Thanks to my International brethren! I love Australia - we were there a few years ago and covered about two-thirds of your wonderful country, and loved every mile and minute!
And Norway is high on my list of countries still to see.
So I guess I can provide an update, while I’m here. I bought my Limited when I did specifically so that I could have it for a bucket list trip we had planned - we were going to be traveling through some of the most amazing areas our country has to offer, and I knew the riding would be epic. I had my ‘07 FatBoy, and I love it, but I really wanted the full touring experience and knew the CVO Limited would be top shelf.
My neighbor has a ‘15 CVO RG, so the plan was to order an enclosed trailer and take the bikes with us. He was traveling with his wife, 22 year old son, and 18 year old daughter. I was traveling with my wife. Long story short, the trailer was ordered at the beginning of March and was expected at the beginning of May, but ultimately due to labor and material shortages it still hasn’t been delivered and we had to go with a plan B.
A week before we were due to leave (middle of last month) we were both able to source single motorcycle trailers from U-Haul. Not as elegant as planned, and I was a bit concerned about trailering through the unknowns on an open trailer, but it had to be.
Friends invited us to stay overnight in Vegas the night before we had planned to leave, so we unexpectedly got about a four hour leg up on the start of our trip. We drove the next day through Nevada, touched Arizona, through Utah, and into Wyoming. We stopped for gas in Rawlins, Wyoming, and I said I had had enough and was dropping the bike and riding the rest of the day. My friend did the same.
My bike didn’t make it back on the trailer until we left for home nearly two weeks later.
We traveled the rest of the day up to Deadwood, South Dakota, covering about 350 miles (out of more than 1000 miles for the day), and I was struck by how easy it was to just ride for miles on end on the Limited… I never suffered butt fatigue and never once had to take an extended break.
We spent three nights in Deadwood and got to cover Sturgis, Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, and the beautiful Black Hills area. For the first time in probably 35 years I was able to ride without a helmet, which felt so freeing.
We left Deadwood reluctantly and headed north to Dickinson, North Dakota, where we spent two days exploring the town of Medora and both sections of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As an aside, when we were approaching Medora on our way in, we had some of the strongest crosswinds I’ve ridden in for several years - I was amazed at how well the Limited handled them, and this was where having a big, heavy bike really became an advantage.
We then headed towards Glacier National Park, and had reservations in Whitefish, Montana for a couple of days. It was nearly 700 miles and would take about 12 hours. My wife was concerned whether I would be able to ride the entire distance, as I have some back issues, and to be honest I wasn’t sure either. I had never tried, but I could never cover that time and distance on my FatBoy ever with the couch (Mustang seat) in place.
We decided to give it a shot and I’d ride as far as I could, and then put the bike on the trailer. My buddy had already loaded his, as he was going to drive their Tahoe since we were going to have to make time (speed limit is 80 along that route).
Another long story short, never even thought to get off the bike, and when we reached Whitefish I felt like could have kept riding for many more miles. I finally experienced what many touring riders have known for years… Harley touring bikes are incredible.
My buddy dropped his bike off the trailer a couple hundred miles out, and he and his daughter rode the rest of the way along side me. I’m getting choked up, and literally have goose bumps, as I write this and think of how beautiful beyond description that last segment was as Glacier National Park slowly came into view.
We spent another three nights there and explored the wonders of Montana, all the way to the Canadian border. We hit a little outpost just this side of the border named First and Last Chance Bar, and made friends with the folks working there. They gave us directions for an awesome side trip on rural ‘roads’ traveling along the Montana/Idaho boundaries, which we explored in the Tahoe.
We finished the trip up with three nights at West Yellowstone, and I can’t express how absolutely gorgeous the ride was from Whitefish.
All in all, we traveled 4650 miles, traversed parts of 9 states in total, and I covered about 2000 miles of it on my CVO Limited.
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Topic: New To Me 2019 CVO Limited (Read 1917 times)