5 Things You Need To Know About The Harley-Davidson Street Glide

Recently, the Motorcycle.com staff had the chance to tour the beautiful Ontario countryside to experience the fall colors and to get a taste of what Northern Ontario has to offer. It’s a stunning place, and we thank our friends at Destination Ontario for making it all possible. Watch the feature video about our trip here or you can read about our trip here. 

When it came to picking out bikes for our Canadian tour, we had to bring some Americana up North, so we chose none other than the Harley-Davidson Street Glide. The Street Glide was built to tour and soak up miles, and after putting a thousand miles on ours, we came back with plenty to say about it.

Here are five things you need to know about the Harley-Davidson Street Glide:

It looks good

You may or may not like the LED strips on the batwing fairing, but you can’t deny it looks good. Funny enough, we’re actually bigger fans of the Road Glide’s looks, but it didn’t take long for the Street Glide to grow on us. In fact, throughout our time in Canada, complete strangers would come up to us and tell us how much they liked it. Maybe it was the orange paint, or maybe it’s the timeless silhouette. Whatever it was, this was our favorite one to look at.

That Engine

There’s nothing quite like the rumble of a Harley-Davidson V-Twin, and the Street Glide’s 117 cubic inches is no exception. Yeah, it shakes a lot when you’re sitting idle, but it’s surprisingly smooth once you get moving. And even with the stock exhaust, the rumble coming out of them just sounds cool. This engine is totally fine loping along at low rpm while you admire the view, and once you’re ready to wake up the 130 lb-ft of crankshaft torque Harley claims it has, the torque is ready immediately to shove you forward.

Top-Loading Bags Are Genius

When it comes to convenience, loading saddlebags from the top makes a lot of sense. You’re not fighting gravity this way, and since the latch is accessible from the saddle, you can quickly reach for things, or put them away, from a stop.

The Huge TFT Display Is Informative And Nice To Look At

Measuring 12.3 inches, the Street Glide’s TFT display is huge. But thanks to Harley’s Skyline Operating System, it doesn’t feel overwhelming. In fact, it feels very modern. You can customize the screen, but as far as we were concerned the standard settings were nice to look at and gave us the information we wanted to know. There was a small learning curve trying to figure out which buttons did what, but once we figured it out, navigating through the options was easy.

Three Inches Of Rear Suspension Travel Is Ridiculous

By far the Street Glide’s biggest drawback is its rear suspension. With only three inches of travel, it’s only marginally better than a hardtail for absorbing bumps. It’s actually fine for touring when the roads are smooth, but three inches of suspension travel will have you discovering bumps you never knew existed before. And once you hit the big stuff you can kiss your spine goodbye. It’s brutal.  

Pure Americana

Say what you want about Harley-Davidson, but there’s a reason why the Street Glide is the company’s best selling model. It looks good and does the job. As much as we secretly wanted to hate on it at the start of our trip, by the end we all found something endearing about the bike as we witnessed the changing Fall colors through Ontario.

No, it wasn’t the rear suspension.

By Troy Siahaan