OB-1

No, but I have started and revved the engine without the mufflers installed and it really sounded nice. My wife was inside the house heard me playing and came out to say that she wasn’t riding anymore if I made "our" bike sound like a Harley. She just rolled her eyes and went back in the house when I said it sounded better than a Harley. I really don’t care for loud pipes, but I just had to hear what the bike sounded like without mufflers, and of course, I wanted to get a raise out of my wife. Mission accomplished! I think you'll need these guys:fireman: if you install that flame thrower kit.

I suggest and nominate the Black Hills of SD & WY as the place for the next rally. The Black Hills in SD & WY is a beautiful place to ride, after all, 600,000+ riders visit the Black Hills every August. We have Mt. Rushmore, Badlands National Park, Custer State Park, The Needles Highway, Iron Mountain Road, Spearfish Canyon, Vanocker Canyon, Devil’s Tower, and more! This area is very biker friendly, and as long as we avoid the Sturgis Rally dates, traffic is light and there are plenty of places to stay. Plus, Bear Tooth Pass, Chief Joseph Parkway, and Yellowstone National Park are only six hours away and the ride over is gorgeous too!

The weather should still be warm then, 70's to 80's for daytime highs and the nights should cool down into the 40's. The only time traffic is a problem is during the rally. Now watch it snow in mid September:snow: since I said it would be warm!

You would be wise to avoid the week before and after the rally, as well as rally week, unless the Sturgis Rally is your thing. The rally causes incredible traffic and noise, high prices, and makes finding lodging or camping space very difficult. The rally is usually the first full week of August, so July 27 through August 14, of 2009 are the dates to avoid. I would avoid Pine Ridge and all but the fringes of the Pine Ridge reservation. There’s a fair amount of gang and drug activity and quite a few alcohol impaired folks along the road in White Clay/Pine Ridge. The Black Hills in SD & WY is a beautiful place to ride. Don’t forget to add Spearfish Canyon & Devil’s Tower to your list of places to see. You’ll also want to consider riding through Badlands National Park. You can see a lot more of Badlands National Park and the Black Hills if you don’t mind riding on gravel roads. There’s plenty of pavement, but sometimes the best views are on the gravel. Watch out for buffalo, burros, and other critters while riding through Custer State Park. The buffalo don’t seem to care for bikes, so it’s best to view them from a safe distance. Also, you ought to practice performing U-turns on a two-lane road with no shoulders as this maneuver may keep you from getting trapped by traffic stopped to look at the buffalo. Buffalo are wild and unpredictable critters and they occasionally remind idiots that they don’t care for close interaction. The deer are pretty thick up here, so use caution during early morning and evening/night rides.

On your return trip, leave enough time to see Devils Tower, Mt Rushmore, the Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road. You can make all this in a day, but it will be a full one. Call me if you want some riding company when you’re up this way. I’m in the VR Assistance List.

I get a lot of experience riding on gravel since it’s 4+ miles to the nearest pavement and substantially longer in any other direction. The RSV, like any other big bike, can be a handful on gravel. It’s harder to control a bike in deep gravel, so stay to wheel paths compacted by other traffic. Riding through deep gravel just plan sucks, so try to avoid it. Deep gravel requires slow speeds, direct steering, (as opposed to counter steering), no front brake, and judicious use of the throttle. Places where gravel and pavement meet, like intersections, are particularly dangerous because the gravel tends to act like marbles under your tires and feet. Slow, deliberate control inputs are required here and no or little front brake. Slow down before approaching these areas and be prepared for your bike to slide a bit. My biggest complaint concerning the gravel roads I must ride on is that it’s impossible to keep a Midnight RSV clean.

My experience with my 06 RSV indicates the problem is slightly loose steering head bearings. BTW, I often ride with no hands when there's no traffic and light wind. There's a problem with the bike if it wobbles.

The kick out on the corners was not the reason for removing the car tire, the ever present wobble was the deciding factor.

The last Dunlop 404 only lasted 6500 miles on the rear. Nice sticky tire, but poor life for me.

The wife & I bought a pair of the jumbo’s last year with the memory foam and sheepskin covers. They are very nice, but they add an inch to the seat height which might be a problem for the inseam challenged. My wife had major back surgery this past winter and she wouldn’t be able to ride if we didn’t have these cushions. I tried an AirHawk seat pad at Sturgis and think it’s a better pad, but it also costs another $70-80.

I expected to drag something before I ran out of tire... The tire pressure was 40psi during the canyon run... I assume that it would have cornered better at 35psi, which I went to later in the day. This pressure also reduced the wobble or wave, but didn’t eliminate it. Dropping to 30psi made things worse so I went back to 35psi. My wife also said the ride was smoother with the car tire... If only it were stable...

