I had a chance to test ride a 2017 CVO Limited at the York Operations Open House today. It was really mobbed as the weather was ideal. The bike I rode was a silver and palladium.
As you can see my perspective comes from riding a heavily worked 2010 CVO Ultra that I have 58,000 miles on. My current bike's tires are fresh for comparison with the test bike. The test ride was rather short, only 8 miles so I tried to focus on first impressions.
Impressions. I thought the paint looked sharp even though I prefer the darker colors. I will need the floor board extensions as I needed them for the current bike. I rode a rented 2016 Ultra Limited for a week last year so I was somewhat familiar with most of the Rushmore's upgrades.
First thing I noticed were the grips. My current CVO has smooth rubber interspaced with smooth chrome strips. The new grips jumped out at me as they are covered in very small nubs. It sorta surprised me, not in a good way. To be honest it felt sorta cheap but I guess it will give a strong grip in bad weather.
I did notice the slow speed handling in the lot before leaving. The bike felt very balanced. Overall the suspension felt excellent but it was over limited miles. Very sure footed. Does it feel "astounding" to my current bike....no. Improved ....yes.
The radio is really nice. Loud and clear at all speeds and I was never above 40% volume.
The exhaust is miserable. I get that some may like a quiet bike but this is remarkably quiet. Barely any exhaust tone at all but then my comparison is to a D&D Fatcat. I don't want to go back to the volume of a FC on the new bike but the stock pipes sound too close to a metric cruiser for my tastes. I'm sure the aftermarket will provide options in the future.
Shifting is interesting. It's very sharp and clear but it does feel different and abit unusual. Hard to explain but you can feel the gears meshing/chattering for a split second before they engage. It gives a sense of vibration just before the gear is fully engaged. Nothing disconcerting but I think I prefer the "cleaner" feeling of the current bike shifting.
The engine. It does feel strong. Really strong for a stock bike. I had just ridden my bike 2 hrs to and back from the plant so I had time to really mentally compare to my current bike. It's nowhere near as powerful but for a stock bike it accelerated terrific. In fact the biggest issue I found is that it can run through the gears so quickly it was very easy to bump the rev limiter at 5500. It happened a half dozen times in 8 miles particularly running the twisties hard.
The rev limiter will be one of the first things to be addressed on my new CVO.
Worth noting I test rode an Indian Roadmaster about a month ago. It felt solid with strong performance but the CVO has stronger performance and aspects that the Indian just can't match. The Indian TP Open from the rear vs the side. I think Indian should rethink that design. I didn't care for the seating position of the Indian and of course it doesn't have the Infotainment system which is a big part of my motivation for upgrading.
Overall I was impressed with the 2017 CVO Limited. I'm looking to forward to the new bike's arrival in Late Oct but it's going to take some significant upgrades to get it anywhere near my current bike. But that's half the fun!
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Topic: 2017 CVO limited (Read 14979 times)