Harley Davidson FLHTC 1340 Electra Glide Classic

Review

Need the biggest touring bike on the block? Climb aboard the Electra Glide Classic—but you'd better have a thick wallet too.
This is a motorcycle for the Faithful, the Rich Faithful. The Faithful will ogle the FLHT because it looks Big Twin Traditional; the lines and lineage are unmistakable, triple-distilled Milwaukee classic. The Faithful must be rich because the Electra Glide Classic tops $8600, making this a Harley-Da-vidson for those who own both the rainbows and the pots at their ends.

For about $11 a pound, the FLHT owner gets a big touring motorcycle, 781.5 pounds wet, with accommodations for two, their gear, and accessories. Big touring motorcycles are heavy (Honda's Aspencade is 766 pounds). To be roomy enough for rider, passenger and accessories, these machines have to be big, and an FLHT can't be this big without being heavy. The FLHT can handle a 400-pound payload. Even after counting in fairing, saddlebags, King Tour Pak and so on, a tubby rider and passenger would have 75 pounds available for luggage and gear. That's impressive. If you can't manage a tour on 75 to95 pounds,you'd better try motorhoming.

The FLHT running gear is a variant of that found on the FXRS. The FLHT steering head is quite different, since the T-series motorcycles use Harley-Davidson's reversed triple clamps, which position the fork tubes behind the steering pivot when the front wheel points dead ahead. The FLHT fork, however, appears Harley-Tradi-tional. The object of the assembly was to lighten the force the old FLH-series motorcycles required at the bars. Motorcycles that weigh over 900 pounds on the road, that have long (62-inch) wheelbases, and that carry 90/16 front tires, demand truck-driver muscles. Even with its reversed triple clamps, the FLHT still calls for manly effort at very low speeds.

Those accustomed to Japanese motorcycles will find other maneuvers awkWard. At rest, the rider's feet get planted on the pavement between the footboards and passenger pegs. Since heavy machines encourage a rider to delay lifting his feet, occasionally our staffers would scrape the backside of their legs on the passenger pegs. To use the rear brake the rider must pull his foot off the floorboard to reach the pedal. Again, for our staffers, that's an unnatural move. The shift lever, however, can be worked with the left foot on the board.
Rolling down the interstate, the FLHT puts its rider in armchair comfort. Indeed, it's more chairlike than you might suspect. The rubber-mounted floorboards place the rider's feet forward, having them carry less weight than on other motorcycles, and the seat/handlebar/floorboard relationships put the rider bolt-upright, which is just fine because the fairing takes the majority of the wind pressure (a small bit of wind does channel up off the lower fairing). Rubber separates the rider's body everywhere from the engine and its vibration.

The engine, handlebar and floorboards are rubber-mounted, and the seat is foam deep in rubber. Despite the insulation, the rider can notice upper end engine noise and the passenger will feel the footpegs vibrate. For non-adjustable units, the front and rear suspension components work very well on the interstate, the place for which they're calibrated.
It's exactly in the "features" and "adjustability" areas that Milwaukee must play catch-up. Some Japanese touring-bike built-ins—such as fender-mounted compasses and digital dashboard displays—are gadgetry in the grand tradition of pendulum-powered kitchen-knife-sharpeners. Other items, such as multi-function communication centers, are important features or electronic trivia, depending upon the rider's point of view. Still other features, such as air forks and shocks with onboard pumps and variable damping, define the upper limits of engineering state of the art for big touring bikes. Although Harley-Davidson has dealt successfully with several basic areas—vibration control, final-drive durability and reliability (H-D's answer was a fully enclosed oil bath chaincase) clearly its next priority should be suspension tunability.

The FLHT gives its riders lots of lights, not all of them on the instrument panel. Both fenders have running lights, as do the Tour Pak and saddlebags. Twin spots complement the single headlamp. The FLHT can be seen and its rider will never lack candlepower for the road ahead.