Think the Harley Street Glide is too big for you? 2000 mile review

This is a 2021 Harley Street Glide. Why am I a usual naked sport bike rider on a Harley? I just got back from my first long road trip, 2,000 miles over six days, where I visited some old and new friends, including Her2Wheels and AntiparaLolli. I usually ride naked sport bikes. They are my absolute favorite. There is one right behind me that I'm reviewing, a Honda CB650R, and my bike is a Triumph Street Triple R 675. But the thing about naked bikes is I will take them up to the North Georgia mountains, and that's a full day of riding. And after that, my whole body hurts. So I wanted something that was going to be comfortable to sit on and comfortable for a long highway ride that would have a lot of deflection from the wind and also be ready to pack up. I know some of you may be thinking, me on a bagger is very weird and maybe not safe because it's not what I usually ride. So I emailed the contact I have at Triumph, Honda, Harley, Yamaha, about borrowing a bike for this road trip and doing a review on it. So I was looking into the Honda CB500X, the Triumph Tiger Low, and any baggers. I kind of dropped the ball there and I didn't give enough notice to all the contacts I had, but Harley was able to come through. They got this for me through Eagle Riders, which is kind of like Twisted Road or Ridershare, but instead of individual owners, it's through dealerships. So when I got this bike, it only had about 300 miles on it. And I put just over 2,000. Over six days, I was aiming for four days, but you know how road trips go. So I had planned on doing about six to seven hours on the highway for several days in a row. I know what you may be thinking. I don't look like a very large, strong girl. I am 5'3.75 inches tall. My inseam is 31 inches across the floor. And I usually ride mid-level naked bikes. So how did I handle this bike? I will show you. So I definitely needed some tweaks because this is an 830-pound motorcycle. When I first picked up this bike, I seriously thought, is this a very bad idea? And even though the seat height is pretty low, 27.4 inches high, compared to my 31-inch inseam, I wasn't completely flat-footing this because it's just so wide. I could scoot forward and flat-foot the bike, which I did do at stoplights just for some body positioning relief. Done. Who's the boss? I'm the boss. Because I couldn't totally flat-foot it, I also couldn't always duck-walk it. If I didn't bring in the short rider tips that I use for taller sport and naked bikes, I 100% would have dropped this bike. Actually, I probably wouldn't have even taken it on the road trip. I didn't do any mountain curve riding with any leans, but I did do some tight in-town turns. And as long as I made sure to pay attention to friction zone, so have a good balance of clutch, rear brake, and throttle, this bike turned very easily in tight 90 degrees or even less. Once the throttle's going, you don't even notice the weight. But anytime the throttle is off, it's all on you, the rider. So if you're a petite person, your skills need to be sharper. A year ago, I definitely would not have been able to handle this bike on this road trip. Some of the tricks I do for it, since I can't always duck-walk it, depending on the level of the street that it's on. So for instance, just taking it out of this garage for the road trip, Cody wasn't home, I didn't time that well, and I wasn't able to duck-walk it backwards. So what I did was my trick, which I usually do with bikes that are too tall for me to duck-walk, and it's leaning it against my hip and moving it that way. Normally, I go on the right side of the bike because I used to do it on standing on the left side of the bike and drop the bike. Obviously, there's no kickstand on the right side to grab it. So now on taller bikes, I stand on the right side just so that the kickstand can catch it in case I have any mistakes. But on this bike, it's so heavy that I didn't wanna risk the chance of it going even slightly off to the right because I was afraid that if it did and it started to fall, I wouldn't be able to catch it. So I actually would move this bike on the kickstand side and I would lift it up so just barely so that I knew that it was still leaning very slightly to the kickstand side. And that's what helped me do that without dropping this bike. Now, it was definitely hard. This weighs more than twice, right? Yeah, this weighs more than twice as much as my bike. It wasn't easy, but it was doable. It took me a while and I felt really exasperated after, but I knew that if nobody was around and I was in a tight spot, I could move it by myself. But really, there's no shaming at just pulling a random stranger for help and asking them if they can give you a little push. And taking it off the kickstand, as a petite person on an 830-pound bike, I needed a trick for that too. If the front wheel is turned towards the kickstand, this bike is not coming up with me. So what I would do is I would turn the wheel all the way to the right side. And sometimes if the road was cambered in such a way that even that was difficult to do, what I would do is I would just bump my hip on it and turn the wheel on the bump. But other than that, as long as you pay attention to friction zone and slow speed skills and you don't try to maybe put a knee down for your first time