I had an '04 Wide Glide; it was great for tooling around town and with the detachable windshield and bags I had no problem traveling cross-country on it. I really wanted it for the classic "almost" chopper look and I would still have it if I hadn't moved up to a touring bike (actually, I wish I had the money for both).

Also, when my dealer has a Wide Glide on their floor they usually hang a sign on it that says, "Willie's Chopper." I don't know if that is straight from Willie G. himself, or just something the dealer came up with, but it is kinda neat.

Good luck with whatever decision you make.

 

if you go with any dyna you can't go wrong .best of luck with your choice.

 

I would have to say that the 06 WG is the best bike in the world....but I have one so I may be biased
Seriously, thats my favorite bike, hence I bought one, But I like about every harley. When you sit on the one that is for you...you will know. When you have to look in the garage and turn the light on at night just to get a peek....you will know you got the right bike.

 

I would personally go for the low rider. I think it fits me more since I'm not really a tall guy.

I love the looks of the wide glide more. I would probably tend to lean more towards the wide glide if it was more comfortable for me, but unfortunately that's not the case

 

First off, all the new Dyna's incorperate the same identical new frame, there is a model that rakes out the front a bit via the triple trees, but its not truely a "raked" bike in the purest sense of the term. So keep that in mind. The Dyna's as you may have read underwent a 100% complete redeisgn. And most of it is of benefit. Some of the key improvement areas include: Larger 49mm front forks, redesigned frame, the twin cam underwent a slight redesign, the good points on the Twin cam improvement include hidden oil lines, and crankshaft splines have been improved. Rear suspension swingarm was beefed up and they added(finally)a 1" rear axle in the back. Which is the same unit used in the touring and new Sportster bikes. Meanwhile the softails still use the crappy 3/4" axle(crappy if your a horsepower freak like myself), hopefully they will update them soon too. Also the oil pump has been significantly improved. So the HP freaks who normally do the Feuling pump alternative most likely wont need to worry about that anymore since the new pump improves its scavaging ability and flow is also improved a bit.

There are some areas to be concerned on the new bikes too though. 1 of which is the new 6 speed cruise drive transmission. You have probably seen a few other memebers here bitch at me for dissing the tranny,but oh well. There is an issue with side thrust on the shaft bearings. There is no fix for this iusse as of now, and I now understand that people are signing a waiver form when they buy these bikes to override the lemonlaw enacted by the govt to protect the consumer. HD requires you to bring in the bike every 15k for a bearing swap. Its free of course, but its an issue thats obviously not going away by itself.

Other areas that HD claims to be improvements but some are obvious cost cutting measures. Areas include switching the outercam bearings to bushings and switching to hydraulic cam tensioners. The cam tensioners should be an improvement, but IMO if your going to horsepower, your still going to want to change out to a gear drive setup. Tensioners and chains are EPA regs. and add nothing for performance or reliability. And adding outer bushings is an obvious cost cutting sign. Changing out to HD inner and outer cam bearings is still the best option to perform when going for ponies. It can be done for less than $30 in parts. So if you ever swap cams, have that taken care of too.

Now as far as comparing the Dyna to the Softail bike, they are 2 different animals in terms of handling. The Dyna is going to outperform the Softail when it comes to taking up the bumps and cruising through the twisites. Its susepnsion is much better stock, and will be superior when aftermarket shocks and other items are used too. The softail is just a throwback towards looking like the old hardtail suspensionless bikes of old. Its old school styling thats trying to incorperate full suspension. The rear hidden shocks dont have much physical lever travel in relation to wheel travel, so making a quality rebound and dampened shock is going to be hard with such a small physical shock body. There are companies like Progressive Suspension and Works Performance

 

[quote]ORIGINAL: MegaHDman


First off, all the new Dyna's incorperate the same identical new frame, there is a model that rakes out the front a bit via the triple trees, but its not truely a "raked" bike in the purest sense of the term. So keep that in mind. The Dyna's as you may have read underwent a 100% complete redeisgn. And most of it is of benefit. Some of the key improvement areas include: Larger 49mm front forks, redesigned frame, the twin cam underwent a slight redesign, the good points on the Twin cam improvement include hidden oil lines, and crankshaft splines have been improved. Rear suspension swingarm was beefed up and they added(finally)a 1" rear axle in the back. Which is the same unit used in the touring and new Sportster bikes. Meanwhile the softails still use the crappy 3/4" axle(crappy if your a horsepower freak like myself), hopefully they will update them soon too. Also the oil pump has been significantly improved. So the HP freaks who normally do the Feuling pump alternative most likely wont need to worry about that anymore since the new pump improves its scavaging ability and flow is also improved a bit.

There are some areas to be concerned on the new bikes too though. 1 of which is the new 6 speed cruise drive transmission. You have probably seen a few other memebers here bitch at me for dissing the tranny,but oh well. There is an issue with side thrust on the shaft bearings. There is no fix for this iusse as of now, and I now understand that people are signing a waiver form when they buy these bikes to override the lemonlaw enacted by the govt to protect the consumer. HD requires you to bring in the bike every 15k for a bearing swap. Its free of course, but its an issue thats obviously not going away by itself.

Other areas that HD claims to be improvements but some are obvious cost cutting measures. Areas include switching the outercam bearings to bushings and switching to hydraulic cam tensioners. The cam tensioners should be an improvement, but IMO if your going to horsepower, your still going to want to change out to a gear drive setup. Tensioners and chains are EPA regs. and add nothing for performance or reliability. And adding outer bushings is an obvious cost cutting sign. Changing out to HD inner and outer cam bearings is still the best option to perform when going for ponies. It can be done for less than $30 in parts. So if you ever swap cams, have that taken care of too.

Now as far as comparing the Dyna to the Softail bike, they are 2 different animals in terms of handling. The Dyna is going to outperform the Softail when it comes to taking up the bumps and cruising through the twisites. Its susepnsion is much better stock, and will be superior when aftermarket shocks and other items are used too. The softail is just a throwback towards looking like the old hardtail suspensionless bikes of old. Its old school styling thats trying to incorperate full suspension. The rear hidden shocks dont have much physical lever travel in relation to wheel travel, so making a quality rebound and dampened shock is going to be hard with such a small physical shock body. There are companies like Progressive Suspension and Works Performance that make real good aftermarket shocks to significantly help the rear end, but the Dyna will always have the advantage. The softail frames now have a bit more steering head rake in them over the new Dynas, and that equals for a slower less responsive "relaxed" ride. The Dyna's front end has less rake for most models and will take to turn ins quicker, more inline with the Sportsters. The Softail models have whats now a pretty standard 41mm fork tubes, and they do a good job up front. The Dynas just increased their front fork tubes to a larger 49mm setup. Though the 41mm fork tubes have always done a terrific job up front and there are a ton of aftermarket support options for the forks, the 49mm do have more potential upside. There just arent m

 

IF you like the DYNA's and can't decide between a WG or Low rider take a look at the Street Bob it has a little bit of both bikes. The Bob comes with mid mount controls, I am 5'-10" and I switched to the forward controls and don't have any problems with reach or control. I also put a badlander seat and passenger foot pegs so I have a 2 up option.