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I've owned five Harleys in my life. My favorite was a Road King with Chubby 518 bars. It was so comfortable. But all my friends had street glides and so when I got a new job and moved to North Carolina I traded in the RK and treated myself to a street glide. It was a very nice bike but the buffeting was terrible. I tried different shields but finally decided I had enough. I figured I'd try something different so I bought a BMW 1200RT. What attracted me to it was probably the fact that I could raise and lower the screen and completely eliminate the air flow if I wanted to. That was nice considering my problems with the street glide. It was an engineering marvel. I could ride forever on a highway with it and it was fun through the twisties as well. But my riding is mostly on back country roads cruising along slightly above the speed limit. For that kind of riding, the BMW just didn't make me happy. To me it was more like riding a space ship than a motorcycle. Still missing my Road King but still wanting to try something different, I bought a Triumph Rocket III Touring. It is a very very nice bike. It's big and very powerful and really not to bad to handle considering it's size. And it does feel like I'm riding a mtorcycle unlike the BMW. My problem is that I was at a Harley dealership and saw the anniversary Road King. I started to ask around about the value of my 2012 Rocket and quickly found out it had rocketed downward. So eventhough I'm taking a beating on it, it's time to go back to the bike that I really loved riding. Today I put money down on the Road King (with king tourpack, rider backrest, and Chubby 518 bars). I'm going to really enjoy riding that bike and I'll be happy knowing that I have something that is at least somewhat retaining its value. Different people like different things in a bike. I've know for a while now that my big mistake was trading that first Road King. I'm glad I'm (almost) back.
I hear what you're saying. I bought a 2009 RKC and some of my friends are saying I should get an Electra Glide so I checked it all out. 2013 Glide Ultra Limited - loaded - and after the first test ride both my wife (we're almost always 2 up) and I couldn't wait to get back on my RKC.
Now, I don't like the spokes, tubes, beach bars or whitewalls and the seat was killing our asses so I did it up with 16" Wild One chubby apes, black walls and scalloped mags, and I have a Mustang 4 piece super tour seat with a Merino wool skin, but the more I ride it the more I love it. The beer box, faring and lowers are nice but the king is gorgeous, and I can strip it down to a cruiser look in seconds, or load it up so it's an RV. I don't think I'll ever ride a different bike. Grats on getting yours back!
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