2015 MY demo ride
#1
09-08-2014 | 07:16 AM
Thread Starter
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Tourer
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 317
Likes: 1
From: Columbus
2015 MY demo ride
I was able to partake in a 2015 model year demo ride at southside Harley in Indy this past weekend. Rode the road king, CVO street glide, road glide special, CVO ultra limited, ultra classic low and even the little street 750 just for kicks.
RK- Very smooth ride, good seat, hated the height of the windshield because the very top edge distorts the field of vision, and it shook like crazy. Not a bad ride overall, but not for me
CVO SG- It was the starfire black/ gold dust flames. Flames were subtle but looked good color wise. I'm not a big fan of flame paint jobs, but it was subtle enough i quite enjoyed it. I much preffered the CVO gauges to the standard ones. but so does most other persons on here. Seat was nice. Had the ability to split into a solo seat. Liked the shield on it, kept wind where i wanted it and relatively smooth. Radio is the big change besides the 110" from the standard street glide. If you want to upgrade the radio but want to stick with factory approved parts, i'm sure it will cost a lot as an upgrade, but the Boom Audio II as it was labeled actually performed excellent for a factory stereo option. 4 riders behind me could hear it on the highway and backroads, and a few of them could hear it on I-65 doing 75-80. The 110 pulls hard and just feels high dollar. I wouldn't say the bike is worth the $36K sticker, but swap the 110, gauges and stereo onto a regular street glide and that thing is gonna feel amazing. Price not considered, this would have definitely been the bike for me
RGS-Here is where my day took an odd turn. I have been waiting for this bike since the second I heard they were killing it off for the '14 MY. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I was still under the spell of the CVO SG. Maybe it's because I don't like the amber color. All I know is it felt cheap, I don't like the new inner fairing layout, the bars aren't uncomfortable, but they shook and felt odd (maybe something to do with the weighted bars a few people had mention). And dammit, it didn't matter what vents I opened or shut in any combination, it was directing choppy wind right into my face. That being said, I had on a full face ICON alliance helmet. It felt fine on the other previous bikes and would go on to be fine on the next few. while riding the RGS i was annoyed with it. Just didn't care for it at all. The angle on the radio is perfectly aligned to glare with the sun so it's very hard to read at times as well. It rode similar to the regular street glide, but just didn't fit my fancy and to me had the worst wind issue of the group. Kinda pissed me off I've been so excited about this bike for a year and this is all I got. I will be riding it again before and after a non-CVO SGS with no helmet (how i normally ride) Just to give it a fair shakedown. But I was not really blown away by the RGS at all. Currently, NOT the bike for me
CVO Limited- I'm not a fan of the full dresser look necessarily, nor did I care for the color scheme on the demo bike. That being said that is one comfy, cushy, smooth all day, awesome ride! i won't be purchasing one anytime soon unless I win the lottery and could afford several bikes, but this thing does what it's supposed to. i only got an 11 mile / 18 min taste test of it, but I felt like I could ride ALL day on that thing. I was surprised how comfy it actually was and how it just felt like a taller SG. didn't honestly feel much heavier at all. Not what i'm looking for right now, but 10-15 years from now, might become the perfect bike for me!
Ultra Low- Had almost the same feel of the Limited, just non CVO and less comfortable. had great flat foot ability on it, felt a bit more stable, but the seat does 2 things that I didn't much care for. #1 it pushes you up almost onto the tank. And #2 it squeezed the bejesus out of my stones. Seat takes an abrupt upward curve in the front. Not so pleasant. The overall ride was still pretty darn comfortable and surprisingly handled the big potholes with ease. I would got with a standard sized ultra if it were my choice. Not a bad bike, but not for me
Street 750- Surprise of the weekend goes to this little guy. I had more fun on this little thing just riding it as a joke than i ever would have imagined. It feels cheap, because well. It is. the controls aren't smooth plastic, they're the same cheaper rougher feeling stuff you get on honda rebels and suzuki m80's. The engine almost sounded like the new livewire at speed because you couldn't hear the exhaust, all you heard was gear and engine noise. Not a great sound but I was riding this just to ride, not for serious research so I just ignored it. On the other hand, it is surprisingly perky adnd zippy! To a point... It raced away from stop lights and stop signs. I was giving it half throttle thinking "this might keep up with the 103" bikes!" However once we reached the on-ramp to the interstate and i gave it the full beans, i realized at 50% throttle it's giving you 90% of what it's got already. So at that point everyone (even my 6'8" tall 300lb buddy on the sportster 48
) pulled away from me. It needs a tach or top gear indicator pretty badly, but other than that I could see myself buying it as a spare bike to buzz around town or on shorter highway trips with. Be a good starter bike. Even if you drop it, it's a cheap feeling p.o.s. anyway. I wouldn't be heart broken to scratch it up or knock it over. Just pick it up and keep going. Fun little bike. Might be the "backup" bike for me to keep in the garage next to my main ride.
Had a great weekend, Southside Harley is a nice facility, very welcoming staff, easy access location. Just made for a pleasant way to kill some time that otherwise would have been wasted.
