2019 Harley-Davidson Road King (FLHR) Test Ride Comparison with a Road King Special

[Music] [Music] hey guys Matt here from late-loss harley-davidson if you're looking for a new or used motorcycle in Southern California we'd love to earn your business one of the biggest complaints I hear from motorcycle purchasers today is to go down to a dealership only to be met by an inexperienced salesperson who basically is there to act as a pawn between you and the manager behind the black curtain in the back and engaged in an endurance style back and forth shell game on pricing parallels harley-davidson you come in and we get you a price immediately we have sales staff here that are holiday with some professionals that demonstrated high levels of product knowledge that own and ride Harley Davidsons in their spare time as well we have three generations of late-loss family here we don't have disposable employees here you ever go to a dealership buy a bike and not be able to find the salesperson that sold you the bike at your 1k service here at label outs we hang on to our guys we hire good guys sales professionals come down to us get a quick price no back and forth BS on pricing and build a relationship with the dealership that's been here longer than anybody in Southern California thanks a lot guys enjoyed the video alright guys so let's jump into a walk around on this 2019 SL HR Road King in Barracuda silver so basically a little brief history the road King came about in 1994 so the road King has been around for a very long time it replaced a bike called the FL HS the Electra Glide sports so for a long time the Electra beds all had fairings on there and they made a sport model which basically was a faring list touring bike and so the road king replaced that electrolyzed sport as the only faring list touring bike in Harley Davidsons lineup so vitae has been out for a long time and it's had a lot of variations over the years there was one in the early 2000s called the road king custom that was a little bit more of a minimalist styling kind of like the road king special of today and there was a road king classic for a long time that had leather bags and laced wheels which my understanding you can still get in South America but in North America all you can get is this road king standard so starting from the front you got a 17 inch impeller wheel on there here's a shot of the tank badge you need to tank badge to the road king on the road king standard you have a little bit more functional items then we compared to the road Kings special on the road King standard you've got passing lamps and a windshield like I mentioned there's a shot of the 107 cubic inch Milwaukee 8 engine this engine was applied to the touring chassis bikes in the 2017 model year if you haven't watched my Milwaukee eight video I'm gonna put a link to that in the upper right hand corner I go into a lot of details on that basically the Milwaukee eight it gets its name from you know Milwaukee being the the headquarters and where harley-davidson started in the 8th being reference to the 8 valve so it has four valves per cylinder they went to a single cam on here precision oil cooling system a couple other things that I go into on video so the working standard you got saddlebag guards here there's a shot of the seats seats a little bit more pillowy more cushioned than the road King specialist there's some detail with buttons on the side of the seat as well more of a classic look with this bike the road king special delivers more of a modern look there's a quite a bit big difference in the aesthetics of the to Road Kings there's several features on the road King standard that make it a little bit more of a a practical functional bike than the Road King special I'll be getting into those a shot of the saddlebags saddlebags are pretty much all the same on all the touring bikes here's a shot of those pins those two pins you spin counterclockwise to pull off the bag and then you've got this single latch system that came about with the rushmore project that was launched in the 2014 model year makes it a lot easier to open and close the saddlebags now it's just one hand [Music] so in the going to the tail end here you've got the classic lighting situation single tail light that is real retro looking with the lollipop style turn signals in the rear again that's quite a bit different that's a big contrast from what you see in the road king special there's no shot of those saddlebag guards they're a lot of chrome on this bike that's for the biggest cosmetic difference that you notice right away between the two Road Kings is the road king standard still has all the chrome on it there's your horn cover there they changed those horn covers when the Milwaukee eight came out in 2017 as well so here's a shot of the inside of your windshield here here's a shot of your fuel gauge there I just clicked on the bike so that you see the fuel attack going up there there's a shot of your instrumentation taking the gas cap off here you got six gallons of gas on this bike 91 octane in California Harley's usually are gonna want premium fuel P premium grade fuel so here's the switches you've got cruise control on this bike as a standard option it's been that way since 2014 model year with the project Rushmore and you got your horn and your light switches over there here's the the switch for the passing lamps there I'll give you guys a shot of that so you get those two additional passing lamps which I actually make a big difference at night guys and you're going on the road these illuminate the road significantly better you got a dual halogen bulb on these bikes as opposed to LED lighting but it's it's I'm a big fan of the additional passing lamps I put them on my street glide that trigger switch there is gonna cycle on this little digital screen here to let you know you got the clock there you got your odometer you also got a gear and rpm readout as well which is where I typically ride with my bike on and you've got