BikeTest: Harley-Davidson Road King:Road Kings and I go back a way. The first time I was on one, I took Cate, my then girlfriend of three months, to Donegal for the weekend. And promptly dumped her off the back when I stalled it at a hairpin bend on a steep gravel lane.
She forgave me enough to marry me, and I forgave the bike enough to ride one the 2,400 miles of Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles for the second half of my first travel book, Way to Go.
The truth, of course, is that it wasn't the bike's fault that it fell over in Donegal, but the fault of the nut on top of the saddle, who hadn't quite come to terms with the fact that a vertiginous, winding lane is not the ideal place to turn a bike weighing in at a hefty 332kg. Especially in second gear.
Still, nothing like a month riding west into the setting sun to do wonders for a chap's morale, and by the time I got to LA, I could have gone right back and tackled that Donegal lane with my eyes shut.
In fact, it was last year before we returned to the scene of the crime, roadtesting the 2006 Road King with a new lightweight clutch which the perpetually optimistic Ricky Drain at Provincewide in Antrim assured me would make handling the beast at low speeds a doddle for even the most recidivist idiot.
Glancing in the mirror as I climbed on the bike, I saw just the man he meant.
The funny thing was, though, he was right. This time, we swept around the bend with the nervous grace of an albatross on acid, roared up the lane with the back end sashaying on the gravel, ground to a halt and took a deep breath of relief.
"Well done, dear," said Cate, as generous as ever. Well, not content with improving the Road King in 2006, or even with the fact that it sells more in the States than all its competitors from Victory, Kawasaki and BMW put together, Harley has just gone and done it again.
The engine is now a whopping 1584cc, linked to a sweet six-speed gearbox with ratios close enough to be friends, but not far enough apart to make enemies out of each other.
I'm the sort of Luddite who thinks that six gears on a bike is a complete waste of time, since it normally leaves the ratios so narrow that you normally just end up going from first to third, to fifth then sixth.
But Harley has got it just right here, helped by an engine so torquey that it doesn't matter much what gear you're in anyway.
Not only that, but the clutch, in years gone by an implement of such agricultural brutality that it made a Bog of Allen spade feel like a surgeon's scalpel, is now a thing of beauty altogether.
Once the whole ensemble warms up, even a ham-fisted buffoon, and I speak from experience, will be making gear changes as smooth as custard. I mean Marks & Spencer deluxe range, of course.
By judicious fiddling about using their experience on the Buell range, Harley also seems to have lowered the centre of gravity to create a bike which in spite of its bulk is so flingable that even a day wheeling around the narrow roads of the Ards peninsula was a sheer joy.
Particularly since Harley has finally changed their notoriously tame factory exhausts to ones which make stock bikes actually sound like Harleys. You know, two flatulent hippos making love underwater. Almost the last word must go to the small boy waiting to cross at traffic lights as I stopped on the way home.
"Class bike, mister," he said.
And the last word itself must go to the bike itself: if you have the dosh, this is the finest of tourers, not just because it is an excellent motorcycle, but because of the vision it brings with it.
For while your body may be heading home to a curry in Belfast, in your mind's eye you are throttling down through the lilac dusk into Amarillo for a warm bed, a big steak and a cold beer at the Big Texan, while in the corner a lonesome cowgirl sings the blues, then gives you a look that suggests she might not be lonesome for too much longer.
Factfile
ENGINE:In-line V-twin air-cooled four-stroke, twin Cam 96, 1584cc, bore x stroke 95.3 mm x 111.1 mm, compression ratio 9.2:1, fuel system electronic sequential port injection, six-speed gearbox with nine-plate wet clutch
CHASSIS:Frame mild steel, square-section backbone with twin downtubes, exhaust system chrome, touring cross-over duals. Tyres are Dunlop Harley-Davidson Series, narrow, wheels, cast-chrome spoked, slotted or laced depending on model, 16 x 3 in
DIMENSIONS:Length 2380mm. overall height 2380mm, seat height laden 663-693mm, ground clearance 119-130mm, rake (steering head) 26°, fork angle 29°, trail 158mm. wheelbase 1610mm, fuel capacity 18.9 litres, oil capacity w/filter 3.8 litres, dry weight 332kg
PRICE:€23,330 on the road for the Road King Standard, €24,455 for the Custom and €24,295 for the Classic. In Northern Ireland, Standard is £13,295 to £13,745, Custom £13,995 to £14,145, and Classic £13,895 to £14,345.
Test bike supplied by Provincewide Harley-Davidson of Antrim, 028 9446 6999, www.provincewide.com
[ www.harley-davidson.comOpens in new window ]
Correction:In last week's Motorbikes article, the restricted limit for provisional riders was stated as 35hp. It should have been 33hp.