I got my cams done Thursday at the AVR and am back home in Memphis with about 1,200 miles on them. 

Let me start by saying that I really liked my bike the way it was.  I've had the S1/L1 exhaust ever since the 500 mile break-in service and my bike almost never popped.  I changed out the cams at 43,000.  I have ridden with VisionTex for a couple of years now and his bike popped all the time.  (He had a really shady dealer early on in the game and Bill thinks that they were so inept when they installed his S1/L1 that they never flashed the bike when they changed out the exhaust because they didn't know how.)  We rode together through Arkansas in the springtime and I got to see the cams in action through twisties and passing lines of cars.  (It pops less and less as time goes on.)  I have gotten very used to Bill's riding style and can anticipate exactly when he will make an aggressive move like passing a line of cars.  Before he got the cams, we would both downshift to the same gear (5th or 4th, depending on the situation) and make our move together.  After he got the cams, I had to be in the next lower gear to stay with him.  He never walked away from me because we didn't get above the magic 4,500 RPMs for any length of time where my bike would have flattened out.  If we hit a series of 5 twisties and I was running the 5 different curves in 5th/4th/3rd/4th/5th, he was running them in 5th/5th/4th/5th/5th.  He wasn't running away from me, my bike was just running harder to keep up.  I wasn't totally sold on the cams because I didn't want to compromise the great "rideability" I had (one of the factors being the popping) just to go out and kick someones ass in a race.  I had hit the limiter on my bike maybe 5 times in three years.  I really liked my bike the way it was.  To be honest, I probably wouldn't have gotten the cams at all but I spent my first two vacation picks of this year staying at home working on a huge remodel project.  I finished the project in March and saved about $30,000 with sweat equity and I never even started my bike on my days-off for 6 months.  I needed something to pay myself back.  I'm getting Lloyd Greer himself to set me up with his cams at the AVR.

I got them done on the very first day of the AVR and didn't even test them until four days later when we were leaving.  The cops were really thick around Spirit Lake and the max speed limit in the area was 55 mph.  During those four days, my #1 concern was relieved.  Around town rideability was exactly the same if not better.  It idles exactly at 1,000 RPM.  No popping and I spent a lot more time in that magic place known as 5th gear.  Stop light to stop light is almost just a matter of letting out the clutch between gears, even after shifting.  Adjusting to the cams is like adjusting to the handling of the Vision when I came off of the Concours.  Most of us over-controlled the Vision when we first got it.  It took a while to get used to just how little steering input it takes.  Going to the cams is like that.  If you roll the throttle like you did pre-cams you will over-do it and not be as smooth.  It takes some re-programming of your brain and throttle hand to really lighten up and take it easy.  The only difference in sound is the intake plate throbbing under the dash.

Bill and I left for home Sunday morning and headed up into Minnesota (15 miles to the border), just say we'd been there.  We crossed the border and turned east on a 2-lane road.  It had a long, straight stretch on it and Bill waved for me to come up past him and go for it.  I dropped it into 5th and hammered it from about 60 mph.  The front suspension totally unloaded and the front tire all but came off the ground.  I lowered the windshield and within about 1/2 a mile was up to 115.  There was a big left-hand sweeper coming up and I could see silos off to the left so I throttled down to 90, just in case.  I made the curve easily, looked for anything moving and the only traffic I saw was a pick-up in my lane about a mile ahead of me.  I hammered it again (in 5th gear this whole time) and cut the distance in half between me and the truck within just a few seconds.  I backed it down to 55 and waited for Bill to catch back up.  He pulled up next to me with this "cat that ate the canary look" and at that moment I knew I was "in the fraternity".  It's like trying to convince a Harley guy to ride a Vision but there is no amount of convincing, unless they ride it and see the difference for themselves.  I have two more stories from the ride home and they both involve getting over 100 mph in just a few seconds to get around traffic.  Both times were total overkill but I hadn't reprogrammed myself yet and hit the throttle like it was pre-cammed.

There is only one scenario that makes it pop now.  If I have the cruise set for a long time and then pull into a town that has a couple of stoplights prior to the gas station, it will probably pop pulling away from the first light, upshifting between 1st and 2nd.  I could not make it pop downshifting or rolling off the throttle really hard.  Driving around town after I got home, no pops.  I think the ECM just has to adjust it's little brain and going from hours of cruise control right into stop and go traffic doesn't give it time to adjust.  Very, very smooth up and down the rev's.  Watch the dyno video and just listen to how smooth it is up and and back down again.  Lloyd shifts through all 6 gears at the beginning, perfectly fine.

Going from Memphis to Spirit Lake I got almost exactly 39 mpg overall.  (I reset the mpg/average in Memphis and didn't touch it again until Spirit Lake.)  On the way home, I reset it the morning we left Iowa and when I pulled into my garage 1100 miles later it read 43.5.  I had the cruise set at 74 for about 80% of the time.

If you talk to Lloyd, he will tell you that these cams have exceeded his wildest expectations.  He asked us as Vision Riders early in the game "what do you guys want from your cams?"  We wanted good mileage at cruising speeds and below and lots of power mid-range and above.  It has to be every bit as friendly and smooth as a stock bike. 

To say that he nailed it in spades is the understatement of the year.  Thanks Lloyd.