2018 Harley Soft Tails

[use2b_imp]

I posted this pic a while back of what i guess is there adventure bike ?
I also enjoyed the duel sport bikes until the XL650R when the seat got to high and set on a African Twin which was the same.
owned 3 Harley's and am done with them anyway just like my VTX1800S

 

[Stichill]

Oh, I see. Missed your point. You're asking why HD doesn't make a sport touring bike with their V-twin? I guess because sport tourers have been kicked to the curb in favor of ADVs. I think the ADV craze is driven by old guys who want to sit upright, but still want to be seen as cool. Kind of like when they were younger and didn't want to buy a station wagon, later a minivan, and instead bought an SUV so they could retain a shred of "cool" and thus a modicum of self-respect.

Ahem...

My Ktm 990 Adventure was the best sports tourer I ever had.. I wanted something to tour on but still fun.. I bought it after seeing the 950 adv chase down a gsxr1000 at leguna seca with Avon roadmasters and it came with hard luggage. It could hold its own with any sportsbike. It's was incredibly well balanced and handled like a dream.

If I put dual sport scorpions on it, I could do fire roads and trails.. Yes, I actually took it off road.. It was literally the do anything bike.. It was awesome. The only reason I didn't keep it was that with two small kids I wasn't riding that much, and I could get a fair chunk of $ for it... The only drawback other than being tall, which was awesome while riding was literally climbing on and off it, was the maintenance. Synthetic oil, 2 oil filters. I kid you not an oil change was 2-3 hours with the crash bars. Basically, it was like dating a super model, got give em more attention

With kids and time constraints, I wanted an easy on and off bike, that was easy to maintain and had low maintence cost..Something basic I could throw a leg over at a moments notice, but was still cool, hence the cb1100. The Ktm had more of a pre flight checklist. Fine for long trip or ride, but a pita for the shorter rides.

I won't argue there are poseurs in the adv crowd. However, they are superior bikes for sport touring in a lot of ways, if you're not height challenged. When I used to be a hsta member (now msta), at rallies I saw one two many sport touring bikes, specifically the st1100 in a ditch.. While a fantastic bike for gobbling up miles, when the road gets twisty, its a handful. The Adv bikes don't have that problem. The only thing you sacrifice really is not getting a full fairing. When touring I wear an aerostich, so weather isn't an issue..

Ahem...

My Ktm 990 Adventure was the best sports tourer I ever had...

I won't argue there are poseurs in the adv crowd. However, they are superior bikes for sport touring in a lot of ways, if you're not height challenged. The only thing you sacrifice really is not getting a full fairing.
Point taken. I'm not saying you can't sports tour on an ADV...but that's not how they are marketed. They are marketed as "the placid stream's worst nightmare" when in fact they are 1200cc road bikes that require real skill and athleticism to pilot in rough offroad terrain. Can the bikes do it? Yes. Can most of their buyers do it? No. Do most of the buyers even try to do it? No. Do most people want to crash offroad on a bike that expensive? Absolutely not.

I think the Ducati Multistrada 1200 is a more honest interpretation of the genre. Looks offroad capable but...meant for the street.

 

[Hondahawkrider_imp]

Oh, I see. Missed your point. You're asking why HD doesn't make a sport touring bike with their V-twin? I guess because sport tourers have been kicked to the curb in favor of ADVs. I think the ADV craze is driven by old guys who want to sit upright, but still want to be seen as cool. Kind of like when they were younger and didn't want to buy a station wagon, later a minivan, and instead bought an SUV so they could retain a shred of "cool" and thus a modicum of self-respect.

Ahem...

My Ktm 990 Adventure was the best sports tourer I ever had.. I wanted something to tour on but still fun.. I bought it after seeing the 950 adv chase down a gsxr1000 at leguna seca with Avon roadmasters and it came with hard luggage. It could hold its own with any sportsbike. It's was incredibly well balanced and handled like a dream.

If I put dual sport scorpions on it, I could do fire roads and trails.. Yes, I actually took it off road.. It was literally the do anything bike.. It was awesome. The only reason I didn't keep it was that with two small kids I wasn't riding that much, and I could get a fair chunk of $ for it... The only drawback other than being tall, which was awesome while riding was literally climbing on and off it, was the maintenance. Synthetic oil, 2 oil filters. I kid you not an oil change was 2-3 hours with the crash bars. Basically, it was like dating a super model, got give em more attention

With kids and time constraints, I wanted an easy on and off bike, that was easy to maintain and had low maintence cost..Something basic I could throw a leg over at a moments notice, but was still cool, hence the cb1100. The Ktm had more of a pre flight checklist. Fine for long trip or ride, but a pita for the shorter rides.

I won't argue there are poseurs in the adv crowd. However, they are superior bikes for sport touring in a lot of ways, if you're not height challenged. When I used to be a hsta member (now msta), at rallies I saw one two many sport touring bikes, specifically the st1100 in a ditch.. While a fantastic bike for gobbling up miles, when the road gets twisty, its a handful. The Adv bikes don't have that problem. The only thing you sacrifice really is not getting a full fairing. When touring I wear an aerostich, so weather isn't an issue..

