this is the harley-davidson street glide special and i've just ridden here with a combination
of motorway riding and country lane riding in a bit in the town so i've put it through its paces
to see what it's like in all conditions so in this video we're going to give you our honest
and unbiased opinion now as usual it's extremely windy i've never known a year like it in my life
we've pretty much filmed every video this year in gale force winds it's not a gale today but it's
certainly very windy enough to blow your hat off so hopefully the sound won't be too bad
so this is the touring bike this one's standard apart from the backrest there
i'm six foot three this is the riding position
um i would say it's plenty roomy enough it's a little shorter in the seat and from the um
the seat to the handlebars than the heritage classic and i've literally just ridden to sycamore
harley-davidson who lent me this bike in upping him england uk i've ridden there on my heritage
classic got straight onto this so it's good to be able to go from one to the other and compare them
the heritage classic feels a bit more roomy than this as i said it's a little shorter but
that gives you more room behind for your passenger now the interesting thing for me is the dimensions
of this bike how they are different from the soft tails the wheel base on this is five mil
shorter than the heritage classic in most of the other soft tails so the wheel base on this is 1
625 millimeters the rake on this is 26 degrees that's the steepness of the forks
uh but it's actually the steering head that's measured from sometimes the falls kick out but
in this case 26 degrees and the trail is very long 173 millimeters whereas the heritage classic
the rake is 30 degrees so it sticks out more and the trail is shorter 140 millimeters now
interestingly you would think being a touring bike that this would be and should be more stable but
i don't feel that it is more stable than the heritage classic uh which is also one of the
harley davidsons that they list it now as a touring bike so they used to list them with
soft tails now they have either softer but they list it on the touring bike range um i think
the longer rake uh the the angle is better than the steeper one on this although he's got a
longer trail um this feels a little bit more like it wants to turn quicker uh the steering
can turn very quickly so it doesn't give you quite the stability that uh a 30 degree rake
more than that would give you uh with a slightly shorter trail so i don't understand why they've
gone for those measurements personally but the benefit of that is it's got a very short turning
circle so you can turn yourself around in quite a small amount of space um it's fairly nimble
but not nimble in such a stable way shall we say so perfectly all right but i'm just
nitpicking between the two bikes so if stability is your thing the heritage classic is more so if
roominess is your thing the heritage classic is a little bit more roomy if you're taller if you're
less than six foot not a problem at all six foot three still perfectly fine but not quite as roomy
the bike weighs 375 kilograms wet it does feel heavy when you're maneuvering it in the car
park let's say but once you're riding it feels perfectly fine you've got a 22.7 liter fuel tank
on this which is big it does about 39 miles per gallon which is less than the soft tails that
gives you about 194 kilometer range or 120 miles out of a tank so not brilliant you've got to fill
up fairly often but okay the panniers or saddle bags or boxes whatever you want to call them
are quite spacious got a nice little lever here to open it with and lock it closed
and obviously you can lock it with the key it's the first bike that i've actually come across that
i can actually get my camera bag in and in the tripod completely in and close them both up so
that's very good so you've got plenty of storage here for a week or a weekend away
which is great so if you are the passenger you've got you're obviously a fold out foot rests here
and let's check out the seating position on the back um let me just make sure the stand holds me
yeah fairly comfortable especially with this back rest that's a great thing to have you're
going to be in close contact with the person in front of you so it's best if your friends
but pretty good actually i'd say there's nothing to hold on to there's no grab handles as such but
you'd either hold on there or hold your person in front of you so yeah that's pretty good actually
the 114 cubic inch engine on this produces 163 newton meters of torque at 3000 rpm um
and it's all about the torque the low down grunt this pulls from 2000 rpm and you've got all that
talk right the way through um which means you can short shift the gears um at 70 miles an hour it's
only doing 2500 or 550 rpm which is nothing so it'll chug along all day at speed it's all about
effortless riding it produces 89 brake horsepower at 5020 rpm so it's not a powerful bike but big
torque is better sometimes than big power because you don't have to rev it to 9000 rpm to get it all
to move uh it just chugs along effortlessly and easily so as i've said before it's a bit more
like a rhinoceros with all that strength behind it and it could just go along and nothing gets
in its way it's easier it can plow through anything now normally i film for the visual
but because of all this wind we've been having i'm having to angle the camera
based on the wind direction so hopefully you can't hear the wind but i'm sorry if the picture's not
as good as it usually is because obviously the sun's that way and i'd normally film that way
but it's exactly the opposite direction of the wind this has got six gears like all the harleys
and the gear change feels a little less clunky than my bike so whether something's been improved
or not i don't know but it seems to go through the gears better not as smooth as the honda gold
wing or the bmw r18 by any means but it's better than my heritage classic now the street glide
special has got this big fairing at the front and it moves with the handlebars which is better
