2010 Ultra Limited vs. 2011 Road Glide Ultra

[Bone Stockman]

Let me preface this by saying that had the RGU been available in 2010, I would have bought it, no question about it. I made it a point to rent one, as I've been wondering ever since if it lives up to the love that their riders heap on them. To be clear, I really wanted to love this bike.

We picked up the Root Beer RGU at Buddy Stubbs H-D in Phoenix at 2pm on Friday. It's 9:30 Arizona time on Sunday, and I've gone around 1300 miles. The poor thing only had 400 miles on it.

The rental guy at the dealer had me ride around the parking lot to make sure I knew what I was doing. After an initial "oh sh*t" moment when I turned the bars and the fairing didn't move, I was fine. After one lap around the lot, I was doing full-lock circles and the guy was waving me back. He told Dana, "he'll want to trade his bike in on one of these when you get back home".

Nope.

It's a great looking bike. The paint is beautiful, and I actually like the sharknose. Other than a few doo-dads like the bag guards and the heated grips, it's identical to mine other than the different fairing. From the parking lot turns, it was apparent that getting the weight of the fairing off of the forks makes a big difference. The steering is light, and tight low-speed turns are ridiculously easy.

But the view from the saddle is weird. The radio seems like it's a million miles away. That's just the difference from what I'm used to, and really not that big of a deal. The two glove boxes are nice, and made up for not having a drink holder.

This bike, other than the luggage rack, was totally, completely, utterly stock. The BSL ain't, so I'm trying to remember when it was, and how the bikes compare, apples-to-apples.

The stock seat is far better than the 2010 non-low seat. I was squirming a bit, but I never got the butt-burn that my old seat gave me. Likewise, the windshield was the perfect height, vision-wise. And the exhaust, even though it sounds kind of lame at idle, is dead-quiet at speed. That's a really nice change from the Fatcat, which (even with earplugs) wears me out. At altitude (we were above 5200 feet a couple of times), it's a pig, but when I dropped out of the clouds in California, it pulled reasonably well. The factory 103 is a good motor, but a stage 1 really is worth it's weight in gold, even with the excess noise.

Now the bad....

I don't know what percentage is the fairing position and what percentage is the factory windshield, but there's a ton more wind on the rider. Not really a big deal for me, but it seemed like the air over the top and around the sides converged right on Dana's face. The poor girl got the hell beaten out of her. This was made worse by the cold temperatures in the morning. My hands are above this fairing, and there's a column of air coming up under the fairing that makes it impossible to stay warm. I've ridden in less gear in colder temperatures on my bike and not been as cold.

Then there's the handling. As we were loading up at the dealer, a guy pulled up on a twin of James's RG. He went on and on about how great it was in the wind, and how well it handled, and how it's the only bike that Harley's done wind tunnel testing. Could've fooled me. Now granted, I've got a really good suspension with the Ricor stuff on my bike, but even when it was stock it wasn't like this. The RGU is like a high school girl at a college fraternity party.....Sloppy, messy, and flailing around. The suspension's so soft, it wallows when pushed, and wants to go wide. The damn thing won't hold a line to save it's (or my) life. The light steering makes it easy to put into a turn, but then it starts wandering.

To make matters worse, when I overtake an 18 wheeler, it starts wagging its head around 150 yards back, and doesn't settle back down until we're past the wake of the truck. Dana hit the nail on the head when she said that the bike never really feels connected to the road. The BSL, even when it was stock, never felt this vague. We hit a patch of gravel in a 90mph sweeper, and I felt the back end start to slide. I did what I do on my bike; shift my ass to get the thing back upright, and it was almost like the bike said, "oh, you want to stay on the road? Well, ok." Even when Dana and her stuff were off the bike and I was tearing up 95 between Parker and Lake Havasu City (Mike, we gotta ride this road on our bikes), I never felt comfortable really letting it rip.

Now with all that said, this is not my bike. I'm assuming that at 400 miles, there were no issues with alignment or steering head adjustments. But this thing reminded me of all the criticism I hear leveled at Harleys. It's a damn pig that doesn't like to dance, and doesn't protect me nearly as well from the elements. I'd love to ride a stage 1 RGU with the Ricor suspension goodies, a recurved Windvest, floating rotors, and Lyndall pads, just to see how it compares, but all that still wouldn't fix the other half of the wind issue.

I love my bike, and I feel very good about the changes I've made to it. I'm really glad the RGU wasn't offered in 2010, 'cause there's no way I would have ridden as much as I did last year, and there's no way Dana would have come with me.