Electra Glide: No Longer a Wannabe

13 Years of Mostly Ups

It must be a testament to the Harley experience. For the first time ever, the feeling of excitement that I always got with any new vehicle did not fade away over time. Each day I rode the bike, it made me feel as good as the day I first picked it up. I must admit though that there were times when I got quite upset in our relationship when certain mechanical failures continued to plague me, but overall it had been a very satisfying thirteen years.

Because I had so many experiences while owning this bike, it would be very difficult to compile all of them into one story. Instead, I'll break them into shorter and more manageable pieces based on themes or events, as well as technical issues. See "My Tales" and "Misc." for these stories.

Losing an Old Friend

But all good things seem to come to an end, and I traded-in the Electra Glide for a newer model. But I did so not because the magic was no longer there, for it was and very much so at that. It was because of my constant quest for more power and the toll it was taking on the reliability of the bike. Near the end, the bike was spending more time in the shop that out on the road and I had to make a very tough decision. That decision was made easier when Caroline decided she was ready to leave her position as a passenger and return to the front with her own bike. That, and the fact that Ottawa HD had a demo bike that was built with the kind of power I was looking for, and in a package that provided me with most of the important luxuries I had gotten used to.

So a bike that I said I never would part with now belongs to someone else. Before it left me, I did manage to strip as many costly mementos from it as I could. And from time to time I do miss it badly, especially the Tourpak. But the new bike is growing on me more and more every day, while the old one slowly becomes just a fond memory. I suspect this new one will be my last bike, but as the saying goes "Never say never".