For far too long, Harley Davidson has been guilty of bringing a knife to a gun-fight! I mean that if you compare most of Harley’s touring models, before 2017, to the competition – Victory or Indian… heck, even Triumph – Harley was sure to be down a man, before the scrapping even began.
This could be attributed to the marginal lack of power that Harley tourers (aside from CVOs) brought to the table. There was a certain je ne sais quoi that their motorcycles lacked when it came to touring on anything less than a Screamin’ Eagle hopped up CVO.
Yet, here I sit at the fag-end of 2016, reminiscing about one helluva ride through the Washington State Peninsula astride a 2017 HD Road Glide Special.
Harley like to say that it was a mix of core customer sentiment, the weight of a century old legacy and plain old motorcycling evolution that led to the all-new Milwaukee Eight engines. I like to think otherwise! I like to believe that it was the primal instinct that makes a man don a 7kg armored jacket in the deflagrating heat of the desert to experience motorcycling bliss, that led to the creation of this beast – the all-new Milwaukee Eight series.
It’s been a motorcycling era during which Harley’s Twin-Cam engines adorned the touring bikes – good engines .. just a death wish shy of great!
Perhaps one misty night, one man riding an earlier version of the Road Glide had an epiphany – ‘what if I added more power, what if I could add more torque, what if I could narrow this beast down through my legs and make for a touring machine that feels more like an extension of my body?!’ That man was Alex Bozmoski – Chief Powertrain Engineer at HD motorcycles – who has maybe come up with the most substantial product offering from Harley Davidson in over a decade.
I was one of many insurance policy rejects who answered Harley Davidson’s call to ride the 2017 touring models, kitted with the all-new 2017 Milwaukee Eight engines through the backwoods of small-town America. We started off on a 400 mile journey through the Oympic National Park in Washington, up to Hurricane Ride and via Lake Crescent – all American road-trip icons – riding the all new touring range from Harley Davidson.
And while there’s a lot to be said for all the motorcycles in this category, the one that most resonated with me – and the one that I spent the most time in the saddle of, was the 2017 HD Road Glide Special.
I will admit that I’ve always been a dormant HD fan – preferring the character of an Iron 883 or the naïve appeal of an XR1200R to anything mass consumed from the manufacturer. That all changed in a New York minute when I rode my first 50 odd kms on the 2017 Road Glide.
What Harley Davidson has achieved with the all new Milwaukee Eight engines is nothing short of game-changing! With massively improved torque – 150nm at 3,000 odd revs, the Road Glide Special feels like it could pull a trailer with all my ex-girlfriends and their combined baggage! And that’s saying a lot!!
The 107CI (1,753cc oil-cooled motor, for our metric sensibilities) engine is the hero of this piece but what makes the 2017 HD Road Glide the absolute finest touring motorcycle in its fight-class is the sidekicks that it comes with – the Showa Dual Bending Valve front suspension, for example.
Harley claim that it gives you 98mm of travel through the front forks but it isn’t like I was riding with a ruler in my hand. What I felt in pure motorcycling ecstasy was that no matter how much I threw a 400 kilo bike through peg scraping twists and turns, it absorbed every dip and crest in the country road like a warm knife through butter.
I feel like Bozmoski and his design crew had our Middle Eastern sensibilities in mind when they designed this powertrain because it is by far the coolest running engine that I’ve ever had between my legs. HD have added improved engine oil venting and an extra five litres of oil for better breathability.
Also, gone are the days when you’d get off a 100 plus km ride feeling like you’d developed the early onset of arthritis solely in your left hand, thanks to the new assisted slip clutch for amazingly lower effort and much better engine braking.
One of the key features that HD invested in is the ‘sweet idling spot’ of the new Milwaukee Eight engines owing to dual spark plugs – retaining the trademark Harley ‘potato-potato’ burble, whilst still maintaining a less than bone jarring idle frequency which emerged quite prominently while I was stopped at red lights.
I must say I was amazed that the rear view mirrors didn’t render themselves useless thanks to Harley’s hitherto vibrating. Contributing to this is the new rubber mounting that the Milwaukee Eights reside in and the all-new anti-knock control. The new 2017 Road Glide gets 15-30 per cent more pre-load adjustment which the Harley Davidson Americas team demonstrated as an amazingly simple process – you just detach the pannier shell and a large tactile dial allows for easy pre-load adjustment.
And for a 400kg bike, stopping power is all too crucial when the rear end of an unwitting car looms too large – thankfully the Road Glide Special is fitted with Reflex Linked Brembo brakes that make slowing down more intuitive and ‘on-a-dime’ than ‘squeeze and pray’!
For someone who spends the better part of his life riding in near hellish climes, cold of any sort on a motorcycle tends to get uncomfortable all too soon. But despite the Washington mist nipping at my extremities, the Road Glide seat is set up so beautifully that I felt like 400 miles was a weekend jaunt. Even the fixed shark-nosed fairing started appealing to my discerning lust.
With Daymaker Twin lamps and a BOOM! audio system, I felt like I could ride all the way down to Texas without so much as a ‘stretching the legs’ stop!
