I hear ya. MY "touring bike" comes in at around 700 lbs in this configuration. She loses about 100 lbs when I take the bags and tour-pak off, which takes literally 5 minutes (hooray for quick release hardware! ). I'll often be on a road trip in "Baggertail" mode, and then strip off the bags and tour-pak for local riding. Best of both worlds!
I too couldn't resist posting another pic of Reaper, hehehe...
Cheers!
Talk about making it your own............I have never seen a Night Train set up with Road King Hard bags and a Tour Pak. Now THAT is unique! Nice going there.
Well Goldwing did what a lot of people here wanted and in 2018 they made the bike smaller and lighter. It worked out great for Harley because most Goldwing riders looking for a new bike have all come back to Harley. Honda abandoned the touring class. The new wing is uncomfortable, less wind protection, very poor storage capacity, and even more plastic than the previous version, has a terrible pipe drone on the highway, and wicked buffeting that is adjustable with the screen, lol. I shopped and ride them all, most at least twice.
The 2020 Ultra has everything a serious touring rider wants. Class leading comfortable suspension out of the box, excellent wind protection, heated grips, super comfy seat for rider and passenger, very easy to work on, only android auto game in town, ample storage, rain mode, traction and electronic slipper clutch, RDRS, TPMS, excellent low speed handling with the smooth, consistent, perfectly placed, superbly easy friction zone with hydro clutch, great balance, quiet but deep sounding exhaust, best looking by a mile, competitively priced, hands down our choice. I am 5' 9" 165 and I prefer the weight when we travel. It feels very light. Much lighter than any of our old adventure bikes due to low seat height and center if gravity. Plus the best dealer network for travel and actual service on the road, not "we can get to you in 3 weeks like the japs and germans". The 114 is all the motor I need for touring. A 131 would be stupid.
Harley has a great formula, if it ain't broke...
The 2018 Ultra I own is a very good touring bike. I'll disagree about the out of the box suspension. I'm spending a lot of money making it ride as nice as the stock suspension on my Indian.
The Goldwings have always been heavy bikes. But the NEW one isn't. The 2018 and up Goldwings are about 90 lbs LIGHTER than the previous generation. But even at that, it' still a heavy bike at around 830 lbs.
830 is better than 950. I agree with Mr Green. A lighter Touring bike would sell to people like me. 71 years old and still want to ride Cross Country.......on a lighter bike. If Honda can do it, why not HD?
Last edited by bigal51; 02-13-2021 at 01:24 PM.
Reason: punctuation
Harley provides a website which shows they are losing sales based on what they produce and the slumping market is mostly a Harley problem as other brands, even brands with expensive bikes, have all reported sales increases in most of the years Harley has gone the opposite direction. Harley peaked in 2006 selling over 350,000 bikes world wide with 273,000 sales in the US alone. By 2019 their world wide sales were down to 213,000 and US sales at 124,000. That is some accomplishment. Yes everyone got whacked by the 2008 banking debacle and Harley did manage to climb back 270,000 units world wide in 2014 with 173,000 of that being US sales.
So which brands are seeing a sales decline on par with Harley, let alone a sales decline across the last five years to rival Harley's?
If you don't think those drops are not significant, having sales of only sixty percent of what they had in 2007 I am not sure what would qualify. Even comparing back to 2014 they are down to less than eighty percent of that year in sales.
Having Indian around may be a blessing disguise, certainly Harley makes Indian's job easier by letting them keep their bikes priced really high.
So to repeat, based on what Harley did when they revamped the frame and suspensions of the Softtails they certainly can save a good chunk of weight off the tour line with a similar revamp. They most certainly need to step up their game and have the terms Special and Ultra mean something instead of paint and a few CCs of motor. Then again seeing that they can sell a CVO with a paltry 117 motor which is barely more than the 114 and get 10 to 15k more is telling. Those bikes should all be sporting 131
Chris, When your throwing around Manufacturing numbers, make sure scooters and mopeds are not included in the tallys. Also can you give me the sales figures for Indian?
I don't think I've seen more than ONE of those Indian
things on the road in the last several months. I've never
even seen that Road Glide knock off of theirs in person.
Our local Indian Dealer (Ness) is gone.
Not big sellers around here.
I do see Victory's on the road. Imagine that.
Harley (could) step it up a notch and do something a little
more touring oriented with the Heritage.
Hard bags and a clip-on fairing. (Even the old FLH style)
Guessing 750 Lb ?
Harley Davidson doesn't need to be chasing anyone, especially not Indian. Harley sells itself, the aftermarket starts R&D the day a new model comes out unlike Indian. You should go to an Indian forum and read the posts over there. They got nothing when it comes to heads, cams, intakes, pipes, stretched bags, bars, grips, windshields... Problem is, you're spoiled with HD, go buy one of those POS Indians and have fun. The paint is the worst in the industry, rusting problems, electrical gremlins and you can't find a tuner except for PV. Nobody willing to dyno it.. bla bla bla.
What you see are numbers 103 HP stock, that's as far as you're going to take it because that's all they got. All those kick *** Indian's in flatrack are badass, but also built by S&S , same for their prostock bikes, S&S built them, not a single Indian part on it.
The aftermarket will never spend the cash to R&D an Indian like they will Harley.
That post is a bunch of BS. I own both. I haven't had a bit of trouble with my Indian and there's plenty of of stuff available for the Thunderstroke twin.
Per google the Honda Wing and an RGU are 40 pounds within each other. The GT1600 Sport Tourer is about 80 lbs lighter. There all the same... End of the day a Kawasaki Concours 14 was what was described and it is a great bike BUT its not a Harley
I just added an Airhawk to my ZX14. Have a tank bag and a duffel bag behind me and it's my touring bike.
Instead of playing catch up they could really introduce something new. Extensive use of aluminum and composite materials could drastically reduce the weight.
An all new all aluminum mono shock frame with 5" of shock travel. Aluminum tank,fenders. replace all the steel parts you can with composite or aluminum. Aluminum can be chromed or anodized.
You can't tell the difference between steel painted parts or aluminum. The feel is the same. All aluminum water cooled engine with reverse flow cooling so the coolant goes thru the heads first, then the block. That allows higher compression, more power without detonation. Revise the cam profiles so people don't have to change the cams to get it to sound more like a Harley.
Put enough power in it (150 hp, 140 ft lbs of torque) use the latest technologies like direct injection to fatten that torque curve.
The power to weight ratio would be fantastic and the handling much improved. It would be that "got to have it" model they desperately need to turn things around.
That would make me trade my 900lb. RGU in if I could get a new RGU that had all that and weighed 650lbs. 600 lbs would be even better then let everyone else play catch up
The Swtichback was just a little heavier, and air cooled. But otherwise meets you specs.
Harley dropped it because it didn't sell well. Shame it was a nice bike.
02-13-2021, 09:33 AM
). I'll often be on a road trip in "Baggertail" mode, and then strip off the bags and tour-pak for local riding. Best of both worlds! 
