changing The Pace : Modifications, Part 1

After a month of Road King ownership, I'm still settling in. I like it. A lot. It's powerful and handles well enough for what I want to do at this time. I have spent years getting ready to make this transition and am very, very happy to have this bike. Now, I have to learn how to use it, and get the most from it. I have learned where I am in the rev range by feel now in most gears. I have also learned how far I can lean by scraping both floorboards a few times. Answer here is: not as far as I would like, and far less than I am used to.

I wish the brakes were 10 times better, and by that I mean more responsive, but I will be looking into that. Hey -- did you know that motorcycles have a rear brake? Seriously! I'm not kidding, turns out they do. And while this bike has 2 front disc rotors, they seem to be mostly for show; you can't actually stop this motorcycle quickly using them. I ride covering the front brake with my index finger, and they are good for scrubbing speed, but if you really want to stop a 900lb Harley in a hurry, you MUST use the rear brake in conjunction with the front brake, while downshifting of course. After 30 years of nearly all of my braking being completed by my right index finger, to the point I have lifted the rear wheel off the ground more times than I can count under severe braking, a handful of front brakes can't stop this bike anywhere less than an airport runway. And THAT was an important lesson for me to learn early.

I have heard in person, and read a lot from Harley riders who have the impression that the front brakes will kill you, and you should avoid them, and there is something to this if you are riding a H-D at say 15mph or less. Then, using the front brake without care while turning can tuck the front end and make bad things happen. I believe that is due to the frame geometry and weight distribution under braking, but could be wrong. Police motor officer training PREACHES nearly dragging the rear brake to perform slow-speed maneuvers, while applying power and controlling the clutch friction zone, and I've seen enough videos from current and ex motor officers to believe them 100%. They can suspend the laws of physics and make these bikes do insane things and perhaps next year after some ride time, I will join friends of mine and start to practice these techniques. After I install the Drop Guards... Meanwhile, I constantly practice using the rear brake.

So brakes could be on my future upgrade list. Along with lighting. This bike has the old-school lights. HD sells other models with some LEDs at this point, but I'm not aware of many with full LED lighting. Huge aftermarket for that also and for good reason. It's not so much to see at night, as much as to BE SEEN during the daylight. Super bright lighting is one less reason for someone to tell the responding officer they didn't see you after pasting your ass. 

As every rider experiences on a regular basis -- and hopefully can escape! -- on my most recent ride I had a driver looking to the the right, saw it was clear, I'm guessing did not look left again before turning  left across my path :  statistically the #1 cause of motorcycle accidents. I was watching and anticipated this action as I approached and was already slowing down. I'm fairly proud I didn't flip him off, but wish that I'd had an LED highbeam that I could have flashed at him.

I reeeeeeealy wish that my backordered Mustang Touring seat would arrive as I hate the stock seat. When my wife first saw me riding the bike she said I looked like Easy Rider, and you know, not in a good way. The stock seat has a very pronounced slope at the back which forces the rider to lean backwards to make contact.

When I lean back to the seat, I am in a posture very similar to driving a car, and you would think that would feel perfectly normal, but to me it is unpleasant for a few reasons. First, slouching VS sitting up straight puts a lot of strain on your lower back as the miles go on. Zero lumbar support from the seat.

The next problem with this is that this slouch puts my line of sight right about at the top of the stock windscreen, which I find unnerving entering corners. I knew I was giving up much high-speed control of a motorcycle as I transitioned through the years from a sportbike crouch to the cruiser slouch, but obstruction of my line of sight is unacceptable. I am also waiting for a backordered Harley Windsplitter as my first attempt to correct that, as one of it's benefits will be that it is 3" shorter.

So I spend about 1/2 my ride time using my quads to push back and help me to sit more upright, which takes strain off my back, allows me to see over the windscreen and puts me in a position I feel (you may disagree) provides me more control. That soon moves the pain from my back to my legs... Another problem with is that the stock seat has limited flat surface area to occupy as they devote a couple inches of the driver space to the sloped back. I am hoping the new extended reach seat fixes all 3 of these issues as it eliminates the slouch-slope which will give me more flat space all the way back to the more upright seat step, which provides some lumbar support. I added a backrest to provide more as needed. And, it's better padded than stock so I'm hoping it adds a tiny bit of seat height from the ground. All of this will give me (maybe not you) a better seating position.

