Freedom of a Harley glide
Road Glide is the bike I’ve been riding this past week, and this Harley-Davidson has been living up to its billing. Gliding over long distances is this model’s speciality, transporting rider and luggage in an oasis of calm, luxury and high-tech entertainment.
When you buy a Harley, especially one as distinctive as the Road Glide, you’re undoubtedly a fan of the traditional image of motorcycling, American-style. Such a thing is inevitably a cruiser of some description, solidly built and graced with a large if not particularly powerful V-twin.
Nothing wrong with that. These bikes have a strong worldwide following who appreciate the styling as well as the practicality of a big, lazy V-twin for touring duties. It’s fair to say I’m quite partial to the genre, too, especially if I’m heading off to cover big miles with my wife along for the ride.
The Americans have a popular sub-category of tourers called baggers, a label that denotes a bike that just wears rear-mounted side panniers without an accompanying top box. It’s a move that sacrifices the practicality of extra luggage space in favour of a cleaner cruiser silhouette. After all, a lot of a cruiser’s appeal is being seen and being cool. Achieving said frosty demeanour is a wellknown motorcycling impossibility given the presence of a top box.
The Road Glide has been around since 1998 and two decades later it is, unsurprisingly I suppose, more refined than ever. Two years ago I rode this bike on a long weekend trip to Margate, and it made me respect the way it can devour distance.
This new version is the Road Glide Special and it now features a larger engine. The 45degree V-twin displaces 114 cubic inches, up from 107. If that means as little to you as it does to me, I’m sure you’ll be more impressed by the thought of a V-twin with 934cc allocated to each cylinder.
Torque is plentiful, so short-shifting through the gears and hitting cruising speed is effortless. At everyday traffic speeds there’s enough in hand to swoosh past cars with barely a second thought, but at higher speeds overtaking requires more planning.
Harley-Davidson proudly announces this engines’s 165Nm of peak torque output, but remains rather tight-lipped when it comes to power. It would take less than no effort to screw 70kW out of this engine configuration but I fear there’s more like 50kW on hand.
More power would make overtaking at speed an easier exercise, but all too frequently you have to drop a gear to get the thrust you need to get the job done. That’s alright on a one-litre four-cylinder superbike, not on a two-litre V-twin cruiser.
Cruising at speed is this bike’s forte, low revs and a tall 6th gear will put you at the legal limit with next to no wind blast (at least for me at 1.82m).
Nestled within the Road Glide’s large batwing fairing (mounted to the bike rather than the handlebar) is a colour touchscreen that you can use to control the bike’s extensive array of features. Along with the handlebar controls you can operate your phone and use Apple Car Play to put all the phone’s useful functions — including navigation — on to the Harley’s screen.
The built-in speakers aren’t the most powerful in the H-D range, but they’re up to the job as long as the bike maintains legal speeds. The screen has been designed to work in conjunction with a gloved hand so you can use it while on the move, but it is a bit of a reach so using the handlebar control option is much easier.
Build quality is excellent and the paint superb, though it does irk me slightly that certain parts — footboards, handlebar grips, mirrors, indicators and the like — are plain and uninspiring simply to entice you to delve into the Harley catalogues for tasty replacements. That’s a bit cheeky on a R390,000 bike. At slow speeds and in dense traffic the Road Glide needs a steady hand and experienced head. Though the seat is set very low at 657mm, and even though this lets you paddle your feet easily at crawling speed this is still an intimidating bike at times. Not a tourer for the novice, that’s for sure.
This is also a tourer for those riders who prefer to tour alone. The pillion seat slopes backwards and so will soon cause aches and pains. If you want to take passengers and treat them well then look elsewhere in the Harley-Davidson range for a bike with a top box and backrest, or at the least a sissy bar.
If you want a cruiser with more practicality then a bagger is the way to go, and among its peers the Road Glide can hold its head high. Unique looks, an uncannily smooth Vtwin that lends itself to long distance comfort, great wind protection and an impressive entertainment system make this bike a fine companion for endless hours on the open road.