We've been looking at bikes for the long term that suit our specific pillioning needs. Saturday morning my wife and I went over to the local Honda agency to take the Honda F6B for a test ride. Afterwards we dropped in to the Harley agency to check out just what is available - Harley model descriptions are a bit of a mystery to me. My experiences ...
I'd been asking for a test ride of the F6B for 2 or 3 weeks, at first it wasn't available because it had a faulty battery and "Honda take forever to handle warranty claims." The Honda agency had only 2 Honda cruisers in stock, the F6B and a Shadow 750. Yesterday the F6B was ready, we were referred to a young salesman. We went for a 5 km ride accompanied by the salesman. Nice bike, but the ride went along mainly 80 km/hr roads. The salesman rode a Victory Hammer, and when we stopped to discuss the F6B the Hammer toppled over doing probably a thousand dollars damage. When we got back to the agency I asked if they had a brochure on the bike, no but they'd download something from the net and email it to me. They asked if I knew the price of the F6B? Yeah, about $26,000, yes that's about right. Could I see inside the panniers, the salesman made many attempts to open them but couldn't. The bike had a short sissy bar on it, but this is bolted on and requires tools to remove and replace - they didn't know if a higher sissy bar was available. The Panniers don't come off.
Just dropped into the Harley agency on the spur of the moment on the way home. Lots of cruisers there but that's their only line of business. The Sales Manager came over and asked if he could help. He must've spent half an hour with us, knew every concern we had, explained how his wife felt riding pillion. Most of the bikes on display had those single seats or skimpy pillion seats on them and I mentioned we were interested in pillioning. He showed us the wall where there were 9 or 10 full pillion seats hung up, took us to a bike and showed how the smaller seats could just be changed for the full pillion seat with just a click of a latch. He took us to a Street Glide and went over it, showed how a panniers could be removed with a small screw driver or coin and half a turn of two slotted bolts. Showed how the sissy bar could be taken off with just two latches from little spool/holders, showed us the taller sissy bar, showed us the optional luggage rack and how it just clipped on like the sissy bar. The rear suspension can be adjusted with just an easy accessible dial. Gave us a 30 or 40 page brochure which contained a current price list for the Harley rang. He told us about the Harley demo day in two weeks and said if we wanted a ride next weekend then the bike would be available. On the demo day the bikes are ridden in groups every half an hour with a lead and tail-end-Charlie and the rides go about 15 km with quite a bit of 100 km/hr zone in it.
I'd never considered a Harley before. Now I understand why there are so many around. They made the Honda agency look amateurish by comparison. Like I said, I'd never considered a Harley before, but I could now.
