Harley Pan American - First Ride reports

[bdalameda]

Well it looks like Harley may have hit a home run on this new adventure bike. Ride reviews are starting to trickle in from Europe as well as the US journalist reports coming in from Utah. Everyone seems to like it a lot. No real negatives to report. The new engine sounds like a winner. I still think it looks hideous but the adventure bike crowd is not hung up on looks much. The fact it lowers down when coming to a stop (optional) seems like a feature that many like.

I am waiting for some direct comparison reviews with other similar bikes though.

Dan

 

[SMSW]

I keep hearing Ryan Fortnine's rant about how ALL mc reviews are dishonest. I tend to take the "professional reviewer's" comments with a grain of salt and will wait for the riders' reports when people start buying these and running them out in the boondocks.

 

[bdalameda]

Most of these reports right now are from smaller blogger journalists not necessarily the bigger magazines.

 

[Larry Fine]

Yes, but do ST owners like their bikes?

No, we love our bikes!

 

[tmoldovan]

The problem, in my naive opinion, is that HD has, over the decades, painted themselves into the “only massive cruisers are real bikes” corner.
Kind of limits their audience.
But, I hope the bike is succesful, more bikers = more happy people.

 

[Upt' North]

I'm no Harley expert but they do seem to have got it right. They also probably need the new engine/frame set up to support many new models or it could be goodnight Harley, just my view. Whether the Harley buyer will accept that new format is probably doubtful, will GS riders buy a Harley, probably doubtful too.
Regarding being hideous looking, I agree, just about every "Adventure" (still don't know what that means) bike in the last 20 years has been pig ugly, but they sell in their many thousands so what do I know.
Upt'North.

 

[bdalameda]

And here we have the inspiration for the styling of the new Harley Pan American:

 

[spiderman302]

So here is the dilemma.
Harley builds bikes that fall apart.
Honda makes bikes that last forever.
My brother in the last decade has traded in his old Harley for a new one every two years.
He only puts about 20k miles on each Harley. Everyone had to go back for several times for recalls or a need to fix something.
I bought one Honda and Honda has not seen me since....
We wonder why they stopped making the ST1300.
No returning customers.....

 

[Larry Fine]

I would never own a Harley; I like riding too much.

 

[spiderman302]

Yes, my brother had to have two bikes, one to ride while the other was in the shop......

 

[jmcarruth]

Neither of my Harley Road Glides have given me any problems at all other than shifter linkage issues. Guess what, my ST1300 did the same thing.

 

[st11ray]

I hope the Pan Am is a success but I would never buy a first year model from any manufacturer, including Honda.

 

[Tedbrogden]

Too ugly for words

 

[ReSTored]

Rezilla did a comparison to the GS, which is an interesting read.

BMW R 1250 GS versus Harley-Davidson Pan America: Trans-Atlantic ADV showdown - RevZilla

Any new adventure motorcycle is going to be measured against the standard that invented the class, the BMW GS. So how does the Pan America compare?

www.revzilla.com

Overall, looks like the HD performed better than it was expected to and is a good 1st iteration for HD.

From a commercial perspective I really don't see any of HD's current customer base having much interest in an adventure bike at all. If you're not on a HD now and you're in the market for a new adventure bike, given Harley's relatively poor reliabilty and the number of other brands that have been selling these bikes for years would you really want to put your money down on a bike that is more expensive than a BMW GS? Could be wrong, but I just don't see this happening.

 

[Weaselinsuit]

I'll be curious to see how sales pan out. It sounds like it's a decent bike but to your point, is it a bit too late to the party? I applaud Harley for recognizing they have to broaden their base. If I were them, I'd search for a race or something else high profile to showcase what the bike can do, maybe a show cut from the Long Way Round cloth.

 

[st11ray]

As far as sales, from what I understand, these things are already sold before they hit the showroom floor.
I have a friend that has 2 Harley's and a Yamaha. He's thinking about trading one of his Harley's for the new Pan Am.

 

[wjbertrand]

From a commercial perspective I really don't see any of HD's current customer base having much interest in an adventure bike at all.

Well of course, that's the whole point of this bike right? Harley needs to reach beyond it's current customer base. A significant number of current customers have Harley trapped in the past and the rest are aging out of riding.

 

[CajunRider]

Well of course that's the whole point of this bike right? Harley needs to reach beyond it's current customer base. A significant number of current customers have Harley trapped in the past and the rest are aging out of riding.

Agreed... That IS exactly the point of HD going after the Adventure market. However, I think corporate has to REALLY go after dealers that treat this as another Buell or V-Rod and whip them into shape. Even if that's means FORCING them have that ONE guy that likes adventure touring on staff to talk to customers... ANYTHING is better than ignoring a customer just because they want something other than a "real" Harley.

I have, more than once, tried to get info on both Buell AND the V-Rod... and was completely ignored until I looked at their "Real" cruisers.
For that reason alone, I haven't been to a HD dealer to even look at the PanAm, much less try to get info from them.

I know not ALL dealers acted this way in the past, but I also know a lot of them did. And for those dealers, Harley has a BIG hill to climb in order to get new customers.

 

[wjbertrand]

Agreed... That IS exactly the point of HD going after the Adventure market. However, I think corporate has to REALLY go after dealers that treat this as another Buell or V-Rod and whip them into shape. Even if that's means FORCING them have that ONE guy that likes adventure touring on staff to talk to customers... ANYTHING is better than ignoring a customer just because they want something other than a "real" Harley.

I have, more than once, tried to get info on both Buell AND the V-Rod... and was completely ignored until I looked at their "Real" cruisers.
For that reason alone, I haven't been to a HD dealer to even look at the PanAm, much less try to get info from them.

I know not ALL dealers acted this way in the past, but I also know a lot of them did. And for those dealers, Harley has a BIG hill to climb in order to get new customers.

This is true, if the old dealer attitude is not changed, it will be them that end up killing the Pan America and anything else Harley has planned for that engine or it's derivatives. However it's promising that there appears to be pretty good demand for this bike and once dealers start seeing some $$ flowing in, they'll hopefully jump on board. I've already seen two of them on the road and considering how long these have been available seems to be a good sign, I think I've ever only seen 1 or maybe two V-Rods in the wild.

Evidently Harley has had a more extensive training and mandatory test ride experience for their dealers than before and reports from folks that have actually bought Pan Ams are mostly positive about the dealer experience.

 

[bdalameda]

I was surprised to see that our local Harley dealer went out of business. This dealership had been in business since the late 30's. I heard that another dealership from another town about 45 miles away bought them out and then closed them down. Kinda sad.