nothing more weird than a fixed fairing when you turn handlebars the fairing stays still
i don't like the feeling of that so it goes with the handlebars which is great it takes the wind
off your chest but not your head um i don't know if the screen goes up i don't think it does so
yeah you do feel it on your head it's not perfect for that but it's okay
this has the boom box gts which is the stereo thing with two speakers i'm not gonna go into
that today but uh it's all the connectivity with your iphone and what have you it's got a usb
socket um that's not the purpose of this but it's got four analog gauges at the at the front at the
top here you've got a fuel gauge your speedometer and your rev counter and the volts of the battery
then there's a little digital display underneath showing what gear you're in which is too small to
see when you're moving and it's got your usual bits you can scroll through and underneath that
you've got your screen with your digital stuff which doesn't personally interest
me whatsoever but i know a lot of people like that sort of stuff so i'm not going to play
with that today it's all about how the bike rides and feels this bike comes like all i think all of
the tourists now with the reflex defensive rider system which has the abs traction control your
drag talk slip control which is more about when you're changing down or decelerating
it's got vehicle hold control so if you're on a slope it won't roll backwards until you move off
tire pressure monitoring system all that sort of thing and the
brakes are linked so if you pull the front it does a bit of the back for you
and likewise if you do the back it does a bit of the front so linked brake system it's all
about safety some people don't like it it takes away the sort of purist rider feel but that's
the sort of regulations that are coming in that bike manufacturers have to adhere to
so looks wise uh i think it's a good looking bike i love these panniers the stretched out
penis or saddle bags at the back give it a nice look you've got double disc brakes at
the front and a single at the rear and the stopping power is very good indeed
you've got decent shaped mud guards so it's going to keep the water off of you and the bike which
works very well indeed the color you know it comes in various colors whether you like this one or not
doesn't matter because there's so many options to choose from these standard pipes are blacked out
they're pretty quiet actually you've got a pipe either side of course you can change that if you
want a louder bike but in stock form it doesn't sound particularly meaty this is priced from 22
890 pounds in the uk obviously check in your particular country what the price is um
compared to the honda gold wing it's got more character and more
um sole perhaps but the gold wing is more refined and smoother and more powerful and uh more stable
at speed and on in a straight line so you basically you know you you take the
information that you have you compare the bikes and you decide which one's for you as with all
our reviews we put ourselves in the shoes of you the buyer not particularly ourselves
so it's up to you which bike you would go for but it's a very nice bike and it does
what it should do it's a good touring bike with plenty of luggage space comfort it's good for two
up riding and you've got a bit of wind protection and if you're on a long journey you've got the
infotainment system and what have you so you can listen to music answer your phone all that sort of
stuff
so
rearward visibility in these little mirrors that are incorporated into the fairing is okay it's
not the best i've seen um i see about half of the road uh it'd be nicer if they're a little wider
and they could have made that even better to get you a bit more wind protection at the sides here
um the other thing about the screen it's all black and you've got a tinted
glass thing at the top here but it does take away your vision of the road directly in front of you
so you can only see further ahead so that's not a big issue but it's certainly
an issue the seat is soft comfortable and quite big so it's good on a long ride you've got
the forward controls which you can move your feet forward and backwards and get different
riding positions to let give your legs a stretch etc sometimes i feel before controls
that my lower back starts to hurt i'm trying to squeeze myself to stay on the bike a bit
but you know you get used to it and you can move about a bit at least with your foot boards
now once you've gone on your long journey you've reached your destination and you're touring around
the country lanes and the villages and what have you exploring once the roads are not as good this
does sort of fall into the bumps a bit harder than the soft tails do the heritage classic is
probably known to be the best handling of the harleys and this isn't as good as that
at the front here you've got this little panel that opens out and there's the usb
thing and you can stick your phone in there which is a really nice little feature
now the side stand on this is pretty useless to be honest um it's got this tendency if the player
wants to roll forwards it feels like it's going to come back up at you the side stands on the
soft tails are completely useless as well so it's about time harley davidson designed a much better
side stand next week we've got the harley-davidson ultra limited for a whole week which we'll go into
in depth for you but as far as this bike goes our verdict is that it's a lovely touring
bike it's comfortable it's it's powerful it's got tons of torque so it's effortless
you've got your systems you've got a bit of a fairing so it's got everything you've got a seat
on the back you've got plenty of luggage space it doesn't fit your helmet unfortunately unless
you've got a very small half helmet um but that's uh an issue with any motorcycle so overall good
bike very nice lovely to ride good looking and you of course can upgrade the harley davidson so
you can do a stage one stage two stage three stage four and get tons more power or tons more torque
depending on which way you want to go so it's up to you but there's all those options available
ah
so