My complaint is compared to other Harleys. It is the best handling Dyna hands down. I grew up in Colorado so I love the twisties. A friend laughed about this claim and saw my posts so he had to see for himself. We switched bikes the other day and he could not catch me when I was riding his road king (minor mods). We switched back and same result occurred. I guess he did not read that I tried cornering with another friends RK. He was surprised just as much as I was about the pegs really limiting the angle for cornering. I am trashing the pegs which I truly do not mind, until they catch too much road one day.
It is a good handling bike but not great. I guess I expected more from it, but that is just my expectations.
I had a old '57 that I recently parted with, I literally grew up on it in the mountains. I did make the old girl a serious racer and it was an awesome bike. Raced it until about five years ago when someone told me what is was worth.(Harleys going up in value was a new lesson for me as well) Maybe that is why I expected more. It took me literally ten years to dial that bike in. The weather and altitude always reeked havoc with timing, jets and such. I figured a new bike with EFI would be great and it is. The new bike will not take the same corners at the same speed however. If I do move pegs and try really hard, I could make this thing handle really well I am sure. I would have to change the wheels since the tires made for it are not meant to really test the potential of the bike. Besides, most sane people do not try and make racers from Dyna's from what I have seen. Straight line sure, but not competitive track racing.
Have you compared it to other Harleys for handling, what did you find? Lets go for a ride and see what happens, I am all for it. It does handle better with new tires, but I have not really pushed them yet.
To be honest, it would not surprise me in the least if it was my bike that handled horribly. When I took delivery, it was literally falling apart from the showroom floor.
The back brake light went out after 300 miles, turn signal did not work after 3 miles, the back M/C lost all of its fluid at 450 miles, brake switch failure at the same time, most everything was loose and frankly I have not gone into every detail on the bike. It only has 6300 miles on it. Stopped going to the dealer when I realized they really did not take care of it. After they replaced the back M/C, the first corner I went around I heard my pipes dragging on the road. They did not even put the bolts back in the mount for the back part of the exhaust and it was hanging by the jug exhaust bolts. SERIOUSLY!!!!! Limped it home and swore never to return. So much for them doing warranty work and caring about customers. Never returned to a dealer since and most likely never will. I just do not feel safe having a dealer do work on something they obviously did not even test drive before giving it back to me. Talk about trying to kill customers...literally. Brake lights and turn signals not working on a new bike? I am convinced I have the bike when the builders had a really really bad day. My old bike did not even have this many issues after years of pounding the hell out of it. For sometime, I assumed Harley quality was worse but most everyone has not had these issues from what I have read out here.
I am building an addition and expanding the garage (too much dust and stuff for doing serious mods). Would love to get a couple of weeks to thoroughly break the entire bike down and see what other problems I might find. I discovered the front wheel bearing was pretty well worn and actually a bit of a mess when I changed the tires. I found this to be strange, but for some reason this did not surprise me after everything I have dealt with. The little floating and clicking front end seemed to disappear with this discovery. The back wheel bearing was fine but I changed it anyway. I have to take the wheels off again to put on the new brakes from Lyndall, but no problem for the betterment of stopping. Will the bearing and tires make a big difference, possibly...let you know when it warms up and I can report on the differences I find. I can tell you the Commander II's are really good in the rain, but I wish I could tell you how they are in the twisties and if the handling in general has improved. It rained over three and half (snowed in other parts!!!!) inches this week..supposedly in three days the weather shall cooperate once again.
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Topic: suspension and handling (Read 5359 times)