Oh, and to the YoungGeezer, I'm looking at the Bagger Brace for my little winter project. Good solid investment from all my research. For less that $300 you can ride your own bike with the BaggerBrace, and then go rent an 09 and decide for yourself. Probably the best $$ you can spend to arrive at your own decision. Why don't you let us know the difference? Oh, and thanks for your post.

 

I have a Wheeldock center stand and a TWR stabilizer which doesn't use the crossmember or interfere with the stand or my J&S jack.

 

Thanks to all for the useful information and real-world experience - exactly what I was looking for.

ww1flyingace - Great info. My 06 Ultra has 20,000 on the clock - don't know what it was like new because I bought it used with a tradein of my 05 softail. I rented a practically brand new 07 and rode it about 300 miles before I bought my 06, and I didn't notice an appreciable difference in handling between the two.

BigSky - I'm leaning toward the Bagger Brace as well, and will most likely make it one of my winter projects - it lasts about 9 months here in MN, so I should have plenty of time to complete it. I will let you all know my experience with it - please do the same!

 

I have the two bikes you are talking about (basically). An 07 SG with a TWR and an 09 Ultra. One thing folks don't mention in calling out how great the 09's are -are the differences in tires. The tires on the 09 are night and day from the older style tires. When folks who have an 08 and below switch tires to something that does not chase grooves and then adds a stabilizer the bike rides exactly like the 09s for the most part. You'd have to be pushing the bike very hard to notice any difference. That said my 07 with stabilizer vibrates a lot more then my 09. I like the vibration 'ok' so that does not bother me but it did bother the wife (I gave her my 07). So....when I took the TWR off the bike it doesn't vibrate as much as it did before and since she doesn't ride the bike as hard as I do, its fine for her. She loves it.

Point is, if you have an older bike and love it, just keep it. It's about 95% the bike the 09's are.

If you like to dog the crap out of bikes, racing them through turns like a Deals Gap or whatever, you will find the 09's handle absolutely perfect.

Hope this helps.

lp

 

'09's simply blow everything else away, no contest!

 

I was just about the say the same thing. I test rode an 09 SG and Ultra yesterday in Tulsa and the first thing I did was take them on a section of HW44 that has street groves. The 09s didn't were rock solid on the rain grooves. I had just wobbled on the same section of HW44 30 minutes earlier on my 02 RKC, so I had a good comparison.

Personally I have never felt the rear wobble on my 02 RKC, guess I don't ride hard enough. I do however, ride rain grooves every day in Oklahoma City. If you haven't felt that rear wobble yet, you might consider first replacing the tires.

Beary

 

Wow, that was some bad editing, lets try again.

I was just about the say the same thing. I test rode an 09 SG and 09 Ultra yesterday in Tulsa. The first thing I did was take them on a section of HW44 that has rain groves. I had just wobbled around on the same section of highway 30 minutes earlier on my 02 RKC, so I had a good comparison and the 09s were rock solid.

Personally I have never felt the rear wobble on my 02 RKC, I guess I don't ride hard enough. I do however, ride rain grooves every day in Oklahoma City. If you haven't felt that rear wobble yet, you might consider first replacing the tires.

Beary

 

I would say it is more up to the individual to decide if the money to upgrade to a 09 is worth it or not. Some will justify and others will not. That being said, I have a Bagger Brace on my 08 SG and love it. I personally think the new frame was born out of the need to accomodate the trike than it was to fix any type of wobble the old frame had. I know you'll never get the MoCo to say the old frame had problems.

 

This is absolutely no help to the op's question but I'll just pipe to say how amazed I was at how much better the '09 FLHX I test-rode today handled compared to the '08 I spent about 1200 miles on last fall, especially leaned over in corners going over bumps. I wasn't expecting an improvement of that magnitude....

 

All

Thanks for the good info.