Ahem...

My Ktm 990 Adventure was the best sports tourer I ever had...

I won't argue there are poseurs in the adv crowd. However, they are superior bikes for sport touring in a lot of ways, if you're not height challenged. The only thing you sacrifice really is not getting a full fairing.
Point taken. I'm not saying you can't sports tour on an ADV...but that's not how they are marketed. They are marketed as "the placid stream's worst nightmare" when in fact they are 1200cc road bikes that require real skill and athleticism to pilot in rough offroad terrain. Can the bikes do it? Yes. Can most of their buyers do it? No. Do most of the buyers even try to do it? No. Do most people want to crash offroad on a bike that expensive? Absolutely not.

I think the Ducati Multistrada 1200 is a more honest interpretation of the genre. Looks offroad capable but...meant for the street.

Ahem...

My Ktm 990 Adventure was the best sports tourer I ever had...

I won't argue there are poseurs in the adv crowd. However, they are superior bikes for sport touring in a lot of ways, if you're not height challenged. The only thing you sacrifice really is not getting a full fairing.
Point taken. I'm not saying you can't sports tour on an ADV...but that's not how they are marketed. They are marketed as "the placid stream's worst nightmare" when in fact they are 1200cc road bikes that require real skill and athleticism to pilot in rough offroad terrain. Can the bikes do it? Yes. Can most of their buyers do it? No. Do most of the buyers even try to do it? No. Do most people want to crash offroad on a bike that expensive? Absolutely not.

I think the Ducati Multistrada 1200 is a more honest interpretation of the genre. Looks offroad capable but...meant for the street.
Lol.. I'll buy that for a dollar... It was a handful off road, but I could do it (thx to american supercamp). I had a xr650 for more dedicated off road stuff. That said, it was nice t know if a road went to dirt/gravel, I didn't have to turn around...

Based upon friends who have BMW GS1200's (for sports touring), I doubt most see dirt at all.

 

[Frulk_imp]

USE2B. That's Harley's Roadster with knobbies. Nothing more. Prob put on by the dealer. The MoCo does not market this as an ADV bike.

 

[Bheezy27403_imp]

I'm sure he's aware of that.

Note the pink hair in the picture. That's one of Harley's incentive deals...purchase a Harley and they throw that in for free!

 

[4 Paws_imp]

Looked at Harleys recently when I was in the market for another bike since the local motorcycle cops were raving about the new engine. Dealership turned me off as much as the selection, lifestyle rather than the ride. I'd enjoy having one in the garage and will probably do so someday.
Kudos to them for trying to evolve beyond their existing customer base.
Check out RTWDoug if you want to read about an Harley adventure bike, one of a kind builder and rider that I met once.

 

[jimgl3_imp]

I dig the the 2018 Softail Low Rider. What a darned good-looking bike. Might have to demo one just to torment myself.

I would own one of these right now if I could afford it, but I know I can't.

 

[redbirds_imp]

Oh, I see. Missed your point. You're asking why HD doesn't make a sport touring bike with their V-twin? I guess because sport tourers have been kicked to the curb in favor of ADVs. I think the ADV craze is driven by old guys who want to sit upright, but still want to be seen as cool. Kind of like when they were younger and didn't want to buy a station wagon, later a minivan, and instead bought an SUV so they could retain a shred of "cool" and thus a modicum of self-respect.

Ahem...

My Ktm 990 Adventure was the best sports tourer I ever had.. I wanted something to tour on but still fun.. I bought it after seeing the 950 adv chase down a gsxr1000 at leguna seca with Avon roadmasters and it came with hard luggage. It could hold its own with any sportsbike. It's was incredibly well balanced and handled like a dream.

If I put dual sport scorpions on it, I could do fire roads and trails.. Yes, I actually took it off road.. It was literally the do anything bike.. It was awesome. The only reason I didn't keep it was that with two small kids I wasn't riding that much, and I could get a fair chunk of $ for it... The only drawback other than being tall, which was awesome while riding was literally climbing on and off it, was the maintenance. Synthetic oil, 2 oil filters. I kid you not an oil change was 2-3 hours with the crash bars. Basically, it was like dating a super model, got give em more attention

With kids and time constraints, I wanted an easy on and off bike, that was easy to maintain and had low maintence cost..Something basic I could throw a leg over at a moments notice, but was still cool, hence the cb1100. The Ktm had more of a pre flight checklist. Fine for long trip or ride, but a pita for the shorter rides.

I won't argue there are poseurs in the adv crowd. However, they are superior bikes for sport touring in a lot of ways, if you're not height challenged. When I used to be a hsta member (now msta), at rallies I saw one two many sport touring bikes, specifically the st1100 in a ditch.. While a fantastic bike for gobbling up miles, when the road gets twisty, its a handful. The Adv bikes don't have that problem. The only thing you sacrifice really is not getting a full fairing. When touring I wear an aerostich, so weather isn't an issue..

