+ Click to Enlarge SERIOUS PRESENCE: The Harley-Davidson Road King Police certainly has the ability to make itself noticed. Picture: DAVE ABRAHAMS

March 21, 2003
By Dave Abrahams

Harley-Davidson has been making police motorcycles for as long as there have been motorcycle cops – since 1908 to be exact – and now has the formula right just about right. The black and white V-twins are imposing and impressive, take up a lot of room on the road, and are hard to ignore.

But so are most Harleys; what's unexpected about the Road King Police is just how standard it is. Most of the bells and whistles – the "cop stuff" – are add-ons, some of them with rather rough-and-ready bracketry, and the basic bike is just that, your basic FLHP Road King.

It's powered by the 1449cc Blockhead motor in its normal civilian state of tune, complete with the Saab-developed sequential port fuel injection which does away with the need for a cold-start mechanism (that's a choke, Cyril). It' rated at 51.5kW at 5250rpm and 116Nm at 3100 but lacks the balance shaft of the 88 'B'.

Instead it's rubber-mounted with Heim joints to ensure the sprockets remain in line no matter how the motor gyrates. This is no problem above 1800rpm but at idle the motor flops around in the frame like a fresh-landed fish, occasionally hitting something solid – or fetching you a sharp tap on the right knee with the air filter cover.

It's a very American motor with a wide spread of effortlessly muscular power; it'll pull, power-thudding ferociously, from 1800rpm and, surprisingly smoothly for a long-stroke narrow-angle big twin, from 2200 to just under five, at which point it begins to reveal evidence of distress.

Under 3000 revs there's a perceptible delay on opening the throttle, despite the crisply accurate fuel injection, as the heavy flywheels spin up. Once it gets going it thunders along the road like a locomotive.

The Police Special runs taller gearing than the civilian Road King; in top gear it rumbles along at the old US national speed limit of 55mph (88km/h) with just 2100rpm on the high-mounted rev-counter and feeling very relaxed. The "double nickel" is of course no longer current in most states; a truer reflection perhaps of modern service conditions is that it cruises at 75mph (120km/h), right on the torque peak.

This purpose-built gearbox is one of the slickest to have come out of Milwaukee, though one of the most vocal – it shifts ratios with a (very) audible clang, up or down but the lever travel is short, light and positive and the test bike didn't miss a shift while I rode it.

The longer gearing also contributed to the Harley's more-than-respectable fuel economy; it averaged 7.24 litres/100km during the week, which is commendable for a pushrod V-twin weighing almost half a ton with the rider aboard.

The FHLPI comes with a (quickly detachable) one-piece windscreen that has all the aerodynamic finesse of a brick. Although it induces a slight shimmy above 130km/h and limits the bike's top speed to 166km/h, I left it in place because that's the way the cops ride them, for very good reason.

It provides the rider with a surprising level of protection – and that's important when you're going to be on it all day, every day, in all weathers.

Chassis and suspension:

In what seems like a step backwards the adjustable 41mm forks of the Road King have been omitted in favour of the older, non-adjustable format, while the only tuning possible on the rear shocks is to vary the preload by means of air adjustment, just like on the old S&W touring shocks.

The suspension is soft and a little soggy but very comfortable even on poor roads; Milwaukee is obviously thinking of the patrol officers who will have to sit on them for hours at a time.

The brakes are the same as the plain-clothes version: twin four-pot calipers on 292mm rotors up front and a single disc of the same size on the rear. They're a huge improvement on earlier models but still require a lot of rider input to haul down the 327kg Police special.

The Road King Police has special 16" wheels, the same size at both ends and shod with unique "bead retention extended mobility" tyres developed by Dunlop US for law enforcement vehicles. These are the first run-flat tyres IOL has ever seen on a motorcycle – but not, I hope, the last.

All-day comfort is the recurring theme on this working motorcycle. The rider sits on a huge, deeply padded "ploughshare" saddle, hinged at the front and sprung at the rear using an air bladder and an adjustable reservoir complete with gauge under the radio platform. There's no pillion.

