For the sun
on my back and two fists in the wind.
4000 miles from West
to Central to East, well over 100 hours on the saddle and fantastic weather the
whole way through. It is our first time
in America, our first ever bike road trip and Barbara’s first time ever (yip
ever) sitting pillion. If you recall from Day 2 of our blog, the original bike
was a 2012 Ultra Glide with thirty odd thousand miles on the clock. She never
made it past the 4 mile mark before the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Flippen rubbish Harley Davidson. I knew I should have
rented out the Goldwing”.
Now, growing up when I did in South Africa we were taught to
dislike Harleys. Our Dads and his friends in the pub tell us that they are fat,
slow, expensive and unreliable. The Harley owners are worse. Un-inducted
newbies with more money than sense who have only brought the bike because the
leather jackets look wicked and the bike looks good outside of their local
Tasha’s.
With fire in my eyes we headed back to Eagle Rider LA ready
for a fight. They (without a hassle) traded in the injured Ultra Glide and gave
us a 2016 Road Glide with the full Tour Pak. The big shark-nose daddy with all
the bells and whistles. Just like that, no arguments no bull. We simply packed
on and headed out.
It took less than
100 miles on the Road Glide and my whole perception of the bike, of Harley
Davidson in fact, was shattered. This monster is absolutely amazing. The bike,
the way it does what it does is so unique and so intoxicating that I have been struggling
to put it into words. I have typed and retyped this particular blog several
times.
It goes like this: Do you love Alfa Romeo’s? If you don’t
though, you still know of the piston head love for Alfa right? Yes they are unreliable
and, yes, they have terrible resale value but the car – the soul of the car is
something almost tangible. An Alfa forms a bond with you. You want to tinker
with her and you will never want to sell her so the negatives seem so much less
important as time goes on. Now, the soul that the Harley Davidson production team
have managed to instil into this bike is exactly that. It gives it so much
character and so much more life than just being a machine. You feel her talking
to you. You feel her bonding. Reminded me a lot of my old Xl500S boney actually
– you just feel a soulful connection. A connection much stronger than any of my
JapTech crotch rockets. There is just something more to the machine.
We aptly named her “Arjie”.
So, she gives you the heeby jeebies in a kinky kind of way.
What else? Well: The power plant with the Rushmore updates delivers real power.
Yes, real serious power that is delivered way down low. The mountain of torque
is available through an immaculate throttle response. The mixture of this low
down torque and sharp response is probably the biggest surprise of the whole
package. I swear if you pull off the line too quickly your foreskin will peal
back over you testicles from the G Force.
The gearbox has a
fantastic mechanical feel too it. You hear it go “clunk” when you change and
you can feel the selectors in your heel as you shift up through the gear. It
gives the whole set up a wonderful man-machine interface. The exhaust note is
quite subdued although She does give off the classic Harley miss-fire rumble.
It is just a lot quieter than we expected. Saying that: At full welly with your
right hand pinned down she eats through the revs like a buffoon and gives off a
fantastic double backfire spit as you kick her up another gear. That’s a lot of
fun. Reminds me of the older generation Honda VTec motors when you mercilessly
dumped them at 9000rpm. Like S&M for engines.
The sheer size of
the monster and the mass she carries is dealt with well by the new front
suspension kit and it feels well balanced with the clever static on-frame fairing
set up. Okay, yes, I may have lost a tooth or two hitting sharp-edged potholes
through the Apache Trail however, sharp impacts aside, the suspension does well
in normal conditions. The lean angle is good but we still touched pegs on both
sides plenty times which made me feel that Arjie still had a hell of a lot more
lean left in her. The brakes use the modern front to back distribution system
and handle her mass well.
The contoured seats along with the Tour Pak pillion set-up kept
us comfortable for hours and hours at a time with only a few leg pains kicking
in after the 5 or 6 hour mark. Once you do start getting those pains it is a
simple flick of the speedocruise which then allows you to shift arms and arse
cheeks for blood circulation.
The on-board systems work well, the ergonomics are set up
great for my height and the wind shield, although quite short, did do very well
even with our ¾ helmets. The SatNav takes a bit of getting used to as it does
not automatically scale in and out well enough but, with a bit of tinkering and
experience, you get the hang of using the magnifier manually through the
handlebar mounted controls.
Sitting here now, 6 months after our journey has passed, I
take a short moment to reflect.
I can still feel
that warm California air over my hands, I can still smell the sweet grass
cruising through Kansas, the splash of water on my face through the San Juan
Skyway and the bite of the cold, crisp air on top of Pikes Peak. I can feel her
rumbling through my bones, the way she undulated smoothly over the roadway
contours.
I think back to the endless horizons through Nevada and the
lush canyons through Colorado. The way our jackets were burnt grey from 100
hours in the sun. The Harley-howdy piece sign with your left hand, the way
people flocked to Arjie for a quick chat and how she would make me sing “Three
Little Birds” in my head the whole time. I remember back in LA, enveloped in
the heat and humidity, with Barbara’s legs squeezing super tight in stressed
anxiety, and then, in Chicago 4000 miles later:
The way she just slung into position, kicked back into the
saddle with a huge smile on her face and said “Right – where to captain?” We
would turn Arjie’s heart on, fill up her lungs with air and give her legs a stretch
off into the unknown.
I feel a wash of happiness through my soul.
I loved that Harley. I honestly felt sad having to give her
back in. Give her away to some other guy that might go round the first corner and
drop her. But – life goes on. Now, Barbara and I are standing outside the Eagle
Rider in Chicago at 8am to drop her off. I unwrapped the Guardian Trinket off
from the lowest part of the sub frame and we packed out the saddle bags into
out two tiny little draw string bags.
So what do I rate
now?: I have come from a town of boney scrambler lovers, a Family who see the
Vmax as the pinnacle of man on two wheels, friends that all ride Crotch Rockets
and a crew of guys that are going to burn me at the stake for saying this:
Harley Davidson is The bike of the moment. There is not a single other
manufacture out there that is doing what they are. The S1000RR is old news, the
Kawa H2R and the Vulcan 2000 push the envelope to the max which is awesome –
but awesome in the kind of way that the Mars Rover does. Yes it is cool and it cruises around on a far away planet but…when
will I ever get to really use it?
Harley are developing a brand of bikes that embrace technology
but focus of heritage. A brand of bikes that have not lost track of tradition
in the mad-hatter world of performance motorcycles. Guys out there to achieve
the biggest cylinder, forced induction or the race to 400km/h. They have
developed a bike that hits you right in the feels. A bike that you will want to
tile your garage for. A bike that will make you go into your old storeroom to dig
out the shoebox filled with toothbrushes, Brasso and Chrome care. You will want
to spend time with her.
A bike that
realises that it has nothing to do with how fast you get there, but how awesome
getting there feels.
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