WELCOME to Between The Lines

This is my chronicle of my occasional travels about the country. I started it in 2010 for my trip on my 2005 Harley Road King Classic for Big Daddy's Gulf Coast Gypsy Tour to New Orleans...Read below to find out about it! NEW REQUEST FOR READERS! If you are following this blog, sign in as a follower! That way I get to know who my audience is, which makes it more fun. Thanks!

In 2011 its the same destination, and its another Big Daddy Gypsy Tour, but on a different bike (my new Road Glide Ultra) and via a different route. This year is going to be in preparation for a 'Travels with Charlie' trip sometime in the future --so its camping along the way, and reporting as I have energy and internet connections.

Periodic posts will appear below, latest first. The
"Pages" down at the bottom have some information of more general applicability or interest. Enjoy! HippieDave

The Bike -- The Back Story

I get a lot of questions about "The Bike" and why I ride it.  Here is The Bike more or less as it is today:



The Bike is an '05 Road King Classic and this is its story.

Why a Harley?


There are many different, very fine motorcycles out there suitable for long distance touring. BMW, Triumph, Yamaha,Honda (Gold Wings) just to name a few...all make great motorcycles.  I just happen to love Harley-Davidsons.  There is something about the Harley that slips right into the American psyche...If Hemingway had embarked on his Travels With Charlie with a motorcycle instead of a home-made camper and a poodle, he would have ridden a Harley.  If Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had really been about maintaining and enjoying motorcycles, he would have ridden a Harley.  Harleys are the stuff of American legend.  More importantly, they are darned fun, reliable and comfortable long distance touring bikes.

Reliability:  It used to be said that "If there's no oil on the ground underneath your Harley, it means it's out of oil."  Mebbe so at one time, although I think this used to be just an endemic part of motorcycling.  But not anymore.  I ride with, and communicate on a regular basis with a lot of Harley riders, and the fact of the matter is --they just start up and keep on running 'til you get to where you are going.  I have 35,000 miles on The Bike, and have had no trouble whatsoever other than a failed shift linkage which I fixed with electrical tape in five minutes and then rode 3000 miles before getting around to a permanent fix. (Read the page on the Cam Project for the one arguable exception that can be taken with this statement.)  There are a lot of Harley miles being accumulated out there as we speak.  Are they as reliable as a Gold Wing or a BMW 1200 RS? I don't know. I've seen and heard of them all breaking down, but wouldn't say its a common problem for any of them.

What happens if something does break, however, is a major consideration. There are more Harley dealers scattered around than you can believe.  They are the Starbucks of the motorcycle world.  And if you don't like dealing with dealers, you have a choice with Harleys.  You will find experienced Harley mechanics in virtually every town in America with more than a few thousand people.  Don't like using Harley parts? You have a less expensive alternative for just about every piece of it.  You could build a "Harley" from the ground up and never touch a part that's gone through the grubby, bean counting fingers of the MoCo.  Don't like anyone else touching your bike?  Read the "fun" part next.

Fun:  Harley's are simple old fashioned designs which are just damn fun bikes to ride.  They handle beautifully and have a smooth racehorse surge of available power there in that big twin engine.  Harleys are just plain kick-ass, go-for-broke down-the-fall-line fun!

Harleys are also fun to customize. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that if you go to a gathering of more than four or five BMWs or Wings you start to see the same bike over and over again.  This is because, first, they just don't make that many different bikes and, second, there's not much in the way of modifications that can be made.  There's no substantial after-market for BMW or Wing parts.  There is a several billion dollar after-market in Harley accessories and parts, and although Harley really only manufactures 5 different bikes, they do offer a starting point for customization by offering those 5 basic bikes in a total number of perhaps 30 different flavors.  So if you are into motorcycling in part because you are a grownup who still likes to play with toys (and who isn't, whether its golf accessories, cars, boats or fishing gear?), Harley gives you a much better place to start.  Finally, its fun and satisfying in today's high tech world to work on your own bike if ya want.  I want, and I've spent many fun hours taking many different parts of The Bike apart and putting it back together, either just performing basic maintenance or "improving" it so that it is exactly what I want.

BMWs and Wings are modern, fantastically engineered bikes which perform wonderfully, in many measures "outperforming" Harleys, and are also damn fun bikes to ride.

Performance:  If you tell me you're an engineer who rides, I will probably make money betting you ride a Beemer or a Wing over a Harley.  Both bikes will out pull a Harley from a stop, and probably gain a bit (though nowhere near as much as their advocates think) in going through some twisties. Both bikes are cutting edge in engineering niftiness and make engineers feel all warm and fuzzy.

Since the advent of the modern day Harley (lets say post WWII) Harley has basically manufactured five engines for its main-line touring bikes. (I'm counting neither the Sportster, which is sort of its own sub-category of Harley, nor the V-Rod, which is thought to be the future water cooled engine design for the MoCo, but which the company really hasn't used other than in this experimental introduction of the V-Rod).

In order of introduction these have been the Knucklehead (1930's through about 1947), the Panhead (1948 through the mid 1960's), the Shovelhead (mid 1960's through early 1980s), the Evolution (early 1980's through 1998) and the TwinCam88, about 1998 to date (TwinCam96 after about 2006).  As you can see, Harley does not rush new engines to market.  They like to get a good design life out of their engineering department.  In fact, one can make a reasonably good case that the modern TwinCam88 is not that distant a kissin' cousin of the 1940's Knucklehead.  This is the rap that many advocates of more "au currant" bikes place on the Harley.  I think it is part of its charm and fun.  I would never dare open up a BMW 1200 RS to put hot (well 'warm') cams in and to upgrade the design of the oil pump and cam chain tensioner system to the latest company design.   But I just did this with The Bike.  The fact is that while the MoCo introduces tweaks and sometimes major innovations each year, and today's twin cam fuel injected Harley is a far more reliable and better performing beast than its kissin' cousins from the past, it is still a simple straightforward design that provides a platform for doin' stuff.  And that's a lot of fun.

