I CANED HARLEY’S NEW X350, I caned it remorselessly! I tried to break it by thrashing it around town and when that didn’t work, I took it for a 600-plus kilometre ride into Western NSW and I thrashed it some more, well outside what Harley envisage the X350 would be subjected to by the average punter – it didn’t break!
It was only as I sat at the Hill End pub in Western NSW, contemplating the X350’s ground-down side-stand bracket and exhaust bolts, that the red mist cleared enough for me to realize: firstly, the X350 was laughing off my attempts to break it; secondly, I was having way more fun than I thought I would on a LAMS approved bike; and thirdly, not only can the X350 handle the 9-5 commute, but it can also carve corners like a boss too!
On paper, the X350 isn’t exactly poised to blow your hair back with its specification list. We all know there’s relatively little power and torque on tap (27kW and 31Nm) of course, it’s LAMS approved after all, but the X350 is also rather heavy at a claimed 195kg soaking wet and ready to roll. That’s 22kg heavier than CFMoto’s more powerful (37kW and 39Nm) and cheaper 450NK learner machine and 26kg heavier and less powerful than Kawasaki’s shiny newgives the 350 a stable and reassuring bigbike feel so the only real-world negative with the lard is that it zaps a bit of the excitement for the engines performance.
