Harley-davidson Road Glide

I put 40,000 miles on an '87 Evo Tour Glide and that shark-nose fairing genuinely works — wind blast hits your chest instead of your helmet, and after eight hours you feel the difference. The rubber-mounted drivetrain tamed the vibration enough that my hands stopped going numb past 200 miles, though you still feel every combustion event through the pegs in a way that's either charming or maddening depending on your mood. The Shovelhead years (1980–83) are a different animal entirely — mechanically entertaining if you carry tools and enjoy roadside philosophy, but the '84-on Evolution transformed this into something you could actually rely on for cross-country work without a support truck. At 318 kg it's a slab to wrestle out of a tight parking spot, and the linked brakes of the era require planning stops like you're docking a small freighter.

After 18 months and 22,000 miles on a 2006 Road Glide, I can tell you the shark-nose fairing is genuinely polarizing for good reason — it tracks straight and planted at 75 mph highway speeds where the Tour-Pak crowd's fork-mounted dressers develop a slow wobble that'll unsettle your fillings. The Twin Cam 88B is smooth enough with the counterbalancers doing their job, though the 96B upgrade that came with the 2007 model year is the one worth hunting for — noticeably more grunt off the line and better highway passing confidence. Handling is what you'd expect from 371 kilos of iron and chrome: commit to your line early and don't get ambitious mid-corner, but on long Interstate sweepers it inspires real confidence. The dual headlights look purposeful but the cutoff pattern is mediocre; invest in LED upgrades early or you'll be riding half-blind on dark rural roads.