Ahem...

My Ktm 990 Adventure was the best sports tourer I ever had...

I won't argue there are poseurs in the adv crowd. However, they are superior bikes for sport touring in a lot of ways, if you're not height challenged. The only thing you sacrifice really is not getting a full fairing.
Point taken. I'm not saying you can't sports tour on an ADV...but that's not how they are marketed. They are marketed as "the placid stream's worst nightmare" when in fact they are 1200cc road bikes that require real skill and athleticism to pilot in rough offroad terrain. Can the bikes do it? Yes. Can most of their buyers do it? No. Do most of the buyers even try to do it? No. Do most people want to crash offroad on a bike that expensive? Absolutely not.

I think the Ducati Multistrada 1200 is a more honest interpretation of the genre. Looks offroad capable but...meant for the street.

Agree that Ducati got it right. I had a 2007 Triumph Tiger 1050, a bike that somewhat fit the ADV genre but it came shod with 17" street oriented tires and was not so tall that a height challenged guy like me could not ride it. It was a very competent sport-touring bike with a good seat, upright riding position and great handling. Unfortunately, Triumph stopped importing it after a few years and replaced it with a tall, heavy ADV with street-off road tires to better compete in the category.

 

[jimgl3_imp]

I am a bit turned off by the ridonkulous displacement though... Displacement is 107ci (1,750cc) or 114ci (1,870cc).

took me a while to get used to the idea of 1140...

 

[Doc1961_imp]

For the riding I do around here, my Road King did it the best. Two lane highway at 60-65, turning about 2500 rpm. It handled great, great brakes(Brembo calipers) and good mileage at 46mpg. Now this is taking into consideration it is not a 600, its a big touring rig. I'm used to bikes that are above 500lbs. Now in town, that's a different story. My CB1100 wins. Will not sell the 1100 but if I'm able to, there will be another Road King in the garage. For the market segment Harley is targeting, my opinion is no one does it better.

 

[jimgl3_imp]

brought one home. couldn't resist it any longer. still have the CB of course. can't part with it either. now, how do i post a photo on here?

 

[Cormanus]

Jim, read this thread but don't go near Photobucket. Use Imgur instead. Otherwise you will have to find a way to reduce the size of the image file to less than 250 kb (I think) and add it as an attachment to your post.

 

[SportsterDoc]

brought one home. couldn't resist it any longer. still have the CB of course. can't part with it either. now, how do i post a photo on here?

Congrats! Which model?

Eldest son-in-law (in Covington) has a 2006 Road King.
Comfortable on the highway (he has gone as far as Arizona on it), but a little awkward for me at low speeds.

Ride it home or trailer it?
Been a mite chilly there.

 

[jimgl3_imp]

 

[ride4now_imp]

brought one home. couldn't resist it any longer. still have the CB of course. can't part with it either. now, how do i post a photo on here?

Try TAPATALK. It works for me... and is relatively easy.

 

[Cormanus]

jimgl3, using my moderator almost-super powers, I can see that you've embedded a link to a picture you've posted on another forum. My experience is that it simply won't work unless you can at least link to a URL that ends in ".jpg" Even then, sites like Photobucket have managed to block even that access.

ride4now is right, if you can lay hands on Tapatalk, it makes the process easy although you probably need the photo on the device you're posting from and you have to accept Tapatalk hosting the photo for you.

 

[F800GT_imp]

I like some Harley bikes too but the culture of pseudo-bada** and the whole thing about "image" kinda put me off from considering one.

 

[rotor]

Jim, read this thread but don't go near Photobucket. Use Imgur instead. Otherwise you will have to find a way to reduce the size of the image file to less than 250 kb (I think) and add it as an attachment to your post.

Sorry to be somewhat blunt (and o/t) here, but there is something very wrong if 250 kb is considered insufficient for a good photograph posted to an Internet forum. We are all too often considering Internet bandwidth to be a limitless resource. Well, it isn't. It's just that we are in regard to that one where we were fifty years ago in regard to petroleum...

 

[Cormanus]

I’m not sure what you mean, rotor. Is o/t for ‘out there’? I’m not making judgments about the image size; just saying what I recall the limit to be.

In this country, at least, bandwidth is definitively finite and quite expensive. Also storage, which is Guth’s issue, is not necessarily cheap. The problem with forum attachments is or so much the file size, but he fact that it seems harder to control the image size (not the file size) than using a hosting site.

 

[rotor]

sorry, o/t, for "off topic".

I honestly believe that the tiny effort required to resize an image to 800x600 pixels and set jpeg compression index of about 70 will produce an image of more than satisfactory size and quality for presentation in an Internet forum. Again apologizing for going on an off-topic tangent - the example image (well, at least it is "another bike" that I am attaching to this post is not Nat Geo photo material, but nobody can argue (I think) that it is technically deficient in size, colour or detail for use on a forum such as this one.

Its size is only 80 KB.