2009 Street Glide
#1
08-09-2008, 07:27 PM
2009 Street Glide
Heres my new baby "Ruby" Brought her home today. 2009 Street Glide.
Opinions:
1. Dont ride an 09 unless your gonna buy one. Yes, there ARE that much better. I took her up some nice winding on-ramps, and through a small canyon, and WOW is all I can say. She tracks SOO much better. Holds the line, doesnt wiggle or waggle, doesnt get upset if you hit a bump in the curve.
Much, Much MUCH better than my 2007 with a True-Track.
I am happy as SH*T with this bike!.
2. Stock seat still sucks. Only put 40 miles on the Sundowner (not in pics) and its not as comfortable as I remember the one I had on my 07, but need to do more miles with it to be sure. Otherwise, Ill be making a killer deal on a Sundowner and stock FLHX seat and getting another Mustang Seat. Also, still like the Mustang driver backrest better than the HD one, but I wanted one that was NARROW in order to not cut into the wifes legroom, and my salesman made me a killer deal on the one you see in the pics. I think a bit more padding and some rounding of the face of it, and it will work for me, which would be good as its the PERFECT size. Loved my Mustang backrest, but it was too damn wide.
3. Still don't like the Streetglide mirrrors.
4. Left side is MUCH cooler, but I dont think the pipes alone are gonna make everybody happy on the heat issue. I think you will STILL be happiest if you use some sort of fuel manager to richen things up. However, I want to hold off on that until the motor has some miles on it and isn't tight *** hell. As well as being tuned properly for the pipes and breather, as Im sure they just put some kind of generic map in there until I take it back to be dyno tuned. But it DID seem better than the stock 07 and 08s I have ridden as far as heat.
5. Shaking at idle is WAY down. Only about a third of what my 07 did.
6. LOVE the Brembo brakes. Much better feel, better stopping (I tested it)
7. If you ever read a thread about cruise control where I said I could take it or leave it, IGNORE that. I LIKE it. One thing thats odd though, the only other bike I had with cruise was my 1986 Yamaha Venture. On that bike, the throttle grip would turn up and down when the speed adjusted, and stay in place when you engaged the cruise. On THIS bike (my first HD with cruise) when you set the cruise, the grip returns to idle position. Wasn't expecting that. No bid deal, just something to get used to.
8. I think the rear cyl cuttoff kicked in once on me at a stoplight. Its not annoying at all, its just like the idle dropping a bit, and a bit more loping, but it doesn't sound bad or anything.
9. The Vance and Hines Monster Ovals ROCK!. FINALLY the muffler Ive been looking for! I had the regular ovals on my last two bikes. I also tried the 4" screaming eagles (current ones) as well as the 3" touring muffers from 2006. Both of the latter were too quite for me. The Regular ovals were not bad, but a BIT louder than I wanted, and a bit to "crackish". The monster ovals are DEEP, DEEP, DEEP and rumbly, but a bit more than halfway between the current screaming eagles and the standard V&H ovals in volume. Very nice at cruising speed. You still hear that nice deep rumble, but its not annoying, and I found I was running the radio around half volume instead of nearly all the way up as before with the regular ovals. They had my bike out on the showroom for 2 days prior to pickup, and sold 4 sets of the monster ovals to people who saw and heard them. But boy, they are spendy.
I think I have finally got a Harley Im gonna keep for a while. Hell, they have improved EVERYTHING on the bike since my first 03. Very, Very, Very happy.
Oh, and you CAN still use the older style fairing wind deflectors on the 08-09 fairing. They added a fourth hole for the new style defectors, but the other 3 holes are still in the same place. However, the driver backrest mounts are slightly different now, as they changed some things under the seat. But if you notice, they now sell the backrests and mounts separate, to allow you to get the correct one for your year.
Also, notice the tread pattern on the OEM Dunlops. No more stagger center groove in the tread. Guess what that means on rain grooves etc. Yup, no more wiggling in grooves from the stock tires.
EDIT: Forgot one important thing.
The new gearing. I like it. It seems to be about spinning about 200-250 rpms higher in any given gear/speed than my 07. I cant speak too much on acceleration as my 07 was a stage 2 103", so it would not be a fair comparison. I can say, that 6th gear is MUCH more usable,(my 07 had an IDS on it, so thats not a new factor for me) and I found myself in sixth gear several times thinking I was in fifth. You can go into six easily at around 65 mph now, or even as low as 60 mph if there's not much load on the motor (easy cruise on a nice flat area) and it does not seem to be lugging or straining, although 60 mph is the low end as the motor is turning about 2200-2300 rpm at 60 in sixth gear. Doing 80 in 6th gear had me turning around 2900-3000 rpm. Overall, its lost that "this gear is just a BIT too tall" feeling my 07 had. So, another good change for the better IMHO.
