Issue 154

Last month before the Harley dealer meeting in Los Angeles, The Motor Company had only released two street legal of the 100 new bikes it had promised us in 10 years: the Road King Special and Street Rod 750. Two other new bikes are only race legal: the Street XG750R flat track racer and the so called “Harley Street Rod Drag Bike.” (Click here to read more)

Now after the dealer meeting, you can read all about the new MY2018 Harleys in HEAVY DUTY including the new M8 engined cruisers. Hopefully, Harley releases the 115th Anniversary models like they did in August of 2002 for the 100th Anniversary. Then the 100th production year was 15 months long and ended in September 2003 with 420,000 bikes being produced. That again is what Harley needs to do this year, get its 115th Anniversary models on the showroom floor to drive sales through the USA winter and into the spring riding season. If they don’t have a huge hit soon, look out for another slide in sales in 2018. (Click here to read more)

Speaking of the 115th Anniversary, have a look at the celebrations in Prague in July and Milwaukee in August 2018. There are several European/UK sites with full details while the USA/Australia ones are just the basics. (Click here to read more)

If you are going to Milwaukee in 2018, my advice is to get on board with HEAVY DUTY TOURS if you want a room.

Prague is expecting over 100,000 but still has rooms at booking.com. See you there! (Click here to read more)

Just now the USA Rider Magazine awarded the Harley-Davidson Milwaukee-Eight Touring family the 2017 Motorcycle of the Year Award. That’s really significant considering Rider isn’t just a V-Twin or Harley magazine but takes on all comers. See all the bikes and article on Rider website (click here) and watch the interview (click here) in 2016 with Paul James, Director of Motorcycle Product Planning at Harley-Davidson.

Me, I’ve got my money on a MY2018 “Dyna Low Rider S” style bike with the M8 engine and plenty of brakes and shocks. Whether it be an Anniversary model or not, I’m sure it will carry on with the “Dark Custom” trend in the industry. (Click here to read more)

There’s plenty of good news in the Indian Motorcycles business from increased sales to the race winning Indian Scout FTR750 flat tracker and the land speed record set by Lee Munro on the Spirit of Munro 50th anniversary 1350cc 2017 Indian Scout at 186 mph. He surpassed his uncle Burt Munro’s 1967 1000cc streamliner’s official record of 184 mph. Lee’s was done as a warmup for the Bonneville Salt Flats later this year. (Click here to read more)

Electric bikes are certainly all the rage as far as city bikes go. Bill Davidson left the door open for the LiveWire in MY2019 during his recent visit down under. That’s fine if they get the price right while it certainly has already won the “looks” sweepstakes… but now with the Polish built Avionics V1 electric city bike with its wall-of-death motordome board track racer look, things could change. It is all pure metal, wood and leather. (Click here to read more)

While you are lane splitting in the city, here is a neat idea if you can get away with it. A high-visibility vest that looks like a police jacket but is “Polite.” Even the cops in the UK are okay with them because of the added safety. (Click here to read more)

Ride on!

– Tex