Comfort:  Think of the Harley as a big old Barcalounger, other bikes as comfortable club chairs (the Wing), or good ergonomic work stations (the BMW) and you've got the picture.  Much more than automobiles, though-- which  by their very nature are much more adjustable to accommodate different driver ergonomics, the motorcycle rider has to adapt to or just accept the basic design of the motorcycle...unless he can customize it.

You can make the Harley darn near anything you want.  There are after-market and MoCo alternative parts for just about every piece of the bike relating to the rider's or the passenger's comfort, and nothing even close in the rest of the motorcycle market.  The Bike, although quite a comfortable cruising bike right off of the factory floor, has been customized to fit me with after-market or MoCo alternatives for:  the seat, handlebars, windshield, windshield bags, grips, clutch lever mechanism, backrest, passenger foot pegs, passenger backrests (two alternatives), brake lever (different position), shift lever, lower wind deflectors and highway pegs (alternative footrests). It fits me like a glove, and like I could make no other cycle on the market.

More Fun:  I tweaked the power by adding a high flow aircleaner and exhaust, a digital fuel optimizer and Andrews cams; changed the front fender to the "cleaner" look of the Harley Road Glide; did a custom paint job; got two luggage options --tour pak and luggage rack (respectively, for short and long trips).  A few decorative chrome pieces were installed here and there, along with some different wheels and some fringe...I mean, you gotta look sharp if you're gonna be sharp, right?  Just plain fun stuff.  (Not as easy to do with other bikes.)

Why This Harley?


As said above, Harley basically makes 5 bikes, and essentially only three engines.  The Sportster was introduced as a racing bike and is still the smallest and lightest Harley makes. It is FUN! and armed with the 1200 cc engine may be the quickest bike Harley makes.  It doesn't lend itself to long distance comfort, especially for two.  (Aside:  Many women try the Sporty as their first bike, and many stick with it and learn to love it because it is lighter -- 500 something pounds instead of 7 or 800 something pounds.  However, it is probably a mistake to think of it as an entry level bike.  It has a high center of gravity and even with the 883 cc engine, is still one powerful machine.  People should think of starting off with a temporary bike (say a Honda 250) and then picking a permanent bike that fits them and their riding style.  There are several Harleys which many women find to be successful fits and preferable to the Sporty.) The Sporty engine is an Evolution design which has been tinkered with but essentially not changed for several decades.  Sporties may be the most infinitely customizable Harleys.  I wish I still had mine. Here is my old sporty next to The Bike still in its factory configuration:


The V-Rod has been generally an unsucessful market experiment -- or at least one that hasn't grabbed a large audience yet.  It has what is touted by the pundants as Harley's engine of the future, and it may be.  It is a water cooled engine which achieves in excess of 115 horsepower with a smaller displacement than Harleys "Big Twin" engines.  The V-Rod itself is a pretty cool/hot design IMHO.  But it isnt' really set up for touring, so it too is more of an "outlier" when you talk about the Harley lineup. 

The core of the Harley stable consists of  three bikes which essentially share the same engine...the TwinCam88/96.  These are the DynaGlides, the Softails, and the Touring Bikes.

The Dyna series is a smaller framed, lighter, sprightly performing sport bike.  The TwinCam engine is mounted on rubber mounts which cause it to shake violently at idle, and smooth out to a purr under load.  The Dyna Series (including the SuperGlide, the WideGlide, Street Bob and Fat Bob in 20011 are most identifiable by their externally visible coiled rear shock absorbers.  Many women like the Dyna due to its low center of gravity and lighter weight.  The Low Rider and Wide Glide have been very popular Harleys on the Road.

The Softails are the heritage bikes --the continuation of the basic Harley line going back to the beginning.  Including the retro looking Softail Heritage Classic, and in recent years even some "Springers" harkening back to the pre-canister front fork shocks of the 1940's, they have a unique mid size frame with a single internal rear shock absorber (distinguishing themselves from their preceding "Hardtails" in having no rear shocks).  The engine is "hard" mounted to the frame and is designated the TwinCam 88B...the "B" representing an internal counterweight designed to smooth out the shaking of the engine.  Reportedly smoother at idle and a bit rougher at higher RPM than the "unbalanced" version of the engine mounted with rubber mounts. Classic Harley designs are in this class -- The Fat Boy, The Deuce, The Heritage Classic etc.  The Fat Boy and its lowered cousin The Deluxe are favored by some women and by men with shorter inseams.

The Touring Bikes -- Sharing the rubber mounted TwinCamm88 engine with the Dyna series, the Touring Bikes have a larger frame, air adjustable rear shocks and are generally set up with long distance touring in mind.  The differences among the Touring Bikes are all in the accessories they are packaged with.  The basic is the Road King.  That is what "The Bike" is, although The Bike started out as a Road King Classic, which meant it came with hard leather saddlebags instead of the (somewhat roomier) hard plastic bags. This line includes the Road Glide, Harley's only bike with a frame-mounted front fairing, and the very popular Classic and Ultra Classic ElectraGlide tourers, with a front fork mounted fairing.  The Street Glide is a lowered RoadKing with an ElectraGlide fairing.  I chose the Road King at the time because of its flexibility in customization, and I have kept it because, as customized, if fits me.  Were I to do it all again, I'd be seriously tempted by the new 2011 Road Glide Ultra, which is a beautifully equipped touring bike.  The touring bikes are comfortable, and accommodate more gear and equipment when traveling than any other bike made, to my knowledge.