The special glass fibre police-type panniers are easily detachable without tools, water-resistant and latched with special clips operated by the big black circular knobs you see on their lids – you can get into them without removing your gloves. They're protected by chromed crash-bars, as are the engine and footboards.

The bike is remarkably well balanced, considering its enormous weight, but once you've heaved it off the side stand and got rolling the mass is no longer a problem. With the wide bars there's plenty of steering input and the steering is surprisingly light and accurate, while the long goose-neck frame gives the bike a surprisingly small turning circle.

The weight is only a problem at very low speeds when the bike has a slight tendency to fall into turns but, on long sweeps or in tight city corners, the big FHLPI is stable and doesn't wallow.

All the Cop Stuff:

It's the bells and whistles that make this bike so special – or in this case the lights and sirens. There's a flashing blue emergency light on a telescopic pole that rises from the rear sub-frame, red and blue flashing pursuit lights either side of the headlight and a siren emitting not one but two piercingly loud howls.

If you operate the siren switch on the left handle bar switchgear unit you get the wail familiar to all watchers of American TV police dramas. Lifting the hooter switch towards you with your thumb, on the other hand, unleashes a yelping sound that's guaranteed to scare any driver out of your way – it almost frightened me off the bike the only time I tried it; thank goodness nobody was around.

The siren doubles as a 100W loudspeaker, operated by a handle-bar mounted microphone – I used it to greet my neighbour as I came home one evening, which certainly got his attention, as well as everybody else in our street.

There's a very special feeling to riding around on a bike with the power to make its presence felt as emphatically as this one, and you get an enormous amount of attention from other road users – which I must admit sometimes made me feel like a bit of an imposter. Nevertheless the grins were all friendly and the questions good-natured.

Everybody wanted me to flash the lights and let off the sirens, which I was careful not to do on public roads. Most asked if it was a "real police bike" – which it is – and whether it was new, which is a poor reflection on the bike's somewhat dated looks.

This bike, the only 2003 Centenary model Road King Police in Africa, was brought in by Harley-Davidson Cape Town purely for ceremonial purposes. Its first public appearance will be on March 22 when it will lead the hundreds of Harley-Davidson motorcycles on the Harley Rally's Thunder Parade, starting at 11am from Sea Point, along Beach Road to the Waterfront and then up Buitengragt, down Adderley Street and along Darling Street to the Castle of Good Hope.

The rider will be Cape Town traffic manager Mervyn Merrington.

The Harley-Davidson Road King Police is an anachronism by today's standards. Other bikes such as the BMW 850P and Honda CBX750P are more maneuvrable, have more practical law-enforcement features and do the job better for a lot less money.

For sheer presence, the ability to make itself noticed, and to generate its full measure of respect and attention, the Harley is still unbeaten.

Test bike from Harley-Davidson, Cape Town.

Price: R244 000.

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Specifications:

Motor: Air-cooled, 45-degree V-twin four-stroke.
Capacity: 1449cc.
Bore x stroke: 95.3 x 101.6mm.
Valvegear: Two overhead valves per cylinder, pushrod operated.
Compression ratio: 8.9:1.
Power: 51.5kW at 5250rpm.
Torque: 110Nm at 3100rpm.
Induction: Sequential port electronic fuel-injection.
Ignition: Electronic.
Starting: Electric.
Clutch: Cable-operated multiplate wet clutch.
Transmission: Five-speed gearbox with toothed-belt final drive.
Suspension: 41mm shrouded cartridge forks at front, twin air-adjustable hydraulic shock absorbers at rear.
Brakes: Twin 292mm discs with four-pot opposed piston callipers at front, single 292mm disc with four-pot opposed piston calliper at rear.
Tyres: Front and rear: MT90B x 16 bead retention extended mobility tubeless tyres - all that translates to tyres that will run deflated.
Wheelbase: 1613mm.
Seat height: 749mm.
Dry weight: 327kg.
Fuel capacity: 18.9 litres.
Price: R244 000.

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