Valkyrie

While I am admitting to owning Honda motorcycles I need to fess up about the 1997 Honda Valkyrie Tour that I owned from April of 2000 to February of 2006. Six years the entire time which I was employed at a Harley-Davidson Dealership.


The Valkyrie at Molas Pass in Colorado

The last few weeks I was employed at Foreman's Menswear (The finest purveyors of tailored men's clothing in the Midwest.) I was dreaming of spending my severance package on a new Honda CB750. After the last store was closed and I was out of a job but fairly flush with cash I went to the local Honda shop. I wanted to ride the newest version of the CB750 because I had the 1979 at home that I really liked but that wasn't running so reliably anymore. The 750 that the Honda shop had in stock was not ready for a test ride so while I was standing around and waiting I asked if I could ride this used 1997 Valkyrie Tour that was sitting there. I was fascinated with the Valkyrie, I had read every article ever written about it but it was just way too big, way too fast.

I came back from that test ride with a grin on my face that you couldn't have wiped off with a shovel. I test rode the 750 next but it felt way too small and not nearly half the motorcycle that the Valkyrie was. I had to have the Valkyrie.

Within days of purchasing the Honda I was hired at Zook's Harley-Davidson to manage the Apparel Department. I pretended like I had owned the Valkyrie for awhile, I didn't want them to know that I had purchased a Honda while being interviewed for a position at Harley-Davidson.

I did receive a lot of grief for riding a Honda but I told everyone that I had to wait a year before I was eligible for the employee discount on motorcycles (which was true) and there was a two year waiting list to get a Harley back then. Plus my used Honda was about half price compared to the Touring Harley's at the time.

I rode that Valkyrie over 40,000 miles in the six years that I owned it, traveling in 14 states. It has unrivaled power and handling, twist the throttle and it just accelerates, push on the handlebar, lean it as far as you want, and it will turn harder than anything weighting half as much has any right to. I have to admit that I can't ride either of my Harley-Davidson motorcycles as hard or as fast.


Ole and the Valkyrie in Monument Valley, Utah

But in the end it wasn't a Harley and I do work at a Harley-Davidson dealership. One of the deciding factors in selling it was when I was touring Utah with a friend in 2005. We stopped at a scenic overlook and a family from France had to take a dozen pictures of my friend's Harley-Davidson Wide Glide but wouldn't even give my Honda a second look. There was no getting around it, the Valkyrie didn't have the Harley soul. It had the soul of a Camry.

The Valkyrie was traded for the Ole Glide in the spring of 2000. I do miss it sometimes and if space and money were unlimited I would have kept it.