I am now over 2 months into Harley ownership. Hard to believe this much time has passed, but I'm going to blame part of that on the rain. Unlike the West Coast which is going up in flames and struggling with drought, the East Coast has been like the Amazon for most of this summer. The rain has been relentless. It's raining again as I type this. Here is an accounting of rain damage that occurred a couple weeks ago a few miles from where I used to live. This is taken from an article published by Q105.7 Classic Rock, My personal FAVORITE local radio station:
So under these conditions, it's been difficult to get a lot of riding in lately and if there is half a day where the roads are dry, I'm out for an hour or two. For the first time this summer, I had the ability and the weather cooperated so that I was able to ride BOTH days this past weekend.
I have spent a lot of time cleaning and waxing this bike in my garage the past few weeks and one thing that I really appreciate about this motorcycle is that it has Presence. I enjoy the classic, minimalist look of this motorcycle. Just sitting parked, it occupies space in a way that draws everyone to it. It is a large, solid machine that commands attention, as touring bikes tend to do. As I go over this bike with polishing cloths from front fender to tips of the exhausts, I am totally impressed with how much substance this motorcycle represents.
Let me try to explain this... I have owned many motorcycles over the years, the vast majority being Kawasaki, some Suzuki, and others. The Kawi's always impressed me with how solid, sturdy and just well built they were. Not to mention screaming good fun. At the far end of that spectrum was the Ducati Monster I owned, which for all of its expense, had a great deal of plastic and unfinished exposed metal everywhere. When I am polishing the front fender of a motorcycle, I expect it to feel solid, not floppy, flimsy and cheap. Other side of that argument can be made that these bikes are all about performance, but that also doesn't fly with the Monster. I really enjoyed that bike. It made a statement all it's own and was fun to ride, so hard to fault it too much. I guess they were going for that crashed Euro-bike vibe.
The Road King takes substance, several levels above. It looks big and solid, because it IS. That seems easily explained since it weighs about twice as much as sport bikes I have owned. But now, I really appreciate this. Polishing this bike you see and feel the material that goes into Harleys. The fit and finish which is exposed is all brilliant. The paint, the chrome. It's outstanding.
Over the years I have said that I appreciated Harleys as an art form, but I was in a place where I was all about sheer performance corner to corner. Don't get me wrong, I still love that. I know I've become comfortable with this bike now as today for the first time I instinctively started to hang off a bit in a 90 degree uphill left turn before I started to worry about the rear suspension. I also learned today that I can lock the rear wheel during aggressive braking, so I'm still exploring limits.
What I really need is a new seat, but that discussion will happen in another post. Still making some mods to accommodate my size and hoping, hoping, hoping that my backordered parts will arrive while it's still riding season. I think that once I have these things sorted this bike will work very well for me.
I am very happy to have it.
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