I have done many miles on both. A close bud has a shark nose and I have the bat wing. I like the bat wing a little better. The Shark nose is a bit farther away from the rider and gives a little less protection. Also I like having the head light turn with the front end. If I want to look around a bit at night while stopped all I have to do is turn the bars. On the Shark nose you have to turn the whole bike. I like the looks of the bat wing too. It's all preference but mine goes to the bat wing.

 

WTF? One more reason for the shark nose. The bat wing is ugly to me, allways has been. I don`t bash it, figure to each his own. Now that they`re "out of the closet" I guess it`s self explanatory. LOL

 

Technical they are almost the same except for the fairings. Both also have problems with the fairings and brackets.
I've owned both models and I like them both. But, I like the Road Glide a little bit more. The RG feels (are) more firm on the road. The RG feels a lot lighter on the road than the EG. And at least what I like the most...The weight of the fairings is NOT on the front fork. The RG fairing is bolted to the frame and this makes the RG's much funnier to ride. This makes the RG's not that sensitive for side wind or buffeting from the big trucks.

I prefer to call the Road Glide a "Sport Tourer".

 

Rode both and walked away with the Road Glide......

 

Buy a car if you're worried about wind and noise.......

 

Personally, I like the batwing. No disrespect to the sharks though. If yer on two wheels, it's all good.

 

There's only been a couple of minor problems reported on these fairings. Each one has a different little issue, but nothing that would be a deal breaker. Buy whatever floats your particular boat.

 

Just talking about issues then the RG wins. The only problem with the fairing is an easy fix and it does not break. The batwings are plagued with bracket issues, not a big deal but something that you will have to replace from time to time. The RG has no bracket breakage issues

 

My understanding is that they finally got around to fixing the batwing bracket issue in '09.

 

get a batwing, that way you can be like the majority. :-) Shark noses got it going on!