RK- Very smooth ride, good seat, hated the height of the windshield because the very top edge distorts the field of vision, and it shook like crazy. Not a bad ride overall, but not for me
CVO SG- It was the starfire black/ gold dust flames. Flames were subtle but looked good color wise. I'm not a big fan of flame paint jobs, but it was subtle enough i quite enjoyed it. I much preffered the CVO gauges to the standard ones. but so does most other persons on here. Seat was nice. Had the ability to split into a solo seat. Liked the shield on it, kept wind where i wanted it and relatively smooth. Radio is the big change besides the 110" from the standard street glide. If you want to upgrade the radio but want to stick with factory approved parts, i'm sure it will cost a lot as an upgrade, but the Boom Audio II as it was labeled actually performed excellent for a factory stereo option. 4 riders behind me could hear it on the highway and backroads, and a few of them could hear it on I-65 doing 75-80. The 110 pulls hard and just feels high dollar. I wouldn't say the bike is worth the $36K sticker, but swap the 110, gauges and stereo onto a regular street glide and that thing is gonna feel amazing. Price not considered, this would have definitely been the bike for me
RGS-Here is where my day took an odd turn. I have been waiting for this bike since the second I heard they were killing it off for the '14 MY. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I was still under the spell of the CVO SG. Maybe it's because I don't like the amber color. All I know is it felt cheap, I don't like the new inner fairing layout, the bars aren't uncomfortable, but they shook and felt odd (maybe something to do with the weighted bars a few people had mention). And dammit, it didn't matter what vents I opened or shut in any combination, it was directing choppy wind right into my face. That being said, I had on a full face ICON alliance helmet. It felt fine on the other previous bikes and would go on to be fine on the next few. while riding the RGS i was annoyed with it. Just didn't care for it at all. The angle on the radio is perfectly aligned to glare with the sun so it's very hard to read at times as well. It rode similar to the regular street glide, but just didn't fit my fancy and to me had the worst wind issue of the group. Kinda pissed me off I've been so excited about this bike for a year and this is all I got. I will be riding it again before and after a non-CVO SGS with no helmet (how i normally ride) Just to give it a fair shakedown. But I was not really blown away by the RGS at all. Currently, NOT the bike for me
CVO Limited- I'm not a fan of the full dresser look necessarily, nor did I care for the color scheme on the demo bike. That being said that is one comfy, cushy, smooth all day, awesome ride! i won't be purchasing one anytime soon unless I win the lottery and could afford several bikes, but this thing does what it's supposed to. i only got an 11 mile / 18 min taste test of it, but I felt like I could ride ALL day on that thing. I was surprised how comfy it actually was and how it just felt like a taller SG. didn't honestly feel much heavier at all. Not what i'm looking for right now, but 10-15 years from now, might become the perfect bike for me!
Ultra Low- Had almost the same feel of the Limited, just non CVO and less comfortable. had great flat foot ability on it, felt a bit more stable, but the seat does 2 things that I didn't much care for. #1 it pushes you up almost onto the tank. And #2 it squeezed the bejesus out of my stones. Seat takes an abrupt upward curve in the front. Not so pleasant. The overall ride was still pretty darn comfortable and surprisingly handled the big potholes with ease. I would got with a standard sized ultra if it were my choice. Not a bad bike, but not for me
Street 750- Surprise of the weekend goes to this little guy. I had more fun on this little thing just riding it as a joke than i ever would have imagined. It feels cheap, because well. It is. the controls aren't smooth plastic, they're the same cheaper rougher feeling stuff you get on honda rebels and suzuki m80's. The engine almost sounded like the new livewire at speed because you couldn't hear the exhaust, all you heard was gear and engine noise. Not a great sound but I was riding this just to ride, not for serious research so I just ignored it. On the other hand, it is surprisingly perky adnd zippy! To a point... It raced away from stop lights and stop signs. I was giving it half throttle thinking "this might keep up with the 103" bikes!" However once we reached the on-ramp to the interstate and i gave it the full beans, i realized at 50% throttle it's giving you 90% of what it's got already. So at that point everyone (even my 6'8" tall 300lb buddy on the sportster 48
) pulled away from me. It needs a tach or top gear indicator pretty badly, but other than that I could see myself buying it as a spare bike to buzz around town or on shorter highway trips with. Be a good starter bike. Even if you drop it, it's a cheap feeling p.o.s. anyway. I wouldn't be heart broken to scratch it up or knock it over. Just pick it up and keep going. Fun little bike. Might be the "backup" bike for me to keep in the garage next to my main ride. Had a great weekend, Southside Harley is a nice facility, very welcoming staff, easy access location. Just made for a pleasant way to kill some time that otherwise would have been wasted.
#6
09-08-2014 | 03:39 PM
Thread Starter
|
Tourer
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 317
Likes: 1
From: Columbus
No problem! you don't get a review of the whole lineup in one place very often!
For the record of comfort and vision and everything, i'm 5'10" tall, a little more legs than torso, and weigh right at 219 lbs according to the piece of glass on the bathroom floor. I'm fairly certain the guy they built the rushmore street glides around, was my twin. Super comfy bikes to me
For the record of comfort and vision and everything, i'm 5'10" tall, a little more legs than torso, and weigh right at 219 lbs according to the piece of glass on the bathroom floor. I'm fairly certain the guy they built the rushmore street glides around, was my twin. Super comfy bikes to me
#7
09-08-2014 | 06:32 PM
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#9
09-08-2014 | 11:38 PM
Cruiser
Joined: Sep 2012
Posts: 209
Likes: 8
From: Gainesville, VA
I traded my 2013 Ultra Limited for the 2015 Ultra Limited in Deep Jade the day it rolled off the trailer at the dealer. Must say the ride difference from the 2013 is incredibly better in many ways, more power, shifts better, sounds better... it's just all around a better bike! Only complaint is the foot brake being so high up, but ordered and received the softbrake.com fix already just need to bolt it on.
