2016 Harley-Davidson Softail Slim S: Making a Superhero

by Ian Kelso, Contributing Editor

I made a commitment to myself this spring: to get off my ass and ride some Harleys this year. I’m glad I did. Now I feel like a superhero.

A ROMANTIC NOTION

I have ridden a lot of bikes in the past twelve months since I first starting writing about them for EatSleepRIDE: over forty at last count. They have come from pretty much every category of road bike: supersport, naked, supermoto, touring, ADV and a few that were somewhere in between. Early this spring I even reviewed my first cruiser, the Yamaha Bolt C-Spec, which I thought was a decent enough bike for what it was. As I wrote though, I was really struggling to understand the appeal of the entire cruiser category. I wondered: just how can you love a bike that doesn’t lean into a corner without scraping metal parts?

Before I first began riding just four years ago, I thought differently. My romantic notion of what a motorcycle should be was the same one projected by directors and screenwriters out of Hollywood in films like Easy Rider and series like Sons of Anarchy. I thought cruisers were the coolest, but somehow that all changed when I bought an ADV as my first bike and started hanging around with a more sport-oriented group of friends. In that crowd, Harleys were commonly “understood” to be overweight, unreasonably loud and under-powered relics of a bygone era: bikes more likely to be ridden by old farts and weekend warriors who would polish their chrome religiously for a once-a-week trip to the coffee shop parking lot.

I had never actually been on a Harley-Davidson, but I was pretty sure – compared to all the other bikes I could review – it wouldn’t be that much fun. But as new professional bike reviewer, I felt it was my duty to try one.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

I actually ended up with the Softail Slim S by mistake. I had requested the Low Rider S, a Dyna, which I think exudes at kind of dark romantic bad-boy ethos, but it was booked for the week I had available. So I was left with the choice of Slim S or Fat Boy S. Based on the photos I had meant to choose the Fat Boy. The faux-military styling of the Softail Slim S looked a little over-the-top for my taste.

But in a momentary lapse, I wrote down the wrong model name in my email to Harley PR and by the time I realized my error I was simply too embarrassed to change it.

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AMERICAN SUPERHERO

In pictures the Softail Slim S’s Olive Gold Denim paint finish, complete with a big gold star on the tank, looked like it was plucked straight from the pages of a WWII era Captain America comic. I had visions of people on the street pointing and laughing at the overt jingoism it at first seemed to exude. I started to wonder if I might spend the next week riding only late at night when there was less chance of being spotted.

But when I arrived to pick up the bike at Harley Canada HQ, I was surprised and more than a little relieved. Up close and in-person the combination actually looks quite cool. The slightly luminescent sheen of the green and gold paint set against the blacked out engine and forks gives off a modern yet timeless aura. And it is absolutely much more interesting than the base-level classic Vivid Black paint option. From its husky forks and limited-rise Hollywood handlebars through its low slung solo seat and forward-mounted foot controls right through to the “slim” tail end, this bike is an icon in its simplicity of design and its homage to the history of American motorcycles.

I didn’t expect the Softail Slim S to be a speed demon, but firing up the legendary V-Twin you can immediately sense its immense muscle. It is actually like no other bike I have ever ridden. Through every shake, vibration and shudder of its Screamin’ Eagle® Air-Cooled Twin Cam 110B™ engine, I could really FEEL a vast pent-up power plant beneath me just begging to be unleashed. The massive low-end torque peaks at only 3500 but is in almost full supply at just 2000 rpm. The Slim has no problem whatsoever launching away from a stoplight.

Its110 cubic inches or 1.8 liters of air-cooled engine is packed into a fairly compact feeling 710 lb. frame and it creates a kind of deep full-body connection in a way most modern bikes cannot. It was a completely novel experience for me.

Riding down the street I didn’t need superpowers to sense the heads turning my way. And I knew it was for the right reasons. I found myself suddenly reconnecting with that romantic notion in my head: I was Steve Rogers riding the archetypal American motorcycle. For a moment or two I even imagined myself donning a muscle shirt and letting my hair fly free in the wind. But I live in Canada where helmets are mandatory and I haven’t had much hair to speak of for over twenty years.

The ride? Though the rear suspension was a bit firm, it handled well through some of the roughest pothole covered streets I could throw at it. The Slim’s upright seating position and comfortable reach to the bars gave me lots of leverage to throw the bike around. Yes I did scrape the foot boards…once! After that I started experimenting with body position, entry speed and acceleration until I was able to reach what felt like a respectable amount of velocity in the corners. The front brake required only two finger touch and the pistons bit down hard when requested. And though the bike could certainly wind itself up to the fastest of highway speeds without complaint, my biggest beef was the fairly significant wind pressure that had me wearing out after only a few minutes at 85 mph (137 kph). I am quite used to riding naked bikes, but the combination of aerodynamics and relaxed seating position make it impossible to escape getting a full blast on the chest and it makes the Softail Slim fairly impractical for much time on the highway without a windscreen.

THE LIBERATOR

Every good superhero has a genesis story: a radioactive spider, an escape from a doomed planet, an experimental super-soldier serum. The Softail Slim descended from the WWII era Harley-Davidson WLA, a 740cc hard tail single seat design that was mass-produced for the army between 1940 and 1952. During the war the WLA was nicknamed “the Liberator” and was ridden extensively by US troops for messenger and military police duties. Returning soldiers longed to own a bike like they saw or rode in the war, and the sale of surplus WLAs in peacetime arguably lead to the rise of biker culture in the West during the 1950s.

