this is my harley-davidson soft tail standard and in this video i want to do a little comparison
between this and the honda rebel 500 which i've still got in the garage at the moment
because i want to put myself back in the shoes of me a year ago deciding what bike to ride
and you know comparing a smaller capacity cruiser with something a lot larger specifically for you
a2 riders out there but if you're not an a2 rider you'll still be thinking the same things as well
now you might be thinking i've gone crazy comparing something as big as this to
a 500 cc motorcycle so let's get the elephant in the room out of the way um for starters this
bike has got um over a thousand cc more than the honda rebel and it's also got um over 100
or just about 100 newton meters more torque so that's a lot more torque but it also costs
about double the price of the honda rebels so they are really you know this is like
the honda rebel and some um so you could buy two honda rebels for the price of this but you
know would you want to in my state of mind when i was choosing what bike to ride originally i
was thinking the harley-davidson iron 883 but then after doing some brainstorming i thought
well what is my dream bike it's a street bob and i thought well if i just save up a little bit longer
i could buy one of those and then i won't have to take the depreciation of the smaller bike
and then sell it and buy the bike i want anyway i might as well just start with that
in the first place but not many people um will have the same amount of money as i did
because they've gone to college or uni and they're not making any money whereas i went
straight into work so for you people a honda rebel might be a better choice
one of the biggest comparables the engine on this is very very very good but it doesn't have a lot
of character whereas the harley davidson of the v twin has absolutely tremendous amount of character
which is something that is lacking on the honda so if character is something you lust after which i
do myself then you're better off with a harley if you want something that's precise and does
exactly what you tell it to a honda is maybe a better option so straight out of the box if you
are an a2 rider like myself this bike is not compatible you have to restrict it to be able
to ride it on your a2 license whereas with the honda rebel you don't have to do anything to it
it's very easy to restrict you just plug it in at the harley dealer and they put a map on it
and there you go that's as simple as it is but one thing with the restriction is you're restricting
the horsepower but not the torque so you've still got all of that torque 100 more newton meters of
torque and that does make a lot of difference this bike is a lot heavier though but yeah i
mean the drama you get from a harley-davidson is something i don't feel you get with a honda
i think the honda is an absolutely fabulous bike but it doesn't have the character that
this does now there's one thing for sure i know that you can't get from the honda and that's this
the honda has much less low down torque compared to the harley which means it likes to be revved
out a lot more so if you prefer um you know really giving it some and using all the rev range
then you'll like the honda but if you like the being able to change gears short shift
um and it's being one and a half thousand rpm and it still just pulls um then the harley davidson
is the bike for you i'm very aware that the vast majority of you watching this video
won't be 19 years old or a2 license holders you'll be a bit older than that and you've got your full
license so what would you be thinking i mean personally i'd go for a bigger bike as i have
but a lot of people are shorter than me maybe not so confident on a bike they might want something
a bit smaller something they can get their feet on the ground better although harleys are pretty low
or something that's less heavy so when they're maneuvering at about they're not worried about
dropping it so these are all things you have to think about and harleys at first are quite
daunting because they are very heavy and they've got a lot of grunt so you do think oh god that is
a bit of a monster to wrestle around the corners and maneuvering it is quite difficult but you get
used to it very quickly and the feeling that this bike gives you is something that no other bike
has been able to do for me yet um you know i haven't ridden everything yet but
certainly any bike that i've ridden this is just the best thing in the world
another factor that i had in mind when choosing my first bike was i want to be able to keep this
bike for a long time and still enjoy it and still love it which this is certainly proving to do so
far and i don't have any other bikes in mind that i want to change it for certainly not within my
budget anyway if you had all the money in the world i know we'd all go and buy 20 bikes each
but this bike just does it all for me and i'm very happy with it
but let me know what bikes have you guys got and what did you choose for your first big bike it's
definitely something you have to think about for a long time and you think about one bike and then
you go oh no actually i want this one and you go through this big thought process but yeah
it's interesting to see what your thought process is as well both bikes could do with better brakes
they're not brilliant stopping power but plenty good enough for the type of bikes that they are
but they definitely could do with better brakes in my stands
ideally i would have liked to get both of the bikes together and film them
at the same place but unfortunately i've not quite got the knack of riding two bikes at the
same time it's quite difficult actually as i said the honda rebel is still a fantastic looking bike
even compared to the harley-davidson i don't think it's as good looking and i think the finishes on
the harley are slightly more premium but it is double the price so you would expect it to be um
but this bike for the price is absolutely fabulous so if this is your price budget and you're looking
for something maybe a little bit smaller but still with the looks and the style of a harley davidson
this is definitely a good choice for you fuel economy is another thing you think about but
do you really care about that uh it's well you have to weigh it up
this does about 30 miles per gallon less than the honda but i think it gives me 30 gallons worth of
smiles more than the honda does i do love the honda don't get me wrong it is a brilliant bike
and we do actually have the honda rebel 1100 coming up very soon we have been talking with
honda since my last video and we do have one lined up so that's coming very soon hopefully
this month we've also got honda monkey coming soon and some lots of other bikes as well so
we're really on a roll this year so hopefully we can keep the ball rolling and get weekly
videos out to you guys that's what we aim for but sometimes we can't get the bikes and then
we end up not doing a video which is unfortunate but yeah plenty to come in the pipeline this year
for me customization was a big factor when choosing my first bike
um i've not done a lot to this bike but i've done a few things i've changed the seat
i've put passenger foot pegs on and i've changed the exhaust to this vance heinz twin slip-ons they
sound fantastic let me know what you think of the sound of this exhaust in the comments below
it just makes me smile every time i get on the bike and that's a feeling that you just
can't beat the display on the honda is much bigger and it displays all the information all
at once whereas on the harley you've got much smaller display which is nice and tucked away
and discreet within the design which i like but you have to scroll through everything to see it
sometimes you end up scrolling past things which can be a bit annoying but the thing that really
annoys me about the honda is it doesn't tell you your rpms which is something i really wish it did
which i said in my review one problem i've noticed with this bike is every time i go for a ride and
turn the gopro on it seems to blur the speedo out i wonder why it does that i've got no idea
if you're someone who is in the same position as me a year ago and you're thinking is it actually
worth restricting a motorcycle by that much i'd say yes it doesn't actually make a huge difference
up to 70 miles an hour it's when you get up to the top end where it kind of starts to
slow down a bit but all that torque low down you've still got all of that and when the old
man rode this bike he was surprised by how much grunt it still had even with a restriction on it
and it once you've done your full license you can easily just plug it in stage one tune it and off
you go you've tuned it again and put an air filter on it of course because you want to make sure
you're getting enough air in but yeah they're easily to reverse as well so it's definitely
something worth thinking about looks wise i think this bike is one of the best looking bikes on
the market i really do think it is stunning i also really like the looks of the honda rebel
but for me this bike's quite a bit bigger a bit longer your arms are much more stretched out and
for me being six foot one this bike was a better option for my height but if you are a shorter
person you'd definitely be better off on the honda rebel as it is quite a small bike and it's
very easy to ride absolutely so if you are a first time rider that bike is just easy to get on and go
if you've enjoyed the video please like and subscribe
tell me which bike you'd choose obviously maybe if you were a bit older you'd probably choose
between the 1100s rebel and this but if you're an a2 licence holder you'd be looking
at restricting this or getting the rebel 500 perhaps but let me know what you think in the
comments below like and subscribe as usual it helps us out and check out our tea set store
and if you want to buy us a coffee you can see that in the link in the description as well
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