I had centerstands on my previous bikes ('03 Concours, '04 KLR-650) and really liked the convenience.  When Victory decided to come out with one for the Vision, I told my dealer to put me own for the first one they get.  I had read some earlier posts about guys that had them and they were pretty satisfied.  I knew the rear wheel wasn't going to be off the ground and that was a slight bummer because one of the main advantages was going to be checking the rear air pressure without having to move the whole bike around plus it would make cleaning the rear wheel a lot easier.  At least checking oil level would be easier and the bike would take up less room to park.

My dealer called to say it was in and I got there that week.  The first surprise was that it took nearly two hours to install.  Some of that time was waiting for the bike to cool down before they could start because they needed to unbolt part of the exhaust and move it about 1/2" out of the way.  It seems that the right rear bolt for the centerstand mount was blocked by the exhaust crossover pipe.  The other three bolts were no brainers.

They got it mounted and while it was on the lift I said "Man, that thing hangs down pretty far.  Will the floorboards still touch first in a tight turn?"  My mechanic eyeballed it and replied "I think the floorboards touch first in a turn but you lose about an inch going over speedbumps and stuff."  Okaaay, I thought.

I paid the bill $300 + tax + labor (they only charged an hour for labor) and headed to work.  The very first onramp I hit, I eased into a fairly mild right-hander and heard/felt a "scrrrrxxxx".  "Holy *#@^!  what was that!?"  I thought that somehow a spring had come loose from the centerstand and it was dangling down a bit.  I looked over to the left side where the big lever is to put it down and it was all the way up against the bottom of the bike where it should be.  I did a couple of quick, mild s-turns, merged with traffic and headed around the I-240 loop to work.  I got off the interstate at the infamous cloverleaf off-ramp where I had the showdown with the Yamaha R1.  It is a tight, bumpy right-hander that most bikes/cars take at about 30 mph and I can easily do at 45-50 on the Vision.  I set up for my usual turn in and had no sooner started to lean when "scrrrrxxxxx".  I immediately straightened up, mashed both brakes to get down to 30 and got back into a much milder turn.  I babied it like I was on an Orange County Chopper.  Crap!!

I got to the entrance to work and had to make a left hand turn across traffic and the entrance to the parking lot has a little dip in it for drainage.  I hit the dip at about a 45 degree angle and the left side of the centerstand dragged.  I got through the gate guard in a cold sweat and when I made the final 90 degree right-hand turn to the motorcycle parking, it drug one more time.  I parked the bike, got off and just stared at it.  The coolest machine in my life was my worst enemy.  I dreaded the ride home.

I finished my shift eight hours later and mounted up for the ride home.  I always back into my parking spot so I just eased out and made the widest, left-handed u-turn possible and still be able to miss the curb ahead and line up with the one-way aisle of traffic headed out.  Scrrrrxxx.  (I'm not even going to try and put into words what I was thinking at this point.)  I got home doing 30mph on onramps and offramps and the final injustice occurred when I pulled into my driveway.  It is physically impossible to get in or out of my driveway without scraping the centerstand.  And then depression set in.

My dealer was really busy with a big open house at the end of the week but I called and gave him a heads-up that I would be in at 9:00 on Tuesday morning of the next week to get the centerstand removed.  I showed up and they were ready for me.   Just had to wait for it to cool down.  I filled them in on my drama and told them that I would guess my cornering clearance had been cut in half.  It is noticeably worse on the left side.  I told them that I just wanted it off and l'll write it off as an expensive lesson learned.  It was not their fault and the centerstand was not defective, just poorly designed after the fact.  I headed for the showroom to poke around for a couple of hours.  About 10 minutes later my mechanic walked out and said "Hey, if you want to just leave the bracket on the engine, I can take the springs and legs off in about 5 minutes without pulling the exhaust.   You'll be able to see it peeking out under there but you'll have no clearance issues."  I followed him back to check it out and said "Do it."  In less than 10 minutes he pulled it around and said "Go do some of your "Ride Like a Pro" figure eights in the parking lot."  I jumped on, got in the friction zone and tapped the floorboards on both sides.  Ahh, music to my ears.  My baby was back.  They asked me what I wanted to do with the parts and I said "I don't care.  Even if I had the mounting bracket off I wouldn't give it away." 

This is a harsh write-up and it wasn't easy for me to post this here.  It was my experience and mine alone.  If you think you might want a centerstand just find a Vision with one already installed and see if it meets your needs.  If you like it, great.  If you don't, you haven't lost a thing.

T-Man,

The bolt on the right side of the stand had to be cut off because it didn't have enough room to back out before it hit the exhaust.  Just a heads-up.  One of the other reasons I didn't keep any of the stuff they took off.  If you cut that bolt off, you could buy another one and just slide it in from the inboard side instead of the exhaust side and hook everything back up.

As far as the drive off part goes, that was a total pain for me also.  I don't know if it's because I keep my shock pumped up pretty high or what but I had a terrible time trying to get the bike to drive off the stand.  There was just enough weight on the rear tire to make contact with the ground but not enough traction to drive off.  I probably spun the tire for two or three rotations (with my butt planted as far back in the passenger seat as it would go) before just rocking the heck out of it to force it forward and off the stand.  I never put it up again after that.  It was obviously put on as an afterthought due to popular demand from the guys who have had them before but the Vision was never designed to have one from the start.

Just a bad experience for me all the way around but if that's the only one I've had in two years of Vision ownership, I'll take it.

p.s.  Thanks Jeff.  I would have put it there in the first place but didn't know if comments were allowed in the Review section.  I wanted to leave it open to feedback.