This will be my wife's first motorcyle. She will be taking the safety course shortly and buying soon afterwards. She likes Fatboys and the Switchback and is leaning towards the Switchback. She is a tall woman (5' 10") and has long legs too. We ruled out the Sportsters and she doesn't want a Heritage since that is what I have. Can anyone let me know if the Switchback is an easier Harley to ride? Would this be a good first Harley? How is the resale? Any other thoughts or opinions on a first scoot to get?

 

It is sort of the red-headed step child of the harley lineup. I have seen some that people have modified & they look good. Go over to the Dyna forum & you will find lots of people with positive opinions on them.

 

My wife started on a Sporty...her next bike was a Street Bob which she said was quite a bit easier for her to ride...she bought an Electraglide Classic two years ago and said it was easier for her to ride than the Street Bob....she is 5'8" and 58 years old and is a good, safe rider......my vote is for your wife to get a little experience then test ride the ones that have her interest and go from there.... sounds like you and her have some exciting times coming your way.....I'm happy for you!!

 

Yes some of the guys on here have them nicely tricked....Whatever she gets remember...It dint happen without pics.... Good Luck!!!

 

Why not take her to a dealership and test ride one? Or whatever she likes?

 

While the Dyna was much more easy to ride than a Sportster (for me)...

The reality is that she doesn't know how to ride and hasn't taken the course yet...so she really doesn't know what she likes yet. There's a mile of difference between what you think is great before you learn to ride and what you've figured out matters to you after you've learned.

I always vote for the "buy a cheap metric cruiser" route. If she doesn't like it she's not stuck upside down in a brand new financed bike. If she drops it, she's not dropping $16k on ground. And she'll most likely get back what she paid for the metric bike. Plus, she'll have the experience to figure out what she really likes and what is important to her.

Personally, I like the Switchback. I'm 8 months into riding and I'm ready to move up, so I've been test riding everything just to know that I haven't focused on one bike, when another may suit me better.

 

My Switchback is the 17th new bike I've owned throughout my life and is by far my favorite. Cool Dyna bar hopper in one hand, long distance tourer in the other. In the dealership, they look dorkey. Couple mods later and they look pretty cool. Take it from a guy that gets bored of bikes quickly, I can't seem to get bored of this one. There are too many different bikes wrapped up in one. The Mustang Wide Tripper set me about 2 inches lower and back a few inches...enough to give my 6'2" long legs plenty of room. I've had the bike on several 2,300 mile trips no problem at all. And the bike is very light with tons of ground clearance. Intake, pipe and Power Commander and the 103 pulls the light weight of this bike extremely fast. Handles so good I can rip up Deal's Gap without touching a floor board. In my opinion, there is no better Harley out there. The only reason why they don't sell more of these is because of how they look on the showroom floor. If they'd put a little more thought into their initial presentation, they would be a LOT more popular.

 

A Switchback is 718 lbs.

I am 6'3", 200 lbs and glad I rode a 475 lb Vulcan 750 for my first 20k miles. Much easier to recover from the inevitable mistakes, that would take you down on a bigger bike.

 

Yep.

I think 20k miles of riding in a variety of conditions is a good rule of thumb for how long it takes to really consider yourself experienced. Some will pick things up faster, some slower, but 20k is a good average. Call that three or four years worth of regular riding for most people. For some things, there just aren't any shortcuts.

^^^^
THIS

 

I like them to, but for 16k you would think they would put a chrome trim package on the motor instead of polished. The dealer had a trade in that had the chrome engine trim and it really looked good.