Racing Harley Davidson CVO Roadglide On Track & Review

It was always going to happen. The march of time has caught up with me and here I sit on a massive Harley-Davidson with a big old grin on my face. Nothing's really changed, still love wheelies, still love track days and sports bikes and getting my knee down on Virgin Roads for the first time but tastes change and well clearly mine have as well. Motorcycling isn't quite as broad a church I don't think as being a car fan. Car guys I know can appreciate a Porsche 911 but at the same time they're allowed to like a Range Rover. They get the appeal of whatever it is that has four wheels. Bikers are a little bit more segmented. Sports bike guys have to ignore GS men, GS men and sports bike guys have to ignore cruiser riders. It's always been that way. It's a question that at the minute I just can't answer as to why we are like that. Anyway I spent nearly nine months on this glorious CVO Road Glide and I absolutely love it. 99% of the time it's able to deliver 100% of what I'm after in a motorbike. Stick with me, I'm not going to try and convince you, you don't need to leave this piece obsessed with Harley-Davidson's. Just hear me out. So the Road Glide aka the one that looks like that Futurama robot is one of the most comfortable bikes I've ever ridden and all of the parts that you're looking at now and probably laughing at play a tiny role in coming together and giving me the experiences that I've had. These weird footboards, these ones have got a little bit of a scuff on the bottom, we'll get to that in a minute. This massive fairing section here, this squishy seat, all of these things like I say come together and just give you this kind of super coseted, comfortable, premium feeling when you're riding. I've ridden this bike, I've ridden versions of this bike in Portugal, in the sunshine, up the A2 from the Kent coast, in the lashing rain up west coast of America. I've ridden them everywhere, I've yet to find somewhere that they don't work. So in that big old Harley-Davidson family this bike's closest relative is called the Street Glide and when you're trying to look for the differences between the two the easiest way that I can remember it is the fairing on the Street Glide steers, the Road Glide is the one with a fixed fairing and is the one that I prefer. So CVO stands for Custom Vehicle Operations and has been the kind of halo Harleys in the entire product range since 1999. When you see CVO think R, so if it's a Ducati Panigale and you see an R you know it's the best of the best. So our standard CVO features usually a larger motor than any of the other Harleys in the range, this one is 117 cubic inches which is 1919 cubic centimetres. Aside from the bigger motor you get standard parts that you wouldn't normally get unless you tick boxes across the other bikes in the range, so you know this paint I think it's called Mako Shark, hand finished at the factory, all the usual Screaming Eagle accessories that you'll see in the big big catalogue that Harley-Davidson do for their accessories, all those parts are all chucked at CVO's, chucked isn't really the right word, all of those parts are lovingly fitted to the CVO range and then you get a beautiful choice of paint that goes over the top of all of them, super simple. What works for me with this particular CVO is the lack of chrome and bling really, it doesn't actually say Harley-Davidson on it anywhere at all I don't think, if you saw this coming down the road and couldn't figure out that it was a Harley-Davidson, chances are you probably can't read anyway. Let's take a break from the normal review type stuff for a minute and touch on racing and going fast, neither of which would usually feature in a Harley-Davidson review but in the interests of motoring journalism we did a little bit of a deep dive into the world of racing and Harley-Davidson's and we went and did exactly that, check this out. The Bike Shed Festival is a brilliant little event that takes place at Lydden Hill down in Kent, now in its second year it's designed to be a chance for those that are into turn-ups and flat caps, that'll be me, to have a run out on track. There are classes for modern classics, retro sports bikes, learner legal stuff and as I found out a feet forward class. Starting to feel a little bit of nerves, try not to take it too seriously, it's a 407 kilo bike but what can you do, we'll get out there, I think practice and qualifying is going to be trying to grind as much of the footboards off as I can, save some weight and then turn the tunes up, see what happens. Wow that was interesting, held my breath a lot, forgot to talk, there's not much on board commentary, there's lots of footage but I didn't really say very much. The bike's all right, never ridden at this track, all manner of excuses, things got a little bit loose and wobbly but just trying