a trip a and a trip B hold down that trigger switch to zero out your two trip meters you see an ABS light flashing there that lights gonna come on when the bike is on ignition mode but not started once you get rolling about ten miles down the road that ABS light should go out if it doesn't you know something's wrong with your ABS system so check out your abs if when you get the bike up to speed if the ABS light is still flashing let's go over to the road king special here so immediately you're going to notice everything is all black down on the special as opposed to the Chrome so quite a bit different overall cosmetic look to the special also no windchill on this bike from the factory you just have the single headlamp coming off of it kind of went along the lines of less is more on this bike make it a really clean custom looking bike you got a big 19-inch wheel in the front as opposed to the 17 and this is called a turbine wheel not to be mistaken with the Talon wheel that comes on the rogue light and a Street Glide special so Forks are all blacked out headlamp nacelle is all blacked out they call this the Hiawatha headlamp on here there's a dual halogen bulb headlamp on this you got a little bit thicker bars well this is an inch and a quarter diameter bar as opposed to the road king standard you guys have a one inch diameter bar and the the cabling you can see the electrical is run on the outside of the bars and on the road kings special the electrical is all run on the inside of the bar so a little bit cleaner electrical routing on the road king special and the bars are all blacked out of course another one of the biggest differences between the two is from the factory you got a 114 cubic inch engine on the road king special as opposed to the 107 this was something that was just a change made just this year so you go back just one year to the eighteen model year these bikes were both shipped from the factory with the 107 another side note to the road king special first debuted as a mid model year launch bike in the 2017 model year so this bike has not been out for very long here's a shot of the seats it's a lower profile seat it's a two-up seat of course this seat is pretty much identical to the row glide and the Street Glide standard seat but it doesn't quite have as much cushion or pillow as the road king standard seat here's a shot of the back rear fascia of the bike you got stretched bags on there the stretch bag is kind of wrap around the exhaust there kind of give it more of that slams look they're not real as far as like a functional standpoint you really don't get that much more space in the bag but it's more of a cosmetic thing than anything here's your derby cover with the 114 on the side you can see the primary and everything is all black down on this as well horn cover your shift pegs so shift linkage there it's still like that raw aluminum I think they should change that maybe it's steel I don't know that's made out of probably like steel and here's a shop from the cockpit you can see you got your four clock there which has been the same on all the road kings for a really long time now and you got your black center console here's your fuel gauge pretty much the same as the road came standard me personally if I were to get a road king special I would definitely go to the flush mount gauge and filler cap as well switch housings are all identical on both Road kings pretty much identical to the all the other touring bikes as well for that matter you got the bullet turned signals up on the handlebars by the grips I'll point that out as well as opposed to those big lollipop style turn signals that come down off of the passing lamps smoked lenses as well on the turn signals which is kind of clean looking and yeah just everything on the engine your rocker box covers camp time recover side transmission cover all blacked out so yeah if you're going for function the Road King standards better here's a shot of the rear wheel so you've got a 16 inch rear wheel on the road king standard as opposed to an 18 inch rear wheel on the road king special so basically overall if you're looking for like a hot rod style bike then the Road King special is gonna be kind of more in tune with that Road King standard that a ride comfort bigger sty wall and your tires taller shock more padded seats you got the windshield and you got the passing lamps on there so a little bit more practicality with the road king standard if you're a real long haul typewriter then the road king standards going to give you more of those comforts when compared to the road king special which one you like better Nick I think I like the road king standard better at least from a writing perspective I mean I I have to admit that the looks of the row King special are probably a little bit closer to my personal preferences I like the kind of blacked out look of the bike and I think the color combo especially with the twisted cherry and the the blacked out at cosmetics on all of the engine trim that was my favorite color last year unlike the Street Glide special and I like it again on the road king special this year but from a writing standpoint I prefer the road king standard for a couple reasons it's got taller rear suspension so that makes it a little bit flusher on all the shorter shocks on the touring bikes they're just sprung too stiff for me you know if maybe if I had a passenger and they were loaded up with gear it would be a little bit better but just there's not enough travel and they've got to be pretty stiff to accommodate to up riding and guys larger than me and that means they're just they're too stiff for me from the factory that's not really unique to the Road King special it's it's kind of all the touring bikes and really almost every bike I ride is probably too stiff for me until I get some custom suspension but that's way more apparent on the two it was a 2.2 inches or two point six inches to travel that the the shorter shock touring bikes have whereas the rotate