You might want to give a look at the police versions of the Road King. Possibly the best value in Harley touring bikes. Their strengths are that they're a few grand cheaper, have the best hard bags the MoCo has to offer, they come with Street Glide/Road Glide cast wheels and arguably the best one-up seating on a Harley touring bike. A real mile-eater. Conversely the weaknesses are... Well, all you get is the basic cop colors! Black, white, green, red and a few two-tones. And due to the police controls on the bars they don't offer factory cruise. And for folks under 6', the police seat is a tad high and rearward. At 5'9" I can still flatfoot it but it makes the bike feel larger than the standard RK or RK classic feels. And some folks don't care for the plain looking SG/RG wheels or the fuddy-duddy fender guards/bumpers.
Sorry to ask a dumb question, but can civilians buy a police Road King? I actually like them a lot, a real simple no-frills bike.
Yep. Mine is a police bike, the original owner bought it, put 151 miles and a bunch of money in it, then traded it in. All typos and misspellings blamed on my phone.
Any problems with putting a two-up seat on the road king? Anyone done this? What about removing the rack for the rear case?
Changing to a two up seat is a 20 min. job, but the mustang passenger seat behind the police seat has been the hot setup for us.
No problem at all. This '05 police bike had less than 2k miles when I bought it. It's a very simple job to change those parts.
I been off board for a week or two and missed this. I can definitely vouch for the Road King. Myself and EricD (sorry if I get name wrong) had identical Road Kings and from his postings it sounds like we did very similar amounts of riding. As some people pointed out there are some issues with the RK but I think they are pretty easy to over come. I'm 5'8 with a 30 inch in seam. I always felt like I was just on the tad short side. I wasn't impressed with the seat on the 09 either. I went with the solo touring seat. This ended up being a fantastic choice. It moved me a tad closer to the bar and was a ton more comfortable. I also took my boots in and had vibram soles and a .5" build up done. After those two things I felt rock solid on the bike and could back it up/maneuver it just fine. Never had to worry about that feeling my boot might slip etc. For extra storage I went with the quick disconnect mount. I alternate between the tourpack and a flat luggage rack. Works great in my opinion. Since mine was a 09 I did not have access to the 103 engine. I changed the air cleaner to the heavy breather, upgraded to the screaming eagle engine controller, and used the screaming eagle slip ons. The additional torque and engine responsiveness was nice. Also it wasn't loud, I don't like to worry abut waking the neighbors or being a nuisance and the bike stayed quiet enough. Louder then stock but not enough to worry about, your neighbors won't hate you. Only other thing I added was a set of adjustable highway pegs. All told I ended up spending an additional 2,500 bucks as I had the dealer do all the work. I had no issues with engine or electrical. Certainly no need to rebuild engine after 21k miles or any such thing. I use the bike as a daily commuter in the Dallas metroplex and do about 80 miles a day on it year round. I also do a lot of Iron Butt rides. I did 4 of the Saddle Sore 1k miles in 24 hours, 1 Bun Burner Gold - 1,500 miles in 24 hours, and one Saddle Sore 2k - 2k miles in 48 hours. I really don't think you can go too wrong with a RK. With a few different mods and some time you can really tweak it for about anything you might want to do.
Yup. Available all the time on eBay. Make sure you get all the brackets, air bladder, air tank, hose, plastic tray, and bolts. You can just put the air tank in your saddle bag if you don't want to get the police luggage rack. OR, bypass the air parts, and buy a large/extra large Kong (Dog toy) and use it instead. Works very well.
GAH I never looked into it with mine and now its too late. I really wish I had known that, I really like the look of the police models and the air shock was a big part of it. I had also tinkered around with the idea of getting a spring seat like on xbones and some of the sportsters. I always thought old FLH's were cooler then heck. I was curious how close to one you could get with a modern RK.
I'm like you, tried out both at the dealer and the Switchback (aka baby RK) seemed to be a much better fit. Still wouldn't mind having a RK, but I'd need the reach seat and pull back bars. in stock config, it just doesn't fit. the SB, on the other hand, fits great in stock config. Could use just a little pull back in the bars, but that's it. That being said, I'm not seeing as many SB's at the dealerships. Wonder if their days are limited.
The folks at "The Motor Co" are very tight liped about changes. There are always rumors about changes to the next model year, but nobody knows for sure till the dealer's meeting in July...Unless you've got the spy shots nobody else has seen? The TC 103 would need (at the very least) new heads, and the plumbing for liquid cooled heads without going thru the block would look hideous. They would also need to re-locate the charcol canister, and there's not a good place for that. Switching to liquid cooled would require a serious redesign of the whole bike. I'm having a hard time seeing any chance of this at all.
Just the heads are going to be water cooled and only the exhaust ports at that. It coming, that's for sure. Most expect it next year. I don't want it... .
Just got back from Harley dealers...was looking at Road King...it,s cool. But for $1000 more you can get the Electra glide...have fairing radio and rear trunk...take off trunk you basically have road king? So now I think I want the Electra Glide over road king? Any one have input on this?
You end up with a Street Glide when you pull the trunk (more or less) which would be the same as the roadking with a batwing fairing As I like the batwing that's a win win in my book
Yep. The basic bike underneath is the same for all three. It's just which variant you want. As said above, you can make each into the other by changing the accessories hanging on it. Pick the flavor you like the most.
The quotes I got were closer to $2000 difference. Both bikes are nice. I lean towards the Road King. I don't need all the extra bling and just want a "rock solid steamship of a bike capable of crossing the western plains in relative comfort for hour after hour at 80 mph".... .