bar-graph-style tachometer as well as a clock.

Unlike other kit bikes mounting monster rear tires that were fitted more for looks than for actual riding, Victory made sure that the Hammer was a rider's motorcycle. To meet that goal, Victory's engineers built a new, bigger engine to complement the specially designed rear Dunlop. The Hammer is the first Victory to displace 100 cubic inches (that's 1634cc for the metrically inclined) and sport a six-speed transmission with a true overdrive.

The motor is the same hardy 90 degree V-Twin with its double overhead cam, 8-valve with a revised cam profile to take advantage of its intended usage. The changes center on providing a stronger low-to-mid torque shove. The Electronic fuel injection features Suzuki's Dual Throttle Valve System (SDTV) a system that maintains optimum air velocity in the intake tract for a smoothed out low-to-mid rpm throttle response too.

Take five motorcycles. All but one are V-Twins (10 years ago an endangered species, now one of the dominant motorcycle engines). All sized from 1100 to 1500cc, all weighing 550 or more. All with four or five gears, none with seat heights above 29 inches. They're painted different colors, but if you think that we can't tell them apart by anything other than the paint -- well, you're pleasantly wrong. How different can they be? That's the question non-cruiser aficionados always ask, and it's usually answered one way "If you have to ask, you don't understand."

Topping the firm's 2005 announcements is the Hammer, a 1634cc, six-speed power cruiser. Responding to the trend towards ever-bigger V-twins, Victory bored out is four-valve 1507cc overhead-cam 50-degree V-twin—already the performance king among mid-teen V-twins—by 4mm to 101mm, creating an engine which could cruise at a lower rpm and still provide no-downshift passing power.

Don't ask us why most cruisers don't come with tachometers. We think every motorcycle needs a tach. Perhaps the manufacturers think that, because cruisers aren't constantly trying to wring the last bit of performance out of a [motorcycle]'s engine (like those sportybike types), we don't care what the engine is up to. Or maybe they think we find clutter on the handlebar so distasteful we'd rather not be bothered with how quickly the engine is spinning.