FLHR/I Road King

FLHR/I Road King SPECIFICATIONS, PRICE & IMAGES

th Anniversary Celebrations: two up and
comfortable. The last day seeing over 800 miles ridden from Karlsruhr in
Germany, through France, the Euro Tunnel and back up to Manchester … and we
could still walk – pity the pub had shut, that would have been so cool. The
second was a normally aspirated 1999 FLHR Twin Cam 88, which blitzed me and a
pillion to Bad Kreuznach in Germany and back … for the weekend! So it’s safe
to assume I already respected those two previous Road Kings abilities to travel
and I didn’t expect anything less from this 2001 FLHR.

part: albeit the longer standing ‘hardtailled’ part. Having said that of course,
Road King is a much better name for the Glide than ‘Heritage’, which sounds a
mite too sharp-suited eighties concept. So completely confused – and that’s just
me – I return to the plot.

We had out first failure on the Road King: just a few miles outside H-D UK on
the way home after the swap, the speedo head broke, leaving me with no accurate
way to judge speed other than follow the Ultra that Andy was riding and him
shout ‘this is forty’, and ‘this is seventy’ at me. To a point it worked, but as
soon as he peeled off and left me alone on the M6 motorway, I naturally kept
pace with the traffic and noticed sometime later that the fuel level indicator
needle in the tank mounted gauge was dropping fast – indicative of plus eighty
cruising, on a Harley at least. Everyone knows that Harley’s are a hell of a lot
faster than they appear to be – to both the ‘spectator’ and more importantly the
rider – and cocooned behind that superbly efficient screen I was made very aware
of the danger as I approached the urban A roads of Manchester. Not so long ago,
Harleys were virtually immune to speeding pulls – despite the fact that you
rumbled past an officer at a comfortable 20mph above the limit you didn’t sound
fast, riding something that didn’t look fast, ergo:you’re not going fast.
However, speeding cameras have no reasoning and no soul, so I attempted to
behave by following the car most likely to be within the speed limit. I chose a
Lada – it drove me mad.

Tel: 0044 (0) 161 839 1000)

the Road King comes into its own: cruising fast and effortlessly for as far as
you want to go, and the uprated twin front disc brakes and single rear on the
2001 model, allow you a real choice nowadays if you’re looking like you about to
overcook a bend.

ve ridden being: it wasn’t anything like bone-jarring, the handling was fine,
so apart from a slightly shaken girlfriend on a particularly creative piece of
council road maintenance and the odd thud from the chain in the right hand
pannier, I never bothered to look at changing it.

t manage to ground the footboards on this Road King: something that seemed to happen with monotonous regularity with both
floorboarded Softails, the Fat Boy and the Heritage. Surprisingly, the ground
clearance is exactly the same with all three bikes (it’s 129.9mm to satisfy any
real anoraks) and if you’re prepared to concede that the wheelbase difference, a
paltry 2.5cm surprisingly in the Softails favour, wouldn’t make that much
difference, only the lean angles are different. But whereas the Fat Boy loses
out to lean by at least a full degree on either side, the Heritage actually
offers nearly two degrees more lean on the right than the Road King. Mmm.
Perhaps this says more about how well the new Softail frame handles than I’ve
previously realised and I’ve been stuffing the Softails into those tempting
roundabouts a little bit faster than I’ve done with the Glide? Then again, it
just might be the frame geometry.

spoke wheels instead of all that lacing: wouldn’t that just look the
business too. Hoist by my own petard, I’m a sucker for that swooping line and
the sheer presence of either ‘King. But there y’go.

Second Opinion:

Words: Andy

Pak: in fact, I know I’m not because a mate in York, many years ago,
transformed his fire engine red Electra into a pseudo American black and white
police bike – if only to further justify the rear-wheel driven siren that
haunted York’s ancient streets for a dozen or more years.

door: an
easier transition to make as the instruments lived on the top yoke in a fifties
idea of what a twenty-first century space ship dashboard might resemble, and the
action of removing the Tour Glide fairing didn’t interfere too much with the
electrics. The 50’s style, 21st Century dash looked dreadful without a screen at
all so a police screen was added to draw some of the attention away. There was
nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea, it just wasn’t really a
Harley-Davidson as we knew them but despite that, and in no small part due to
the price that they were sold for, the FLHS survived through to 1994 when it was
dropped in favour of the then-new FLHR Electra Road King. But it wasn’t a
straight swap … honest!

far: the screen was easily removable, the pillion seat came away and the
panniers could be taken off when not required. Speaking personally, I’ve never
seen a Road King without its bags except when being serviced, and it’s not
something you’d do for the sake of making it more attractive, but the solo seat
and screenless potential was enough and the lightweight heavyweight became a
very attractive proposition indeed. It was a good job because it weighed in at a
bigger price ticket that the Electra Glide Standard and was no longer the budget
model.

s best: lacking the sheer bulk of the Electra but offering some degree of weather
protection and excellent long-distance running. It would be up there on its own
were it not kept company by a very close relative, the Road King Classic,
replete with leather finish bags, fuel-injection and a host of detail changes.
That it lacks some of the width of the full dressers makes it better in heavy
city traffic, but the bags and bars maintain some traffic splitting limitations.
To run through the detail changes between the siblings would be extraneous here
but it’s worth mentioning that the standard Road King scores for the simplicity
of the carb, the security of lockable panniers and saving of an even grand from
the asking price – or three from the Ultra Classic Electra Glide!

t see another seven hundred quid in the Classic beyond that chip: which is
as much because I love slantbags as anything else – they’re crap at carrying big
square things like LPs but then I haven’t bought an LP for more than ten years
and don’t envisage ever doing so again; but they’re great for carrying tents
across the massive diagonal dimension, and I carry those a lot. All of which
twittering goes to explain why, of the available bikes in the existing range,
I’d stick with the stock Road King … I think … unless Willie G wants to prod his
design team into action and point them at the parts bin once more for a true
convertible Road King in a Dyna chassis…

FLHR/I Road King For Sale Specifications, Price and Images

Bike Features

Make Model:
Harley Davidson FLHR/I
Road King

Year:
2001 – 02

Engine:
Four stroke, 45° V-Twin, Twin Cam 88® vibration
isolation-mounted Valves Pushrod-operated overhead valves; w/ hydraulic
self-adjusting lifters; two valves per cylinder

Capacity:
1449 cc / 88.4 cu-in

Bore x Stroke:
95.3 x 101.6
mm

Cooling System:
Air cooled

Compression Ratio:
8.9:1

Lubrication:
Dry sump, internally mounted, crank driven gerotor pressure and dual
scavenge pump with spin on 10ì pressurized oil filter

Induction:
Carburetion 40 mm constant velocity with enrichener and
accelerator pump
ESPFI 38 mm throttle bore electronic sequential port fuel injection

Ignition :
Single-fire, non-wasted, map-controlled spark
ignition

Starting:
Electric

Max Torque:
116.6 Nm / 86 lb-ft @ 3500rpm

Transmission :
5 Speed

Final Drive:
Belt

Frame:
Mild steel, square-section backbone w/twin downtubes
Swingarm Mild steel, rectangular tube sections, stamped junctions, MIG
welded

Front Suspension:
Telescopic forks

Rear Suspension:
Dual air adjustable shocks

Front Brakes:
2x 292mm discs 4 piston calipers

Rear Brakes:
Single 292mm disc 4 piston caliper

Front Tyre:
130/90-16

Rear Tyre:
130/90-16