2024 Harley-Davidson Road Glide review

It isn’t often we get to ride green bikes. Or huge green ones for that matter. Meet Harley’s 2024 Road Glide.

“Taking The Hulk out today?” one of the AMPS guys in the service department asked me. It took me a while to click, given I hadn’t seen the machine.

Turn around and whoa, it’s hard to miss. Like the enormous fixed fairing that houses two speakers and a shiny new touchscreen, the entire bike is supersized. “Looks like it,” I reply.

Think Big? The Harley-Davidson Road Glide is just like Marvel’s Hulk. Especially when it’s green. Normally, it’s a regular heavyweight touring iron with all the frills.

Get angry with the throttle though and it tries to shred the rear tyre as it roars its way to the open road limit. Back off and it calms down again to just being big and green.

Despite the huge look and immense actual size, once underway that impression kind of dissipates. Sure, you need to take care manoeuvring it around with all that weight up high.

Any slight lean and it wants to take five with you underneath it. You also don’t want to ride forwards into a downhill park. Turn it around first to avoid embarrassment.

On the move and you’d not credit how light the steering is when initiating a change of direction.

Not that the steering is especially quick, the bike being long of shanks, but it leans over willingly and unless you’re entering the corner hot, its ground clearance is astounding.

Helping there is new Showa suspension with increased travel (76mm). When it does make contact the footboard rises up gently so no biggie.

This manages 32 degrees of lean so can take corners at quite a reasonable clip. Just not a full one.

Plush as on smooth surfaces

This is awfully comfy on highways as you’d hope a long haul cruiser would be. Its well padded seat and great riding position make it all-day rideable.

The seat is beautifully stitched too. We found on the go our feet tended to migrate towards the south end of the floorboards, making the ride even more relaxed.

Not that it’s all that easy to weight the bike using the boards but there’s enough leverage in the bars anyway.

On less kempt back roads the suspension can become a little flustered over short sharp breaks in the road surface.

The front end is unadjustable and is a bit jumpy in such circs while the rear hasn’t quite enough travel to soak up multiple bumps one after another.

That said, it was wound up a bit tight and was more at ease after we loosened preload a little. That requires removal of a pannier to access the remote preload adjustor.

Ten per cent more herbs

The big news for the 2024 Road Glide is the move from the 114 to the liquid-cooled 117 (1923cc) V-twin with plenty of twisting force (175 Hulking Nm at a leisurely 3500rpm).

That’s up by seven per cent while power rises by 11 per cent to 80kW. Vibes are negligible, except at idle. Heat dissipation with the new engine is better too.

Low-end pull is muscular, right down to around 1500rpm. It hauls with guts and glory from 2000rpm. With plenty of flywheel effect it isn’t always easy to ensure smooth upshifts but when you get it right the changes are fluid and satisfying.

Shifting sooner is better. At open road speeds clutchless upshifts result in beautifully smooth cog swapping.

Once in top you can leave it there for the duration if you’re riding out of town. It’s best in fourth gear around the burbs.

Long distance easy

This is so relaxed on road, turning over a loafing 2250rpm at 100 and 2500rpm at 110km/h. Pop it in Sport mode, turn off TC and light the wick. This sometimes breaks traction which came as a surprise.

The Harley-Davidson Breakout and Low Rider ST share the same 117 motor but are much closer to 300kg of wet weight. They get to 100 about half a second quicker, around 3.7sec, and it’s much the same difference for the overtake, 2.2 vs 2.8sec.

The extra weight is telling. But given how much low down torque there is here, it’s almost irrelevant.

Not in the braking zone though. The Road Glide has axial-mount calipers and linked brakes. We couldn’t better 42m in the emergency stop from 100km/h.

The others stopped in the 36m area. So the weight is definitely a key braking variable. That said, you can use the rear brake alone to set corner speed; it slows the bike confidently.

And we managed better fuel use than the 6.0L/100km overall suggested, generally in the mid-fives, sometimes high fours.

Bigger people will like this

For those with the physical wherewithal, and who like a planted feel the Road Glide will appeal. It’s a bagger and there’s enough space for clothes and oddments for a weekend away.

One aspect we hadn’t really noticed on the launch is a pair of vertically oriented air vents by your right knee. Open for cool air. If you twist them they extend out, keeping more wind off.

Not that the big fairing doesn’t do a good job of that. The top part of the screen doesn’t exclude all air, and there’s a cutout that opens to let more through during hotter weather. It also minimises buffeting.

One final thing; this sounds really good, even with the standard exhaust; blat it under flyovers and the reverberation is awesome. Audio sounds are good too, better at urban speeds.

The overall look is much improved we reckon, being longer and lower, more aero-optimised.

Most who own these in America will probably use them for long-haul touring and might not recognise how well they can deal to more sinuous bits of road.

A Hulk for sure then but a surprisingly nimble one. Harley reckons the similarly priced Street Glide with its smaller batwing fairing is more for a mix of touring and town work.

This article first appeared in the October 2024 issue of NZ Autocar Magazine.