My Deuce has forward controls and those bitches are high. It has a surprisingly good lean angle compared to what I was expecting coming off of nothing but sport bikes for the last 10 years.

 

My thoughts are this (and I am in a similar boat).

1. is your bike lowered ? if it is, make sure you take it to stock height.
2. You can easily scrape the boards and bend them, mine are ground down at least 1/2" without problems, it is like my knee in racing it lets me know how far I am going, I prefer the boards than the tranny or pipes.
3. On that previous note, I replaced forwards with boards as I leaned too much and sometimes I hit a pump while leaned, the bike hits hard (before I put the progressives), the bike pivoted on the pipes/frame, really scary stuff, not my idea of enjoyment.
4. If your roads are smooth and/or you know where the pumps are, just put progressives and put forward controls.
5. True Duals or some sort of two into 1 like 'lo cat' will give you more clearance on the right side.

Final thought, I used to ride my old R1 on some ramps at 60 MPH and the bike is always looking at you saying "is that all ?", on my Softie now I am dragging with the bike at 55 MPH at the same corner, and it is just much more fun , and slightly safer, I think it is more fun to ride a tough bike as hard as it can, than to ride an easy bike at one tenth of its ability.

 

Could always put a shotgun shock on there and be able to ride at stock height then lower it for cruising around town and what not. Expensive, but it looks like fun.

 

Because the bike was lowered

and it took somebody who made a useful post here to point me in that direction.

Yes, there are lots of options now that I know what was foundationally wrong! Should be a fun winter full of HD projects!

 

sad thing is,, with this this reverse engineered softail frame,, you can only go so high, till you're into the bump stops,, & the stock shocks will get you there, or progressive shocks,, much cheaper than an air ride

to go higher,, you're looking at taller profile tires / wheels, or a combo of both

 

Thanks for that!
I have a 17" tire for the front and will use progressive springs with the cartridge emulator together with a tight ride-height.

The back end seems to be more of a challenge. This early softail came with a 3" wide wheel so the CT options are extremely limited, and fitting a wider wheel requires surgical intervention that I am not willing to undertake.

I have air-shocks coming so I guess that's going to have to do, unless someone here has another idea......

 

Yeah, I also was getting paranoid of losing my license every time I took the Duc out. I'm still going over the speed limit with the Harley, but they probably won't throw me in jail.

 

+1

Up here, in BC, 25 mph over the limit gets you a 1 week vehicle impound (that will cost you about $1000.00 in towing and storage fees) plus a $2000.00 fine, automatically.

I got nabbed at 24 over on the Kaslo-New Denver road on the Duc. That was only $200.00 and a stern talking-to, by some 25 yr old kid in a uniform.

I'm out!!

 

Yep, riding superbikes the past number of years, I'd always be VERY glad if/when I made it through the year w/o a ticket! My brother just got a $500 ticket out on the highway on his Ducati 748 shortly before the season ended.

Then when I got my KLR650 that's only putting out about 37hp I found myself saying "who knew giving up 100hp would be so much fun!" Nice relaxed ride.

And now with the Softail I'm saying it's the funnest way to go the speed limit.

Mellow Moto Marko

 

to OP rubbin is racin enough said