to have some fun and we were definitely smiling or everyone else was definitely smiling, I could see people in the crowd seemed to enjoy what was going on, there's a lot of scraping going on, the footboard's gone a little bit, I'm gonna have a look, it's a bit sharp, I think there's some bits scraping and I think there might be a little bit of exhaust or pannier, I don't know, I don't even want to look because practice rolled straight into qualifying so there's a board over there with our qualifying times and I know there's a ringer in my class, some guy who forgot to tell anyone that he was an ex BSB 600 racer is in the group so I'm not expecting to win at all, just want to keep smiling, have some fun and enjoy the day. One thing BSB doesn't have though is a little compartment with ready-rolled post-ride cigarettes, smoking's dangerous, don't smoke, try not to take it seriously, I'm taking it seriously. So I've qualified third with a 59 second lap so just crept under that magic minute barrier, there's probably a second I can find, maybe a tiny bit more if I've got somebody to follow but I don't really have anyone to follow so the guy that's quickest is two seconds a lap quicker than me and then there's that cheating ringer from BSB that's in second place, he's gonna get beaten and then the mammoth monster in third place, I want to say I'm excited but I'm really not. So there's a little bit of a break now from practice and qualifying before my race, I didn't think there was much point trying to save any weight so I bought my lunch, I've left everything in the panniers, it weighs that much but there really isn't any point trying to trying to save half a kilo here and there. Food of champions, monster lunch. Yeah, come back corner! The brakes are f***ed, there's not much left of those brakes. At 407 kilos the Blue Whale is a lot of bike to muscle around any track anywhere but we held our heads high and got stuck in, I think I had to turn the stereo down at one point when I really wanted to concentrate, the weight eventually got the better of those poor brakes and I struggled to slow down. There's two four pot calipers up the front and another one of those out the back, lever feel is good and that big pedal for the back brake is surprisingly easy to moderate. In the race I went backwards, monster torque meant I was able to stick the Blue Whale right into turn one like a champ, drum and bass banging helped but simple physics meant that the lighter faster bikes got the better of me, not that you'd know that from the smile on my face and the cheers from the crowd, it certainly seemed to put on a good show. Well it turns out we made it into the best of the rest final at the end of the day, seeing Thruxton R's and old school sports bikes lining up on the same grid as this bike was hilarious, not quite as funny as breaking a few hearts out there when the race started, which we did, ridiculously also I somehow managed to lead the race for almost a lap, maybe even two laps I think, I can't remember. What I'm getting at is it turns out a race bike is basically any bike you can think of as long as you go and race on it, so this 407 kilo Harley that you're staring at is now a race bike and if you're an elite sports bike that you haven't raced, well what can I say, it's a bit of a joke of course that point about sports bikes but the point I'm trying to make is I rode to Lydden Hill in complete comfort, no bag on my back because all of my crap was in these boxes, this sat-nav system I think it's a six and a half inch screen, really easy to use, glove on, glove off, wet screen, dry screen, it just works, stick a transponder on the leg of this bike and I was ready to go, did my thing, didn't win anything, held my head up high, had such a laugh, so much fun, I'm convinced that if these brakes had a tiny bit more bike towards the end of those races I would have stayed at the front and there was no doubt there was enough room in these panniers for a trophy for the ride home. Living with this bike every day has proved that it's pretty much perfect for me, my daughters love jumping on the back, you know, plugging their phone into the system and putting their playlist on, we can just cut around with crap music playing, super comfortable, it's such an easy bike to manage even with somebody on the back just because it is. Whatever they've done, the weight that it's got, obviously you can't hide all of it, it is a big bike but I've had absolutely no issue, you know, cupping my daughter's hands with my left hand, just riding it one-handed everywhere, this big old back brake, this big old back brake that I was talking about moderating on track, it's just as easy to do on the road, it's an easy bike to ride. The self-cancelling indicators, one on either side of the bars, took a while to get used to but once I got my head around that it was absolutely fine and