For the Softail riders that have or have had touring bikes what are your thoughts and experience with Progressive Suspension. I know the Monotubes are pretty popular with the Softail crowd, should I expect similar results with a Road Glide? Without drawing fire from the Shotgun cheerleaders can somebody give me an honest review on their rear shocks. A riding buddy wants me to lower his 2011 CVO Road Glide Ultra and would like to improve the ride and handling, however I have no first hand experience with Progressive's products. I've asked questions over in the Touring section and haven't received anything close to a helpful answer. Our section of the forum seems to be pretty tech savvy so hopefully you guys can help. He wants to go with Monotubes up front and the 944's on the rear.

 

The Monotubes feel soft to me but I'm comparing that to a sportbike's front suspension when I say that. However, they are very comfortable and I don't think that the handling is effected in a bad way.

I've had the Progressive 413 rear shocks and they felt good. Even with back problems, the 413's were comfortable. 413's have been replaced with 422. From what I've read, they are a step up so it tells me that Progressive is moving forward, not backwards. I went with Shotgun due to my back problems became more serve.

Lowering the suspension is going to have a negative impact on handling. For instance, parts are going to scrape sooner than later due to the reduction in lean angle. Function over fashion wins every time in my book.

In the end, if you go with Progressive front & rear and keep the stock height, you will improve the ride and handling.

 

My riding buddy took off the air suspension on his Road King and put on Progressives.
He seems very pleased with the setup.

 

He's not quite flat footing it at stops, that was the reason for lowering it. Not looking to slam it and his riding skills are not going to let him get any where near scraping the boards, so I think we will be OK. Thanks for your response.

 

No personal experience (still trying to figure out how to afford shotguns for my Deluxe) but the buddy I ride with most frequently has a '13 Roadking, and the first thing he did to it was ditch the air shocks for progressives. He's very happy with them.