Twolanerider,
Only ever riding a Wide Glide and the SEUC, what are the pro and cons of each bike. Is the King an around towner? The SEEG more of a long tourer? Road Glide...?
Supershooter
It's subjective of course. Different riders will respond differently. For me.....
I rode Road Kings for years before getting the Electra Glide. Did continental trips and repetitive 800 mile days with Road Kings with no problems. The way this bike handles and the way it'll sit I can already tell it would be fine for long days and long trips too. With good suspension, a saddle that fits you well and bars adjusted correctly to you they're all good bikes for the highway. No reason you couldn't tour with any of them.
They are different rides though. If it's a day with wicked cross winds the Road Glide is a more difficult ride at highway speeds. The cross section will bounce you around. In good weather the Road Glide is the easiest ride on the highway though. It's a little quieter behind the bigger fairing. Turbulence from big rigs doesn't shake the fairing when you're in the rear quartering position as you go around them. All tolled it's just a slightly less demanding ride. You're also a bit more comfortable on that bike in really crappy wet or cold weather. Just a bit more protection than is offered by the Electra Glide.
The Road Glide always "feels" bigger though. I know it's the same frame and, basically, the same bike on all three. But the "feel" is always bigger on the Road Glide. Going back and forth from Road Glide to Electra Glide is always something that surprises with the immediate feeling of difference. The Electra Glide seems smaller and it is closer. Go from the Road Glide to the Road King and the FLHR feels downright small for just a bit.
I know some do but I wouldn't ride long days on the Road King without a windshield. A long comfortable day on an FLHR with a properly sized windshield might easily be six tanks (I do about 150 a tank usually) Without a windshield it's four. Makes a huge difference.
I'd take any of them, properly rigged, on the highway for a trip without a moment's hesitation. If I were headed out for a day or a weekend's play on the small roads and had to pick one I'd take the Road King in a heart beat.
They're all comfortable though. And they'll all three competent. I've had the Road Glide in the mountains both in the Rockies and back east. It's fine to throw around. Both fairinged bikes have done seven tank days and comfortably rode five tanks the next day. The Road King will be more fun to just throw around. But it would be a perfectly competent highway bike too.
That's at least partly the way it's put together though. For all of them actually. Could have assembled versions of each that were more dedicated toward or away from some task or another. But they've all got good touring saddles. They've all had handlebars changed after the saddles were selected with bar choices that made for comfortable riding positions. And they've all got good suspension that makes the bikes handle well and be smooth down the highway.
Beyond those three things everything else is differences at the margin. Get those three things right and you could ride a little Dyna all day long comfortably then shower off and take it bar hopping that night. It's the same with the heavy weight bikes. Mother Harley may not give them to us properly equipped to really be multi-mission machines. But we can get them there. And when we do they're great. Because you can then use them however you want whenever the mood strikes.
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Topic: Road King finally posing with its siblings. (Read 6566 times)