Ok everyone take a deep breath and read on: I rode the Wide Glide this afternoon and bottom line - I won't be buying this bike.
I had no intentions of riding the bike this soon and even meant to reply I'd probably never get a chance to ride one, since I don't hang at HD open houses, etc. But, I'm coming home from NY thru PA today and my GPS takes me off 81 to grab lunch. I drive past White's HD in Lebanon and they have a big banner out front "Demo Rides Today" and underneath is a new Wide Glide. I figured that was Karma calling, so I stopped and within 10 minutes, I'm ready for a test ride in my loafers, my Bonneville 50th Anniversary zipup and a borrowed helmet. The temps were in the high 50's.
I had to follow the sales guy, who took me on a 10 minute ride thru the country. Unfortunately, I really couldn't wring it out like I would have liked but got a general idea of the bike. Btw, this bike was used with 500 miles. The guy bought it, put on a set of Screaming Eagle pipes and had it for one month before trading on a Lowrider. The sales guy even thought that was weird since he test rode NEITHER BIKE. They wanted $15,999 for it, which is $500 off the new price plus the pipes were worth about $500.
My thoughts on the bike:
- looks are not as good up close. You can tell this is the lower level Big Twin. It would take a lot of new bits to make it look sharp. The flame paint job looks better in person, but an all black one would probably be better. The forks, etc. look cheap to me and not in the finish level of the T-bird or Rocket III Touring.
- I love the black wheels and have since they put them on the Nightser
- The footpegs are waaaaaayyyyy to far forward for my tastes, I guess standard HD fare. The pegs on the T-bird are much closer under your butt - +1 for the T-bird
- The seat is hard as a rock and forces you into one position. With the foot controls so far forward and a bend over reach to the drag-style bars, it almost feels like you are riding in a position after being kicked in the stomach by a UFC fighter. Keep in mind I have taller Heritage bars on my America and have been used to them. I also didn't much like the T-bird bars. But that's an easy switch on eithe bike.
- Clutch pull was light, this new HD clutch is nice.
- Motor: wow, this thing felt gutless. I was very disappointed. Cycle World says it will do 13.2 in the 1/4 mile, but it sure felt weak. The "Screaming Eagle" pipes are anything but, you can barely hear the bike running, what a waste of money, plus they looked strange, some kidn of machine gun tips.
- The transmission shifted nicely, but the six speed doesn't seem right. It's geared WAY TOO HIGH in all six speeds. I guess that can be changed, but why should it have to be? I did hit 65 mph in 5th, but it needed a kickdown to 4th for any pull. Disappointed by the legendary HD torque, at least with that 96 in twin cam.
- You can punch it up to 103 ci for $1,500 and as mentioned earlier here, the sales guy said a simple cam swap with a set of performance pipes would really wake it up.
- Getting my short leg around that air cleaned for the brake is bothersome. Speaking of brakes, yeah, they were awful. "Wooden" might be a word to describe them. I guess you can get better pads and my stock America brakes weren't nothing to brag about.
- Suspension: This thing is squashed way down. Even small asphalt seams were brutal. The forks don't seem to do much to absorb road shock. I guess the stock shocks could be swapped for some nice Progressive units.
- Handling was better than I anticpated. There seems to be a good deal of clearance.
I think I would have to invest about $20k in that bike to make it fit me and I'm not much interested in that. So, maybe I'll get a chance to ride a T-bird if a dealer ever decides they'd like to sell one. So far, T-bird rides around here have only been avaiable during demo truck days, which I've missed. Triumph is missing the boat here. Maybe that radiator will grow on me over the winter.