on this bike, I don't think you'll have any issues. I mean, I barely noticed the weight once it was moving. Harley's definitely not made for wussy riders. The controls are strong. For instance, stuck in Nashville traffic for about an hour, holding the clutch in almost the whole time or long stretches in that hour. And then again, when Lali and I were on our way to check out RevZilla headquarters, ooh, Philly traffic, that is what got me. I had to pull over because my clutch hand was so tired of holding that. Like I started getting really sloppy. I just knew I was losing muscle control and it was very likely that I was gonna drop this bike in the middle of Philly traffic if I didn't give my arm a rest. So I had to pull over just to give my hand a rest. Now how this bike did as a road trip bike for six or seven hours straight on the highway, rained on almost the whole time. Some of you told me about adding a back rest for the driver, like versus passenger. And I totally agree. I definitely could have used that. I had some upper back fatigue that I was able to alleviate because this has cruise control. So I was able to take my hands off or a hand off and just twist and stretch a little bit while I was riding. Please be careful when you do that. It's not exactly safe body positioning. Would definitely have liked a taller windscreen, especially on the highway for hours. I know the wind wasn't going straight to my helmet because during and after the rain, all the water beadlets stayed in place on my visor, kind of going on the top of my helmet. It definitely felt like I was being flapped on the top of my helmet. And the hard cases. The first day I got this, I rode it in a parking lot, just practicing emergency stops, looping around the parking lot with it. It's just getting used to how it felt and getting used to where all the controls were on this bike. So that hour and then the 30 minute highway ride home, that is when I had the hard cases empty. And after that, I remaining 2000 miles have all been with packed up hard cases. And I really didn't notice any difference in the handling with the weight of the hard cases. I did try to keep it even. One of you suggested in my road trip announcement video to watch out for that. Probably my favorite thing about this bike is how high tech it is, at least compared to what I'm used to. It has speakers, navigation, radio. You can connect it, Bluetooth to your phone. You can make calls. I mean, like a car, basically. I actually don't listen to music or podcasts or anything for the most part while I ride. Only the last like 100 or 200 miles of the whole 2000 mile trip that I actually listened to any music. I just liked the silence, especially when I was, because so much of this road trip was done in rain and I really wanted to concentrate. So I can say that with a full face helmet and earplugs in at highway speeds, the speakers aren't loud enough. Probably with just a skull cap might've been loud enough that way. But I really like to listen and not look at my navigation. So I mostly just use my Cardo system to hear directions. But I did leave the map, the navigation map on because that was nice to be able to look at it just sometimes when it felt safe to glance down. Some of you said that the, tried to warn me about the seat that it'd be hard. Maybe it's just because I'm used to naked bike seats, but I thought this seat was amazing. It was like sitting on a marshmallow. This is literally the most comfortable seat I've ever sat on, on a bike. Here's the price. I guess the other bikes that are most similar to this, I haven't ridden yet, but I'm doing another road trip. I'm leaving in five days. For one, it's gonna be, this next one is gonna be much shorter. It should only be about a thousand miles. And I'm gonna do that on the Road Glide. So I'll be able to compare the two there. And I know Her2Wheels has her, she owns the Road Glide. She's ridden the Street Glide and she's also ridden the Indian Challenger. So all of those are kind of similar. She's also ridden the Road King. She thought that for the kind of riding I was gonna be doing on this trip, the Road King, I think because of that windshield, she thought that would have been best for such long highway rides. She said her next best favorite was her bike, the Road Glide. She likes that the handlebars are not connected to the fairing, saying that it makes it feel more sporty. I bet turning the handlebars on the Road Glide might be a little easier because of that. And then third choice of those, at least for the trip that I was doing, she was, she suggested the Street Glide. Oh, skido. At least for the trip and my body type, she thought number one suggestion out of those would have been the Indian Challenger. I think because it's lighter than all those. This is the only bagger I've ever ridden. So once I ride the Road Glide, I'll do a comparison on that too. I know Blockhead has a video comparing the Street and the Road Glides. When I first picked up this bike, I seriously thought, is this a very bad idea? I did give that practice for a day on this bike before going on the road trip. And the first couple of days were definitely awkward for me because it's just so different than anything I've ridden. But by the third day, I felt pretty comfortable with it. I am going to borrow that Road Glide for the next road trip. Let's clean big red up.