A year and a half ago, the stars aligned and I had both "extra" money and an opportunity to buy a motorcycle I had always wanted - a Valkyrie. Excellent price, owned by a policeman, maintained by the motorcycle motor pool of the Mesa Police Department. It was my all-time favorite valkyrie color combination - bumblebee yellow and black . I jumped and haven't looked back.
But I made a couple of compromises. It wasn't a Tourer, but a Standard. It had the tourer windshield, luckily, and the popular leatherlyke hard Lockable bags. And it had cobra 6 to 6 straight pipes. Believe it or not, the cop had no baffles in the pipes and that is the absolute first thing I bought for this motorcycle.
After putting over 4000 road trip Miles and another several thousand local miles I began to have some regrets about not waiting for a Tourer. The quality, convenience and capacity Of OEM bags cannot be overstated. And even baffled cobras can wear on you during long days in the saddle .
The stars aligned once again and a fellow here locally was selling the entire rear section of a Valkyrie that he had triked. I got everything from the swingarm back for one incredible price. Including the hard-to-find OEM bag rails. And what personality change would be complete without a nice set of JetHot coated headers and 4" x 36" glass packs? Yup, latched onto a beautiful set of pipes . Cobras are for sale.
Anyway, if there's any group of guys that can appreciate my excitement, I knew it would be those here. The bags should be ready from the body shop this week. Factory colors of course and pattern. Except that Honda never made a bumblebee tourer!
I'll put a couple of photos into this thread when I get it all back together, but I wanted to just show what I started with and where I'm going.
But I made a couple of compromises. It wasn't a Tourer, but a Standard. It had the tourer windshield, luckily, and the popular leatherlyke hard Lockable bags. And it had cobra 6 to 6 straight pipes. Believe it or not, the cop had no baffles in the pipes and that is the absolute first thing I bought for this motorcycle.
After putting over 4000 road trip Miles and another several thousand local miles I began to have some regrets about not waiting for a Tourer. The quality, convenience and capacity Of OEM bags cannot be overstated. And even baffled cobras can wear on you during long days in the saddle .
The stars aligned once again and a fellow here locally was selling the entire rear section of a Valkyrie that he had triked. I got everything from the swingarm back for one incredible price. Including the hard-to-find OEM bag rails. And what personality change would be complete without a nice set of JetHot coated headers and 4" x 36" glass packs? Yup, latched onto a beautiful set of pipes . Cobras are for sale.
Anyway, if there's any group of guys that can appreciate my excitement, I knew it would be those here. The bags should be ready from the body shop this week. Factory colors of course and pattern. Except that Honda never made a bumblebee tourer!
I'll put a couple of photos into this thread when I get it all back together, but I wanted to just show what I started with and where I'm going.