standard has the taller rear suspension it's also got a plus your seat so those two things mean it's more comfortable it feels a little quicker side to side maybe that's because the rears up a little bit higher and so there's a little less rake on the front makes it feel a little twitchy err I guess I prefer that you know the ability to transition side to side a little faster yeah so you got bigger small or bigger sidewalls because you've got larger tires smaller diameter wheels means you know you're running a little bit more sidewall usually whereas on the 19-inch you've got almost no sidewall so that means the suspension is doing all of the the work yeah height wise I'm still perfectly comfortable on on both of them I also I think the ergonomics that the bars are a little bit nicer for me on the road King standard I think that they come in a little bit more towards the rider and it just kind of hits me at a nicer spot in terms of my wrist I don't feel like I'm having to tweak my wrist at all in an uncomfortable way but I'm able to flatfoot it I am for those who don't know I'm about five eight maybe five nine on a good day and I have no problem thought flattening the bike at all wait you know it definitely feels a little bit taller but it doesn't feel any heavier than the wroking special and I think another reason why the steering might feel a little bit lighter is that the front wheel is probably a little bit lighter than the nineteen you know that's one thing that is really popular these days on on baggers of all kinds is to go to a really big front wheel 21 23 26 is and well it looks cool it's one thing to keep in mind really that it making a anything on your wheel heavier or anything on your front end heavier it makes almost every objective category of the bike worse in every way it makes it turn slower stop slower accelerate slower in fact putting a heavier rear wheel actually if you put the bike on the dyno you'll actually lose or power because the engines having to work harder just to turn the wheel itself so less of that power is going to get to the and in the front you know it's forcing the front suspension to work harder it's forcing the brakes to work harder just to slow the momentum of the wheel so it is nice actually to ride the touring bikes like the electric light standard and the Road King and you know the limited that have that smaller wheel because you realize how nimble this chassis really can't be and you know we step up to at 19 you do lose a little bit of that it's not as bad as going up to a 21 or 23 and it's something that Matt and I were talking about earlier with the rogue lights Evo is while that 21 looks really cool and it's set up how it needs to be from the factory and it's probably the best set of 21 that you could get other than maybe like a carbon-fiber one and even that doesn't ride as well as a specialist so that's one thing to remember is that the road King is going to handle better and ride better than the special will because of the smaller wheels and the taller suspension so powers definitely in the favor of the 114 I like the 107 is better on the soft hills but on the touring bikes I think that the extra torque of the 114 is nice when you're dealing with the extra weight of the bike it doesn't like to be in the low rpms as much as the 107 I think that larger crank just means it's a little happier with a little more revs but you do get more torque and once you do wrap the bike out and I think that helps a lot with the weight it's it's noticeably peppier and we get a lot of questions about what's the difference between the 107 and the 114 and to be honest with you they both make more than enough power for the application but you know no one's ever going to turn down more power so the 114 definitely has I'd say it's a noticeable bit of a grunt over the 107 it's not world-changing but it's definitely worth the you know roughly $1300 premium that you would have on the bikes where it's optional on this obviously you're going up a fair bit more but you're also paying for the stretch bags and the blocks out cosmetics so you can't really isolate that engine cost as easily as you can on something like a heritage where there's both engines available but it's definitely a noticeable improvement it's nothing to it to scoff at the 1:14 is a nice upgrade another factor I'd say that influences comfort overall on the bikes is the lack of the wind shield on the special here I think it's kind of a weird omission I mean I understand why they did it you know they kind of want to simplify the probably the process of buying the bike where they want the dealers to display it without the windshield so therefore they don't include it with the bike but it would be nice just to have it included and then give the dealers the option of displaying it on the floor without it and I think that'd be nicer for the customer as well you know you're paying a pretty significant premium over the the road King and it kind of bugs me that it doesn't include the windshield you're actually missing some of the features that the road king has at least when it comes to comfort because that wind protection makes a big difference on the highway the windshield on the road King though is probably something I would actually have to swap because at my height it hits my vision my line of vision right where the crease of or where the edge of the the windshield is and kind of distorts my vision so if you're taller than me or shorter than me by even probably just an inch either direction you're gonna be happy with it but I'm at the exact wrong height for that windshield and so even if they included one on this bike I'd probably swap it anyway so not that big of a deal to me and most of the guys I know that buy the specials since they're more focused on the visuals of the bike in a lot of ways because they're you know going with that lower suspension and they were attracted to the bike probably in part because there was no windshield on there they don't