Hello all,
I took the maiden voyage home from NJ with my spankin new SG CVO in UltraViolet Blue. It was about 290 miles home so I thought I would do a brief write-up for an initial review. As a reference point I am coming off of a 2014 SGS and had a 2012 SG CVO, so I am familiar with the 103 and 110 engines.
First of all the color is great, to me of course. It is a deep metallic violet blue. The sparkle has some blue, green and purple in it. The Blue itself has some black as well, which comes out in the shade. The orange looks frenched in, 3D affect. Striking for sure. HD did a great job in the quality and design on the paint.
First impression when I sat on it is that I was sitting lower. Of course that is the seat as the frame remains the same. The bars felt different to me as well, but that could be the seat too. On the ride home after about 50 miles, my butt started hurting and continued for full ride. So off the seat comes and on with the Corbin Solo.
For the first 50 miles I took back roads and kept her below 2500 rpm and varied the speed. As I had a long ride home and it is my anniversary I had to hit the super slab pretty quickly. For entire trip home I kept the rpm’s at 3000 or below, but did get to 4k every now and then. I didn’t really worry about my speed. Most of the ride was 60-80, although I had a brief stint quite higher. She tracked perfectly.
The engine is really awesome. I really liked the 103 in the SGS, but the 110 is just very different. Power is on tap regardless of gear. Even in 6th, just twist and she goes. In the 103, it was different at the top end and found myself downshifting more. Torque off the line is also great.
Suspension – I have had both Ohlin’s and JRI’s, both from Howard of Motorcycle Metal. I would say that the HD shocks are not bad, certainly much better than they were pre-2012. For the most part I liked them Where they start to fall short is when you start hitting the bumps. The shocks do a reasonable job at the small bumps, but when you hit the biggies, they just can’t absorb as much as need be.
Radio/Sirrius – The speakers are a nice step forward from the ones on the 14 SGS. The added amp adds some nice volume and I definitely could hear it at 70mph. The quality of the sound is good, not great. I would describe it as pretty loud but you don’t get the vividness that you would get from other speakers such as the Focal’s that I had on my 14 SGS. At some point I will call Pete from Soundz and get his thoughts. Sirius was great. I only had the preview channel, but the reception and quality of the sound was great. Reception was on par, if not a little better than my cage.
Wind and shield – when I had my 14 SGS I put a 9” Freedom shield on before I took my first ride. I opened and closed the vent with no real discernible difference noted. The 15 CVO comes with a shield that is about 4-5”. For the most part it did a pretty good job. The closing of the vent made a huge difference. When open the air was at the top of my helmet which was fine, closed the air dropped a couple of inches and started shaking my glasses. Huge difference.
Quality – there are a couple of paint issues from the factory.
On the lower there is a very small place where it was not painted properly (silver showing where there should be orange and a small blemish on the inner fairing. My dealer was great and is going to take care of both issues. He told me of the issue before I got there and gave me the option of fixing it or picking it up and fixing it up here in Boston. This has been reported before regarding the NAV screen and the fact that once you go thru tunnel and the screen darkens, that it does not go back to bright.
The other issue that happened on the ride home was I noticed some sort of liquid coming down in the 2 large gauges. Started at the top and slowly ran dnw on the inside of the glass. From the flow it looked more like an oil than water. Does anyone know if once the gauges are out can you get to the inside of the glass to clean? Is it easy to even get to the gauges (for me, not dealer).
I would also add that my experience with the dealer (Ocean County, NJ) was about as perfect as I would want. I don’t hold them accountable for the quality issues from the Moco, but they stood behind everything and I didn’t even have to ask. I would highly recommend them.
I will post some pics soon via Tapatalk.
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Topic: Happy dance - new SG CVO is home - initial review (Read 12496 times)