Here’s something I wrote about two months ago: “(a) totally obvious move would be to offer a King of the Baggers Race Replica model, capitalizing on the brand’s success in bagger racing.”
That comment was aimed at Indian Motorcycle, which was signalling an expansion of its Challenger platform at the time. Indian didn’t do that, but now Harley-Davidson has. So, I guess now Indian will do it next year. I wonder if it will be as good.
The very-limited-edition CVO Road Glide RR is not a bike that you or I will ever own, ride, or even be allowed to touch. But, I have to admit: I’m all in.
Boasting one of the longest letter codes in Harley history – FLTRXRRSE – as well as one the most eye-watering price tags – yours for just $110,000 – the CVO Road Glide RR offers next-level exclusivity. Only 131 will be sold.
“Each one of them handbuilt and serialized,” explains Arrick Maurice, Harley’s general manager of global brand marketing. “This is an opportunity to own a piece of Harley-Davidson history.”
The 131 number comes from the imperial measurement of the bike’s capacity: 131 cubic inches, or 2153 cc in Not America.
According to the MoCo, all that capacity – delivered via a unique, partially liquid-cooled (cylinder heads) “Screamin Eagle 131” V-twin engine – will offer up a peak power output of 153 horsepower (114 kW) and 150 lb-ft of torque (204 Nm). That makes it one of the most powerful Harleys ever made (though, in terms of horsepower, not that far from the 150 hp claimed by a standard Pan America 1250 ST).
Harley says this bike is very much the result of things learned from the King of the Baggers competition.
“Race after race, season after season, as we kept finding limits and pushing past them, it really got our team thinking: ‘What if we took all of the learnings over the last several years of racing… (and) put it into a street bike that someone could own?’” says Maurice.
I like the way he suggests that Harley didn’t have that as a back-of-mind thought from the get-go. I doubt very much that Harley puts time/money/effort into anything without first thinking: “How could we profit from this?” It is a corporation, after all.
To HDMC’s credit, the CVO Road Glide RR is a hell of a lot more than a Road Glide with fancy graphics. Though, you do get all of the bells and whistles you’d expect from a standard Road Glide (including – Harley strangely goes out of its way to point out – a two-year warranty).
So, you get all the rider aids that are on Harley’s top-end bikes, like cornering ABS, cornering linked braking, cornering traction control, hill start, and so on. You get LED lighting. You get a massive 12.3-inch TFT screen. You get an ear-splitting sound system…
But you also get that massive engine, producing markedly more power than a standard Road Glide (which claims 107 hp). You get an impressive weight savings of 52 lbs (24 kg), though, admittedly, it does still weigh a fair amount: 785 lbs wet (356 kg). You get more suspension travel, more ground clearance, and more lean angle. Within that you get high-end suspension and braking components, and a unique 30-tooth final drive set-up designed to boost acceleration.
You also get more riding modes. In addition to the standard Road, Rain, Sport, and custom modes, the CVO Road Glide RR offers Track mode (“Designed specifically for track day riding on a dry track/closed course,” according to a Harley press release) and Track Plus mode (“intended for experienced riders who want maximum control”).
“When we set out to do this project… our ethos was: no compromise,” says Maurice. “We have to do it to the absolute best of our ability.”
Of course, it’s easy to be cynical about a $110,000 motorcycle that only 131 people will buy (And you can pretty much guarantee that all 131 of them will be insufferable pricks). But, as I say: I’m pretty intrigued by this thing. I like that Harley is doing it and since CVO models are often proof-of-concept test beds for future models I wonder what, if any, aspects of this bike might eventually filter down to standard models.
All 131 of the bikes will be sold in the United States. I’m guessing that’s primarily because the bike wouldn’t pass EU environmental regulations, but it’s worth noting that there’s quite a lot of literal and figurative flag waving in Harley’s promotional video for the CVO Road Glide RR. There’s an American flag somewhere in pretty much every shot, and at one point they shoehorn in the fact that the aluminum used for the clutch basket was “sourced in the United States.”
“It’s way closer to a fucking race bike than I ever thought it could be,” says Harley factory rider Kyle Wyman. “I can’t believe it’s street legal.”
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