really run the windshield as I don't see a lot of guys adding the windshield back onto this bike you know I see them doing stage kids I see him doing slip ons doing bar swaps all sorts of stuff so it's not like they aren't spending money to modify the bike they just aren't throwing windshields back on because you know this is a bike that's heavily driven by its aesthetic and that means that throwing a windshield and there's kind of the opposite of what most of the customers are looking for on this bike you know riding them back to back it was kind of eye-opening how just a few small changes really dramatically affect the way the bikes perform handle and even just who the target audience is for the two bikes so I highly recommend coming out and test riding them if you're in the area this is this row team that we have here in our demo fleet we were more than happy to take you out on one of our Road King standards because really riding them back to back is going to be the best way to decide if you know you're on the fence between the two bikes but I definitely say that if you're the kind of guy who's gonna be putting a lot of miles on the bike you're gonna benefit more from the comfort of the road King if you're looking for something that's more of a weekend toy that you know it's got the big motor and is just a lot of fun to ride but still more than capable of going out on the highway and I put in some serious miles every now and then I'm gonna go with the special because it's got that style it's got that power advantage and it's not a bad touring bike by any stretch of the imagination it just doesn't have all the comfort that the the Road King standard does so I'd highly recommend test riding them both back to back hey guys Matt here so Nick and I just got off the road Kings and just wanted to kind of run down some of the main significant difference differences between the two and some of the things that I felt like are the most important things that you guys should know to really help you make a decision between the two motorcycles so we'll start off first here with the road kings standard the road king standard has been around for a long time there's been a couple different variations over the years they had the road king classic which is still available in South America if I'm not mistaken they've also had a road king custom that to the early 2000s as well they've taken both of those away in North America and we just have the road king's standard now and then they added the road Kings special in the second half of the 2017 model year so a couple things on the road King standard as Nick kind of mentioned already there's definitely more functionality here so you've got the windshield you've also got the passing lamps you know I know Nick mentioned the Mitchell already but the passing lamps is kind of a big thing especially if you're riding at night the extra lighting is really nice plus just having the extra housings here if you wanted to upgrade to LED lighting it's a lot less expensive to upgrade to the all LED lighting on the road King special because you have to incur the extra cost of adding the housing here on the passing lamps so you've got that already there's extra equipment there as Nick already mentioned quite a bit and I'll just kind of glaze over this real quick you know the wheel size is definitely different basically you're getting cosmetics with the road King's special at the compromise of ride quality and make articulated you know the things as far as the handling and how that impacts your handling pretty well so I won't get into that too much the the seats definitely a little bit more pillow be on the road King standard one more thing adding to the comfort of the road King standard and just the overall style and everything is more classic on the road King which brings you to another point if you want that Road King classic look still it's very easy to convert this Road King standard into the old style Road King classic harley-davidson actually offers a leather bag that you can take these hard bags off and add the leather bags in addition to adding spoke wheels lace wheels which we actually have on the bike over here that and it can show you so you do the the lace wheels in addition to the leather bags and essentially you have a road king classic in the past the road can classic always had additional features like cruise control on it when the standard didn't maybe it was an upgrade now that's all kind of gone away where the road king is basically the only options on there is just the ABS with or without ABS so a little bit more versatility as far as if you want to go to a different style you know this style right here it's kind of our v class style if you want to call it that it's pretty pretty popular in the East LA area that you know our dealership is located in and so that's pretty much all your chrome a pinger bars I'll comment to that the road king is probably my number one most favorite harley-davidson to put a ping or bars a fingers go really well on a lot of different bikes but just the overall lines and just the the stance of the road king the the ape hanger bars are really good on the road key my first harley-davidson was actually a 2009 Road King with 18-inch ape hangers on here so yeah big fan of this this look and again this is kind of a your all chromed out we had this bike available on our showroom right now by the way it's a brand new 2019 Road King standard with you know ton of extras on it now if you're interested in checking it out come on down to the dealership we'll move on here to the road king special now so the road king special like I said has been out for two and a half years now approximately came out the latter half of the 2017 model year so basically this this bike is a couple to three thousand dollars more than the standard and really what you're paying for there is the cosmetics you're paying for all the blacked out features on this bike the bigger wheels this is called a turbine wheel really