Opinions:
1. Dont ride an 09 unless your gonna buy one. Yes, there ARE that much better. I took her up some nice winding on-ramps, and through a small canyon, and WOW is all I can say. She tracks SOO much better. Holds the line, doesnt wiggle or waggle, doesnt get upset if you hit a bump in the curve.
Much, Much MUCH better than my 2007 with a True-Track.
I am happy as SH*T with this bike!.
2. Stock seat still sucks. Only put 40 miles on the Sundowner (not in pics) and its not as comfortable as I remember the one I had on my 07, but need to do more miles with it to be sure. Otherwise, Ill be making a killer deal on a Sundowner and stock FLHX seat and getting another Mustang Seat. Also, still like the Mustang driver backrest better than the HD one, but I wanted one that was NARROW in order to not cut into the wifes legroom, and my salesman made me a killer deal on the one you see in the pics. I think a bit more padding and some rounding of the face of it, and it will work for me, which would be good as its the PERFECT size. Loved my Mustang backrest, but it was too damn wide.
3. Still don't like the Streetglide mirrrors.
4. Left side is MUCH cooler, but I dont think the pipes alone are gonna make everybody happy on the heat issue. I think you will STILL be happiest if you use some sort of fuel manager to richen things up. However, I want to hold off on that until the motor has some miles on it and isn't tight *** hell. As well as being tuned properly for the pipes and breather, as Im sure they just put some kind of generic map in there until I take it back to be dyno tuned. But it DID seem better than the stock 07 and 08s I have ridden as far as heat.
5. Shaking at idle is WAY down. Only about a third of what my 07 did.
6. LOVE the Brembo brakes. Much better feel, better stopping (I tested it)
7. If you ever read a thread about cruise control where I said I could take it or leave it, IGNORE that. I LIKE it. One thing thats odd though, the only other bike I had with cruise was my 1986 Yamaha Venture. On that bike, the throttle grip would turn up and down when the speed adjusted, and stay in place when you engaged the cruise. On THIS bike (my first HD with cruise) when you set the cruise, the grip returns to idle position. Wasn't expecting that. No bid deal, just something to get used to.
8. I think the rear cyl cuttoff kicked in once on me at a stoplight. Its not annoying at all, its just like the idle dropping a bit, and a bit more loping, but it doesn't sound bad or anything.
9. The Vance and Hines Monster Ovals ROCK!. FINALLY the muffler Ive been looking for! I had the regular ovals on my last two bikes. I also tried the 4" screaming eagles (current ones) as well as the 3" touring muffers from 2006. Both of the latter were too quite for me. The Regular ovals were not bad, but a BIT louder than I wanted, and a bit to "crackish". The monster ovals are DEEP, DEEP, DEEP and rumbly, but a bit more than halfway between the current screaming eagles and the standard V&H ovals in volume. Very nice at cruising speed. You still hear that nice deep rumble, but its not annoying, and I found I was running the radio around half volume instead of nearly all the way up as before with the regular ovals. They had my bike out on the showroom for 2 days prior to pickup, and sold 4 sets of the monster ovals to people who saw and heard them. But boy, they are spendy.
I think I have finally got a Harley Im gonna keep for a while. Hell, they have improved EVERYTHING on the bike since my first 03. Very, Very, Very happy.
Oh, and you CAN still use the older style fairing wind deflectors on the 08-09 fairing. They added a fourth hole for the new style defectors, but the other 3 holes are still in the same place. However, the driver backrest mounts are slightly different now, as they changed some things under the seat. But if you notice, they now sell the backrests and mounts separate, to allow you to get the correct one for your year.
Also, notice the tread pattern on the OEM Dunlops. No more stagger center groove in the tread. Guess what that means on rain grooves etc. Yup, no more wiggling in grooves from the stock tires.
EDIT: Forgot one important thing.
The new gearing. I like it. It seems to be about spinning about 200-250 rpms higher in any given gear/speed than my 07. I cant speak too much on acceleration as my 07 was a stage 2 103", so it would not be a fair comparison. I can say, that 6th gear is MUCH more usable,(my 07 had an IDS on it, so thats not a new factor for me) and I found myself in sixth gear several times thinking I was in fifth. You can go into six easily at around 65 mph now, or even as low as 60 mph if there's not much load on the motor (easy cruise on a nice flat area) and it does not seem to be lugging or straining, although 60 mph is the low end as the motor is turning about 2200-2300 rpm at 60 in sixth gear. Doing 80 in 6th gear had me turning around 2900-3000 rpm. Overall, its lost that "this gear is just a BIT too tall" feeling my 07 had. So, another good change for the better IMHO.
Last edited by flyingace; 01-16-2009 at 07:08 PM.
#4
08-09-2008, 07:36 PM
#7
08-09-2008, 07:47 PM