I think also knowing that I'd hussed it on track gave me a little bit of swagger with it, a little bit of confidence and a bike this big rewards confidence. If you grab hold of it, tell it what you want it to do, it's going to do it. If you start kind of pansying around with it, taking a few dabs when you're trying to pull away and, you know, letting it get away from you, it's going to get away from you and when it does, well, look at the size of it. So that 117-inch motor serves up 168 newton metres of torque at three and a half thousand revs. It makes some power too, I don't know how much, enough to smoke Fructanars around Lyddon and enough to smoke Lamborghini Aventadors around London, that much, so enough. I also know that it never feels stressed, it fuels super cleanly when you consider that there's almost a thousand cc per pot funnelling all of these inputs through various chains and belts and stuff all the way down to the 18-inch rear wheel with a 180 section rear tyre. That thing up the front, aside from looking pretty cool, I think it looks cool, it's 21 inches, so 18 at the back, 21 at the front. Ride it sensibly and you'll breathe past 220 miles to a tank. Remember, these bikes are designed to just smash massive miles, you know, unless you're planning on seven or eight hundred miles a day or more, I'd say you're never really going to question the comfort that this bike has to offer. It has something called dual bending valve forks at the front, forks are unadjustable, made by Showa and the shock is an emulsion shock. I don't know what either of those things mean, I don't care that you can't adjust the suspension, I doubt there's ever been a single person that's bought, you know, an Audi Q7 or a Range Rover or a Porsche Cayenne that's had real kind of intricate questions to ask about the shocks that that car has. It's just a big comfortable bike, however they've done it, bravo, good for them. So what is it about this bike, well it just makes me feel cool. I love opening this little cubby hole here, plugging my phone in when I need to take some charge, putting some tunes on and just bopping around on it. By virtue of the fact that the two wheels that it has are moving, you are able to dial into exactly what it is that Harley want you to experience on it. It's not like a sports bike where you need to be, you know, Sylvain Guintoli to go to Cadwell and put a decent lap in on your GSXR 1000. All you need to be doing on this bike is moving on it and you're achieving everything that you need to do to enjoy all of the things that it's good at. So I'm a self-confessed American car fan, I spent most of my youth reading custom car and street machine magazines and I know nerdy things about American cars that were made before I was born that I'll probably never even see. The last family car that I owned was a GMC Suburban, 5.7 litre small block Chevy engine, eight seats, big, comfortable, verbally loud, a little bit in your face, American cool, you know, it was always going to happen, it's natural that you could draw a line between my taste in weird American cars and my taste in motorcycling and it's, you know, it was on the cards. Big inch Harley Davidson coupled with my fascination with weird old American toot. Funny old thing, it takes about 40 years for those things to meet in the middle. That was 42 months ago, now I like Harleys, weird. It ain't cheap though, a 2020 version of this bike will come with traction control and some rider modes as well, £33,995. Now pick your chin up, put it back in place and consider, like I've kind of got to earlier, how much of this bike is usable every time that you ride it. I'm going to say 99% of it, 100% of the time, so I said it at the start. Picture how much of your sports bike you might have spent £15,000 or £20,000 or £25,000 or even £30,000 on, how much of that are you realistically using? Even when you go to your favourite track on your best day of the year and you're having a really good day, are you actually using all of those 220 odd horsepowers? Are you nailing all of that traction control on the way out the corner? Who knows, maybe you are and good for you if you are. I know that I've ridden pretty much every single sports bike made in the last 15 years and I don't think I've ever walked away and looked back going, I showed you sunshine. There's always a little bit left in those bikes that just leaves me exactly my place. I know my place and it's not at the front of fast group track days. It is what it is, but I'm a racer because I've raced it. I don't carry my wallet on the end of a chain, my back pocket, all of the leather jackets that I own still have the sleeves attached. As far as I'm aware I'm not married to any of my blood relatives, but I do own a Sex Panther t-shirt. My name's John Hogan and I'm a Harley-Davidson fan. That was a lot easier to say than I thought it would be.