cool wheel I like it I definitely like the look of it a lot better than the road king standard it looks like a custom wheel you know and it comes right from the factory so you know you have all the holiday Vicent R&D behind it it's gonna ride correctly it's gonna fit correctly it's not going to rub your fender any of that BS that often times we have to deal with when we change out fenders on by so you're getting really this custom cosmetic look from the factory with that additional cost you're incurring on the road pretty special that in like Nick said you know you got the bigger motor than 114 which is definitely noticeable especially out on the highway you roll it on you definitely have more power it's it's noticeable power it's not just a number on the side of the Derby cover it is noticeable and if I have to quantify that it's about ten percent more power it's about ten percent more horsepower and you got about honest eight thirteen 14 additional foot-pounds of torque as well and and that is noticeable and that was kind of reiterated to me when I wrote it a couple of things that stood out to me I've ridden both these bikes a lot but it's always nice when I do these these videos to ride them back-to-back and so I get kind of a fresh print or image in my mind exactly the differences between the two I was out on the freeway Nick was on the SPECIAL out on the freeways on the standard on the freeway that wind factor is kind of a big deal the windshield on the standard really makes that freeway riding at high speeds just a lot more of a calm subdued like experience where you're out there you have your sense is better your eyes your ears just everything is just a lot more calm and it feels like you're going slower than you are the road king special however out on the freeway it's fun you can do it obviously it's got more power which is nice but you know just having that wind blast you in the face and you're doing 70 80 miles an hour it's more of a you know you have to keep your attention focused on the road and you said to I guess be more alert and your senses have to be more kind of strained out on the highway whereas if you don't have the wind hitting you your senses are a little bit more relaxed so that's kind of the best way I can describe that Mitchell goes on here easily but really when it comes down to it guys if you're trying to decide which bike to go I would I would take two things into consideration one and I'm saying if you decide for sure you want the road king we're not talking about the road computer compared to other bikes but if you know you want a road king I would take into consideration what you're going to use it for are you a guy that gets out on the road quite a bit if that's the case the road king standard is going to have more functionality with the additional lights the better ride comfort with the seat the suspension Nik already talked about this but just to be clear the rotating standard has a taller shock the Road King special has the shorter shock that comes on the robot in the streak light as well and then you combine that with the larger wheel less sidewall tire a little bit rougher ride when you hit those big bumps it's a very smooth ride it's still in the touring chassis which is the most important thing but when you compare it to other bikes with in the touring family that that have the taller shock it's a little bit rougher ride so I would take into consideration the the way you're gonna ride it this will do the freeway just fine but it's not gonna be quite as comfortable as a road king standard you're not gonna have the functionality of some of the things like the lighting and the wind shield on it second thing I'd take into consideration is the style you're going for which you know style is a big thing in the Harley world a lot of guys fly Harley's for the style myself included how about a Harley Davidson anyways I'm in the industry that's be honest but the braking special again has that a really cool custom look right from the factory wheels that a lot of guys don't feel like that to change even even if they're doing a custom build you don't really feel like you have to change that wheel because it looks really really good and you know what's gonna it's going to perform well when compared to an aftermarket will somebody's aftermarket wheels guys are so freaking heavy they just everything that Nick described when he was talking I mean you you magnify that by like five folds and that's what's gonna happen with aftermarket wheels so I really really caution people when they put a big old 21 inch aftermarket wheel on there it really compromises your suspension it really compromises your handling you're breaking your acceleration everything that Nick said that this wheel does when compared to the 17 inch wheel you multiply that by like 10 folds and that's what's gonna happen with a big aftermarket wheel on there which is fine if you're gonna take it to the shows and you know what you're getting yourself into I can appreciate a bike with a big wheel on it but if you're a purpose the purpose for practical rider which I feel like more riders are nowadays less riders are all about the you know taking it to the local show and more riders are more about getting on the road and putting miles on it I feel like that's kind of where where the the preference is shifting right now with with our current modern-day riders then stick to the stock wheel anyways guys so yeah thanks a lot if you have any questions as always come comment in the comments below and I'll be sure to try to get back to you if you want to test ride a bike come on down and see us here at Laidlaw thanks [Music] [Music]

Channel: Matt Laidlaw

Views: 305,459

Keywords: Harley-Davidson, Motorcycles, Laidlaw's, Road King, Road King Special, Harley-Davidson Road King, FLHR, FLHRXS, Matt Laidlaw, Laidlaw's Harley-Davidson, Test Ride, Review, Motorcycle Review

Id: 1znTm2HsRjs

Length: 30min 12sec (1812 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019