VOLUME 57 ISSUE 4 JANUARY 28, 2020 P83
THE GLORY DAYS
Nostalgia is a funny thing. The gauges
are on the tank to match the profile
of the '70s-'80s Low Riders. But the
holy grail of customizing back then
was welding the tanks and losing the
gauges. On this bike, there's a perfect
place to relocate them: inside the fair-
ing. But that's filled with an ugly piece
of plastic instead. Side note, you can't
see the gauges in a full-face helmet
without looking down. All that nostal-
gia and OG-ness is designed to make
you not miss the exposed dual shocks
of the Dyna chassis, (or, really, every
Low Rider chassis from the 1970s on),
or notice the added oil cooler be-
tween the frame rails up front.
This is not the 'S's first rodeo. It
was introduced as a Dyna four years
ago, then was dropped less than two
years later when all the Dynas got
ported to a unified Softail chassis,
and is back for a second go-round.
Though obviously a different motor-
cycle than that one with a different
frame and engine, they're very much
cut from the same cloth.
Sitting astride the Low Rider S, I
find my knees above my hips (I'm 6'0"
with a 33" inseam), but my arms a
(Right) H-D's
design department
decided to ignore
the plentiful real
estate behind the
fairing in favor of
two old-school
hard-to-read tank-
mounted gauges.
