Well, I showed up at Stubbs Cycles on the south side of Houston, TX this afternoon. They were having a Harley factory demo ride day this week end and I've been wanting to try an '08 Ultra Classic for some time now. What better opportunity! Ultimately, I wound up riding two different models. First, the Ultra Classic and second, a Road Glide. The UC turned out to be a SE model with the 110 ci engine. I was a little disappointed with that because I really wanted to try the bike in it's stock form with the 96 ci engine. The folks that were running the event recommended trying the Road Glide because it was a fully stock machine, a 105 Anniversary edition in this case but still with the stock 96 engine so I rode the UC first and the RG on the next time around.

Ultra Classic - I did like the bike overallbut I found the 110 engine to be a bit rough. It ran really well and pulled very strongly but it was also hard to modulate in the lower three gears which made it hard to ride smoothly in slower traffic. It was just very responsive to the slightest change in throttle setting. I was also very much aware of engine heat when stopped at a traffic light or stop sign. As long as the bike was moving, it wasn't an issue but it didn't take long for it to become one oncefully stopped. I know this is nothing unusual with Harleys but considering that the max temps today were only around 75 degrees, I'm not sure I would want to know how it would feel on a 95 to 100 degree day. It was just a bit more than I expected and my thighs were getting rather toasty on a couple of occations.

Road Glide - As I said before, my primary reason for riding this bike was simply to get an idea of how the stock 96 engine performs. All in all, I was very pleased with it. It was smoother than the 110 equipped UC, both in vibration and in how it responded to throttle changes. TheRG was much easier to ride in slow traffic than the 110 UC was. Also, the RG seemed to run significantly cooler. I think that part was true for a combination of reasons. First, it's a smaller engine and probably doesn't generate the heat as quickly and second, the RG didn't have the leg fairings like the UC which I'm sure helped the airflow although I wouldn't think that would be as much of an issue when sitting at a traffic light. Even there, the RG was a lot cooler than the UC was in this case. All in all, between these two particular example, I'd take the Road Glide over the Ultra Classic and that wasn't a conclusion I ever expected to have.

For now, I think my next step will be, considering that I'm still primarily interested in the UC as a distance tourer, is to rent one, making certain it's a box stock 96 engine. If it works like I'm expecting it should, that'll be my choice. If not, I'll be giving the Road Glide a "much" stronger look-see!

One other observation I'd like to make is, I've read many posts on this forum where folks are stating that 6th gear on the new 6-speed tranny isn't worth much below about 70 mph. With both the 110 UC and the 96 RG, I was able to shift into 6th gear at around 60 mph and I found them both to pull and accelerate just fine from that speed.On both bikes, I got them as slow as 50 mph (just under 2000 rpm) and then did a gentle roll on Both engines responded very well. I got a reasonable acceleration rate from both without any undue protests. Obviously, they did better at that speed with a downshift to 5th but I didn't find 6th gear to be as unreasonable as many suggest here. You're not going to get neck snapping acceleration and that's to be expected. I also wouldn't be doing any full throttle accelerationsin this mode either. If you need to do that, you better be downshifting.&nbs

 

Were you there when I was there? I rode in ride #6,7,8, 10 and 11?

 

Sure was! I rode the UC on ride 10 and the RG on ride 11. We talked a bit under the awning before the ride. I was seated in the chair across the table you were seated at. It was good to meet and talk to you!

Ride Safe,
Steve R.

 

I remember. Good meeting you too. I'm not going back tomorrow, but I will be at San Jacinto next weekend. Take care.