Once I get all of the seating issues worked out, I'll start considering handlebar replacements as the stock one are a bit too pullback. I know I can swing them forward but I'm talking more about shape and z-bars. More on this in a future entry.

zRides - the reboot

Time passes. Things change. Again.

[ I understand if you don't want to read all of this, there are a couple pics at the bottom of this post

Also, I need to check all of the links in older posts as they could have expired years ago]

Well, it seems the title of the prior post turned out to be quite prescient, considering the 10 year gap. I have decided that as I begin another decade (2020 didn't really count, right?)  and a new phase in my life, that I am going to try adding this blog back into my routine, and I hope to return to a bit of digital photography which has also languished. 

I've had a couple of bikes come and go over the past 10 years, and my riding dropped off considerably due to personal reasons and activities, and spirit-crushing freakin' work schedules. I have resolved most of those problems now, so I'M BACK !

For over 30 years I rode only sport bikes. Need for speed and all of that. I had a very narrow focus on what I considered a viable motorcycle to be, within that paradigm. If you want a quick look into where I was at that time, read any of my Americade entries.

Over time I found that some of the things I had been chasing (...) lost their attraction for me. Things I had thought were not important previously, came more into focus. I leaned away (I can't help it...) from corner carving and started to dwell more on riding. I began to look at motorcycling differently. I began to think about taking long rides out in the mountains that surround this area. I actually started to read the American Motorcyclist magazine I'd been receiving for 35 years...

And what I decided I wanted most NOW was not the endless quest for carving the next corner, but to slow down enough to see was was passing in-between them. I wanted some peace and calm back in my life. What I wanted above all else was the sense of wonder of motorcycling that I felt as a young boy when I'd stop playing to look up and watch a bike roll by; the sensation of the first rides I took when I was 10 years old on a Montgomery Wards mini-bike, the ones with a lawnmower engine, pull-start and rear scrub brake; the first time when as a teenager I mastered shifting on a KE100 while orbiting a small dirt track. I want that feeling again.

For some reason I do not now remember, at the 2016 Americade I spotted a Victory Cross Country and it held my attention. 

I got the nerve to take it out -- public opinion be damned! I was the only rider in head-to-toe full gear -- and found to my disbelief that I enjoyed it. I took it out again and again and again that week. One day it rained as we rode to Americade, the entire day we spent there and all the way home, and I took that bike out repeatedly. 

I will admit that this advertising pic from Victory for the CC, particularly in Suede Nuclear Sunset Orange, added a bit to my desire for this bike:

I put on over 700 miles of 20 min demo rides that week on that bike. Don't remember if I rode anything else. Followed that up with a Demo Truck Day at our local dealer a month later. I decided I was going to buy a Victory CC the following spring. And then, that winter Polaris pulled the plug on Victory and after a couple months of pouting, I moved on.

At the IMS at Javitts that I've attended a lot of the past 30 years, I came across a 2019 Harley Davidson Road King Special. I didn't even know what model it was as I came up behind it; guess I had not seen the Special before. I thought it was black but it was really Midnight Blue over the blacked out bike. I spent the next year thinking that would be the bike I would get next. Money kept getting reallocated and no bike was purchased. Then this year was finally my year.

After months of researching over the winter and changing my mind dozens of times, I started searching online for an FLHR, as while the Special is gorgeous, the Road King Classic has a better stock ride and that was a bigger priority for me if I am going to sit in that position. At first, with the massive inflation that happened with 2021, I was searching 2016/2017 models. I'd take the final Rushmore but wanted the M8, though I did fear a first year release. One day in frustration I expanded my search up to 2019 and immediately found a bike that was posted 2 days earlier and was not 1000 miles away, but a 45 minute drive. I went, I saw, I put a deposit down.

Original owner had some bad luck and had only put 266 miles on the clock, then it sat for a year. While I have no delusions of zigzagging the country, I will be using this bike extensively in search of that feeling.