I said earlier I am a classic fan but your bike is the ****. I suddenly want hardbags and beach bars.

 

I hear you.

 

Swore years ago I would never have laced wheels or leather bags again so the choice was simple......glad I followed my gutt.

 

Although I like their shape, the leather bags don't age so well, particularly the loops to keep straps in, and there does not seem any real way to renovate them (if there is, please let me know). I've seen both sag.

Personally, I'm not a great fan of the "cowboy" look and neither is gravity when it comes to 45 degree angles.

I've also seen a few whose tops have misshaped either due to sun or rain or perhaps a combination of both. Hard bags can be resprayed and made like new, so a minor consideration is how long you might like to keep the bike.

I went with hard bags and since I prefer to ride than clean and polish spokes, alloy wheels too.

 

Only if you don't take care of them. My bags with 30,000 mile almost new and a few of those miles had seen rain.

Beary

 

I looked at a 2002 Classic before I bought my Custom and the bags were in great shape. Guess it is all in how well they are taken care of.

 

I love the Classic no doubt. I swapped to hard bags and the tail light /license off a FLHR.
If I were to get another Road King the choice would still be tuff. I think the WWW give a smoother ride (tire size) but either model can be just as classy looking and the mags and thin ww's or bw's can offer more than "nostalgic" themes.
SC

 

If it still has the factory seat, your passenger won't like the Classic's rear seat. My wife described it as sitting on the narrow edge of a 2 X 4. The Road King appears to have a more user friendly passenger seat. Now that I have it, I would never want to not have cruise, especially with the speedo way down on the tank. Part of the deal when I bought my Classic was full credit on all the stuff I didn't want, the spoked wheels, WWW tires, the upturned mufflers, and the leather bags. It is now one of the few "Road Kings" with a tank medallion and cruise. The rest is pure standard Road King. I'd rather ride than clean and tune spokes, and no inner tubes and rim strips to complicate things either. Had to put the Sundowner seat on it for the Mrs. The stock Classic seat was great for just the driver. You might want to check on the expense of adding cruise control to a TBW bike, there is a chance all of the electronics are already there and you just need to add the 2 switches and plug them in, I don't know

 

went from my wide glide to the RKC, and once I seen the two tone light/dark candy root beer I had to have it,
have since replaced the hard leather bags with matching candy root beer hard cases.

2011 RK Classic, BUB 7 TDX exhaust, Woods 555 cam, Big Sucker a/c, Santee 1¼ mini-apes, Dyno'ed

 

Although the mechanical differences between the RK and RKC have decreased in number over the past 2 years, in earlier years they were more pronounced. (The higher price wasn't just for leather bags and badging.) For example, in my year, 2011, the RKC had the 103" engine, ABS, security and cruise control standard. The RK had the 96" and none of the other items. I think to this day the RK has a 17" front wheel while the RKC had a 16". I suggest that you use a website with a compare function to see all of the differences in the specific bikes you are considering.

And, whoever said the RK is for touring and the RKC is not has no idea what he or she is talking about. I've put almost 25,000 comfortable touring miles on mine.