Passes & Canyons Blog

I’ve never been a Harley guy and I’ve never understood why so many people are so nuts about them. So I took the opportunity of being invited on this four-day EagleRider media tour to spend it all on a Harley, in hopes that I would finally understand.

I think I do understand now, at least sort of. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I understand the appeal of cruisers more than I did before. Harley vs. some other brand I’m still not sure I get.

First and foremost, the Heritage Softail I was on was easy to ride. (That’s it in the photo.) I say that in context of my Kawasaki Concours, which I love now but which took me a couple years to really get comfortable on. The thing is, the Kawi has a high seat level and a very high center of gravity, so for a long time I wouldn’t dare ride it without my highest boots on. Nowadays I’m perfectly comfortable riding it in just sneakers, but that took a couple years before I reached that point.

The Softail, on the other hand, was just get on and go. With a low center of gravity and low seat height, I never had the slightest fear of falling over. I can understand that appeal.

I also liked having floorboards. I’ve always preferred to have pegs underneath me so I can stand up on bumps, and the one hard bump I hit on the Softail definitely flipped me way up off the seat, and back down hard. But I found that if when approaching a bump I pull myself up with the grips and stand on the floorboards, I can lift myself up to minimize the jolt. In the meantime, I was able to stretch my legs out at whatever knee angle I chose. I can definitely understand how my aging friends would be uncomfortable with keeping their knees bent all the time. I suspect I’m more limber than they are, but even for me it was nice.

There were other details I won’t bore you with, but there was also one thing I really did not like about the Softail. Apparently, when they come from the factory, the exhaust pipes do not have any heat shield. This leads to two things. First, the pipes eventually turn blue, which I don’t like. Second, it makes it very easy to burn anything that touches them. One day we rode in the rain and at lunch I noticed some black on the pipes. Then I noticed a shiny spot on my rain pants. It seems that you have to be careful at a stop to hold your leg far enough away from the bike not to get burned. How absurd is that?

So I’m not sold on Harleys, but at least I feel like it’s not such a mystery why so many people are. Thank you EagleRider for the opportunity.

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