2006 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail - Road Test

Wow, this thing is heavy! That was the first thought we had when we swung a leg over our new '06 Heritage Softail and pulled on the handlebars to get it upright. This may sound like a negative statement to make about a brand-new motorcycle, but we had just dropped off our short-term test '06 Low Rider and were ready to head back uptown to the secret HRB workshop. Getting off of the 672-pound (wet) Low Rider and jumping on the 703-pound (wet) Heritage, the 31-pound weight difference is easly felt, especially so because the Heritage's weight seems lower-slung than the Low Rider. The Heritage Softail is a reintroduction for this model year and is one of nine Softail models offered for 2006 at your local Harley-Davidson dealer. There is not a bunch of mechanical differences from last year's models as far as major renovations like those implemented over on the Dyna side of the family. Nevertheless, the '06 Heritage is a nice motorcycle. The Heritage may seem a basic bottom-line bike, but it's not; it's a blank canvas for personalization. We had the P&A book open with a bunch of Post-it notes festooned on the pages marking stuff we wanted even before the bike had cooled off in the shop.

The Heritage does have some nice features right from the Factory like the black powdercoated oil tank, the laced wheels, new-style footboard rubber inserts, heel-toe shifter, easily removable pillion pad, new tank graphics, and the silver engine finish. Other changes that also span the other big-twin engine platforms are the automatic primary chain adjuster and the reduced effort clutch lever (the Softails claim a 24-percent reduction in lever effort).

There is a host of accessories for this bike, and like we said before, you will see a lot of them go on this bike. In the future, we plan to change the look of the bike to reflect the different styles of accessories offered by H-D. Since this Heritage is a Factory-owned motorcycle and on long-term loan to HRB, we can only fit H-D parts and accessories to it. Our Heritage comes as a fuel-injected model. With the EPA and other government agencies looking for job security, the basis of change on fuel-injected models is going to take center stage very, very soon. Even in Harley's own P&A catalog, they list separate mufflers for the California market. We guess that we'll have to call some friends out of state to order the 49 state mufflers to test for you other readers out there on non-California soil.

Cosmetic changes are no problem; for example, the fringe footboard trim is an accessory from the P&A book that we installed last issue, and it's still there. It was easy to install and believe it or not, that fringe elicits comments from males and females alike. The guys ask, "What's with the fringe?" and the ladies ask, "Where did you get the fringe?"

The only other accessory we've installed is the oil temp/dipstick gauge that replaces the stock oil dipstick. Of course, there is a warning in the oil temp dipstick's instructions that now you must check the engine oil with the bike in the upright vertical position as opposed to checking the oil with the bike on the kickstand. This may seem like an inconvenience, but the oil temp gauge will come in handy when we get around to testing some accessories like oil coolers.

Other than those items mentioned, what you see is how we got the bike from the Factory. So far, we have put 1,148 miles on it riding back and forth to the office from the secret HRB workshop and running around to various bike nights and doing errands.

On the road, the Heritage is comfortable; of course the first thing we did was to reset all of the controls to make the bike fit our stature. We raised the bars up an inch or so and rotated the hand control levers around so our fingers naturally laid across the levers. The foot shifters needed to be moved a couple of splines on their shaft so we didn't have to raise our foot from the footboard to shift the bike. The last adjustment was made to the mirrors. The basic riding position is perfect for most of our staff's riders who all measure in at around 6 feet (give or take a few inches). The bike feels planted on any surface it rolls on. On the freeway, rain grooves will make the handlebars wiggle a little but never raise a fear. Maneuvering around parking lots or cruising the various two-lane roads in the hills and mountains that surround the L.A. basin is fun, no matter if you're trying to hustle the bike or take a more leisurely approach in getting to your destination.

The performance of our Heritage is OK. It takes a while to get up to speed with the stock air cleaner and mufflers still affixed, but once there it performs well. We found that cruising the freeways here in SoCal you can leave the bike in Fifth gear, only having to downshift on some of the tighter on-and-off ramps of the freeway system. Running along in the number one lane at the national speed limit, you only have to twist the throttle to move up in speed. The twisting won't jerk you back but it will set you down in the seat a little. As long as you stay in the power band of the engine, the right twist grip is all you'll have to move. Without the benefit of a tachometer (we'll fix that deficiency soon), we can only guess at the power band as being around 2,500 to 3,500 rpm. When you get up toward the 3,500-rpm range, you have a lot of other things to worry about other than what the engine is taching out at.

To wrap up, we were thrilled to get a new Heritage to play with. Stay tuned to these pages for more about the Heritage and the different accessories we will fit on the bike. One last thing: if you, the readers, have specific parts and pieces you want to see us install, let us know and we'll try to make it happen as timely as we can.