For your situation, where you're only going to be doing what I would call "light touring", I would say neither of the above bikes.

I'd be looking at a Heritage Softail. You can add a quick-detach tourpak to them if you feel you'd need one.

 

Dynamick stole my thunder but I would have said Road King. Stay in the touring family for ride and comfort. I commute daily on a Road King and have an Ultra Limited for touring. I'm not knocking a Heritage but I had a softail and the ride is so much better on the touring bikes and a Road King is easy to handle,

As far as comfort, the old Ultra will beat the Street Glide any day. 13" shocks on the Ultra as opposed to the 12 on the SG. The Ultra didn't' get the nick name Road Sofa for nothing. As far as handling goes, the SG has a lower center of gravity so it will be easier to handle in slow speed maneuvering but at higher speed, you wont know the difference and the Ultra weight is not hard to get used to.

If you have narrowed it down to the two you are looking at, you are going to have to decide for yourself. Which one speaks to you and which one speaks to your wallet. As long as you are aware of the cam chain tensioners and what to do to take care of them, your good either way,

 

2006 Ultra Classic
+Tour Pack
+13" shocks
+less $

-sits higher (5'6" might be a reach)

2016 Street Glide

+lower seat
+Rushmore Improvements

-No Tour Pack for carrying stuff
-harsher ride 12“ shocks

 

Since ya can’t really do any long distance touring on the inland, Unless ya actually need to haul a pile of crap around for work and/or shopping a tour pac and all the other ultra crap is totally useless, leave alone ugly... while a ‘02-06 tourer would be more than livable the ‘16 is by far a better (power, handling, airflow, sound system, saddlebags, lights...) bike. If ya got the bucks go for it!

 

the ultra might be cheaper, but you should expect to spend at least $2k in repairs on it within the next 18 months, theres a lot of things on the pre-07 model year that can snowball into expensive problems very quickly. (for example, if your front motor mount wears out, your exhaust brackets will crack, your saddlebag support brackets will crack, and your exhaust Y pipe will crack...)

 

That's a good point, I guess I forgot about the wear and tear over 13 years of use. I got lucky and my 06 deluxe has only 2100 miles on it. Nothing to wear out as its barely broken in! You seem to speak from experience on the motor mount...has that happened to you?

 

Thanks...Need to research and test ride. Gotta crawl around and check the underside of the 06 to really make sure its not hiding problems.

 

I gotta pass on the softail idea, I tossed around the thought of throwing hard bags on a fatboy but I don't like the ride of the softail. Maybe mine is just a pretty POS but I didn't like the handling before all the mods and hate it ever since. Thats why it just sits and looks shiny in the garage. Touring bikes are legendary for their ride and comfort so I want to explore this route on my next bike. Still gonna have that deluxe because I can't recoup the money I spent on it.

 

I've been told my 2002 was too old and unsafe to tour on. The older bikes are fine. I bought my 02 2 years ago with 24k on it. I had the 20k cash to buy a newer one. I chose the 02 and traveled on the 12k I didn't spend on the bike. .

 

Guess I should have specified that I was talking about an '18-later Heritage with the new monoshock frame. It really is an impressive improvement in ride and handling vs. the old Softails.

Maybe it's out of your price range but if you could find a lightly-used one it wouldn't be that much more than the '16 Street Glide you're considering. And it's significantly lighter than any of the touring models.