GLIDETIME
The Road Glide’s style is modern Harley-Davidson, cutting edge in the details while staying retro cool overall. It’s a tough design challenge to pull off, and nobody does it better than Harley.
The paint is deep, not too glossy, blending into the black finish of the motor, forks, frame and wheels — a classy, timeless style. The back-end rides low, the pipes and panniers just inches off the ground. The seat is scalloped, low and following the contours of the bike closely. Footboards and the tall 19-inch front wheel add to the bagger look.
Harley’s only touring bike with a frame-mounted fairing — known as the Shark Nose — the Road Glide is very much suited to eating big miles on freeways and highways by being comfortable, torquey and relaxing.
TORQUEY PERFORMANCE
The Special gets the big motor, the 1868cc Milwaukee-Eight 114. That makes for a very big pair of pistons rising and falling, so it’s probably no surprise they don’t rev hard — because they don’t need to. The bike hits maximum torque at just 3000rpm, so there’s heaps of grunt available anywhere off idle.
Horsepower wins races, torque wins the soul. The Road Glide has lots and lots of torque — 163Nm in fact. That means acceleration