In the mid-70s an avid Harley rider and engineer Bill Davis designed the first modern softail, a style that preserved the historic frame design but introduced rear-end suspension by hiding a shock absorber under the seat. Though Davis patented his design and first met with Harley-Davidson in 1976, it was not until 1982 that he successfully sold his design which was first introduced for the 1984 model year as the FXST Softail. Since then the Softail has included a number of unique models including the Standard, Custom, Heritage Softail, Night Train, Deluxe, Fat Boy, Dark Custom, the Breakout and, of course, the Softail Slim. All bikes (except one) in the Softail series feature the same frame, engine and transmission and differ only in the forks, wheels and accessories.

SUPERPOWERS

This year Harley has introduced the new "S" series which also includes the Low Rider S and the Fat Boy S. It is possible the “S” stands for “superpower”. Previously in order to get the benefit of the Screamin’ Eagle Twin Cam 110 (1801 cc) engine, the fastest one Harley makes, you had to shell out to purchase a top of the line CVO series bike. Every year since 1999 Harley has chosen three or four models to become part of the CVO line-up and receive limited edition customizations, including performance upgrades to the Screamin’ Eagle powered engine line. These upgraded models could easily add over USD $8,000 to the price of the original.

The “S” series offers some similar performance upgrades to the CVO, but at a far smaller increase in cost. You could call it superpowers for a super price.

One additional surprise I discovered with the “S” series is a number of technology extras that I wouldn’t expect to find at all on a Harley-Davidson: ABS brakes, cruise control, keyless ignition with as proximity-based alarm system, and even a digital dash complete with tachometer, gear indicator and trip odometer hidden away in a tiny LCD display.

CONCLUSION

As you may have gleaned from my review, I had a bit of an epiphany during the week I spent with the Softail Slim S. I didn’t expect to hate it, but on the other hand I absolutely did not expect to feel so much like a superhero flying around the city. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with a bike that in many ways was lacked features that I thought were critical to my enjoyment of the motorcycle experience.

Harley’s obsession with its storied heritage may be finally finding an effective synthesis with its adoption of new technology, perhaps enabling it to offer the best of both worlds.

On a final note, I bring home a lot of bikes and they are often parked on the street in front of my house. This creates a kind of community focus group as my neighbours take stock of the newest machines. Hands down this one was the most popular to date. It seems a lot of people have a similar classic romantic notion of what a motorcycle should look like!

Price:

USD $18,499 / CAD $21,499 (Vivid Black)
USD $18,899 / CAD $21,949 (Olive Gold Denim)

Length: 2390mm (92.3″)
Seat: 665mm (28.2″)
Fuel Capacity: 18.9L (5gal)
Wet Weight: 323kg (712lb)

EPILOGUE: CLASH OF THE TITANS

If there is one rugged American icon that is bigger and more powerful than a Harley Softail, it’s a Jeep. I grew up in rural Ontario, the son of an AMC-Jeep dealer, and I can say from experience that they are great vehicles for hauling heavy things and navigating nasty roads. I would never recommend going up against one any kind of motorbike. But if one attacks, say when you are sitting unawares at a stoplight, I can now say from experience it is possible for both rider and bike to come away relatively unscathed.

It was a Sunday afternoon in an upscale shopping district and I was on a last run about town before a planned a photo shoot. The bike was due back at Harley-Davidson the following morning to be prepped for display at the world famous Port Dover Friday 13th (PD13) rally. Sitting at a traffic light with everything at a dead stop around me, I relaxed my gaze for an instant and started mentally flipping through locations I would visit later to take some photos. I didn’t catch the sudden lurch forward of the white Grand Cherokee directly behind me as the driver apparently thought she saw a gap in the next lane over, thus an opportunity to advance by a whole car length. As the Jeep veered forward and to the right it connected with the rear end of the Harley, and with a loud scraping sound the bike shot out from beneath me, held up for but an instant by the right floorboard until it finally came to a rest completely on its side.

I wish my journalistic instincts would have kicked in and that I had pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures. But I was thinking a million other things as I rose from my newfound lower seating position on the asphalt. I was pretty sure I was okay: a small scrape but nothing seemed to be broken. I was also pretty sure the bike would be a write-off. When 700+ lbs. of metal falls over suddenly, you don’t expect good things will come of it. And how would I ever pick that beast up and move it off the roadway?

Since except for the petite 100 lb driver of the Jeep, not one fellow motorist stopped to help (Toronto drivers are vying to be world-class jerks on the road, seemingly angered that I have the nerve to have an accident while they were trying to go somewhere important). I couldn’t find a good grip near the seat to perform the conventional bike lift method, so I decided to try a handlebar method I had seen on Youtube to get the Softail back on its tires and out of the stream of traffic.

It is said that Captain America can military press over 800 lbs. I had been working on my deadlift at the gym, but I was nowhere near that level. I was however, prepared to keep my back straight and deploy my quads and hips. Totally not necessary as it turned out. The weight of the Softail is carried so low to the ground, it was like picking up a bicycle.

And after inspecting the Slim I can only guess that the it is also blessed with Captain America-style healing powers. Aside from a broken taillight there was almost zero damage!