The rear didn’t kick out anywhere near as much a flat tracker, but it did kick or slide out several inches to maybe as much as a foot. My friend was behind me on his bike and he thought I was going to lose it a couple of times. I was really trying to see what the cornering limitations were while riding through Spearfish Canyon, a road I’m familiar with. I can make much better time through the curves with a motorcycle tire without scraping anything. With the car tire, I found that I needed to slow down much more before entering the curve and then give the bike moderate throttle throughout the curve. Getting aggressive with the throttle or entering the curve too fast caused the rear tire to break traction and kick out. This was usually accompanied by the wobble or wave. The wobble is what really turned me off to the car tire.

I think the mismatch of bias ply front and radial rear may be part of the problem. I am certainly interested in reading anyone’s experience with a motorcycle radial front tire and car tire radial rear tire.

The rear tire would slide out unpredictably when I tried to go through sharp curves at speed. This occurred before dragging the floor board or anything else. Like I said before, I assume that with enough riding I could have learned to predict the rear kick out, but the lack of stability was enough to send me back to a motorcycle tire.

We static balanced the tire and I did the same for the Michelin Commander that is now on the bike. Yes, the bead was seated. I believe the air pressure at the time of bead seating was approximately 50-60 psi. This wasn’t the first tire I’ve changed... I looked for things that I might have screwed up and for things that might be wrong with the bike that the car tire might have accentuated or brought to light. Nothing wrong that I can find, and the change in handling produced by going back to a motorcycle tire seems to provide additional evidence of no mechanical problems. No, I didn’t take pictures of the tire on my bike. I read everything I could find concerning the Darkside prior to making my decision to go to a car tire. Nowhere did I read any first hand accounts of bad handling or instability. Let’s remember something here; I thought that going to a car tire would be a good thing. I expected different handling characteristics, but I didn’t expect the bike to be unstable and unstable it was. My definition of unstable is the constant wobble or wave. My friend, riding behind me, easily noticed my bike doing a dance, as he called it. Also, I was not able to accurately predict when the rear end would kick out when pushing the bike into a curve. This point seemed to very dependant on many different factors. I assume that with enough riding I could have learned to predict the rear kick out, but the lack of stability was enough to send me back to a motorcycle tire. I do not normally ride my bike to it’s limits; however, I can and I am not willing to sacrifice that safety margin for a less expensive and possibly longer lasting tire.

I have replaced the car tire with Michelin Commander and the change in handling over the car tire is nothing short of amazing. No wobble or wave; the bike is once again rock steady and can corner without the rear kicking out when pushing hard into a curve. In Conclusion; can you run a car tire on an RSV? Yes, but only if you want to give up the fine handling qualities our bikes have with any quality motorcycle tire.

WOW! Glad you guys are okay! Too bad about the bike, but the comprehensive part of your insurance should cover the damages, (at least that’s the way it works with Farm Bureau Insurance in WY). I truly enjoy the outdoors and wildlife, but I believe we’ve got way too many deer in most places. I think the Game & Fish departments in many states should open up the hunting quotas to reduce deer numbers in many areas.

This is a warranty issue that the dealer will fix. The most likely cause is insufficient grease in the driveline. The repair should take about an hour.

You can buy a brand new windshield or what Clearview calls a "blemished" windshield. The blemished windshields are cheaper but aren’t always available in the configuration you want. We bought their largest windshield with a vent. They didn’t have any blemished windshields in stock to match our needs so we bought a new windshield. Delivery took about 4 weeks. Installation is very easy; all you need is an allen wrench. We bought the largest windshield in an effort to reduce the wind buffeting my wife experienced in the passenger seat. A secondary consideration was to increase the water shedding in the rain for increased vision. The Clearview windshield accomplished both goals, and very well too! My wife experiences much less wind and is very satisfied with the additional protection provided by the new windshield. The windshield sheds water very well, especially when coated with rain-x or wax. This increased water shedding offers significantly better vision during rain.

Take it easy Goose, we’re both expressing valid opinions based upon our own experiences. It seems that many people posting here think the low speed handling of the RSV is poor and that the stock Bridgestone’s are terrible. I simply don’t agree with either of those positions. I’m not raving about the Bridgestone’s, but mine never exhibited poor handling nor anything close to dangerous handling under any conditions. I haven’t tried a smaller front tire or leveling links because to me, these are fixes for nonexistent problems. Again, my opinion, which is just as valid everyone elses.

The front end shake you describe could very easily be caused by the car tire. As I posted in another thread, my bike was never stable with the same car tire you're running.

And to further cloud the issue; I had no handling complaints with my original Bridgestone tires. The mileage wasn’t very good as I only got about 8500 miles out of the set. I don’t have leveling links and think the bike handles just fine at slow speed, for an 800+ pound motorcycle. With proper use of the clutch, throttle, & rear brake I can do full lock U-turns, two up and fully loaded. This maneuver should be mastered for those that wish to ride through Buffalo country like Custer Sate Park in SD or Yellowstone National Park.

I was seduced to the "Darkside" with the promise of increased tire life, better rear wheel traction, reduced costs, and good handling. Sounds too good to be true, and for me it was too good to be true. I bought a BF Goodrich 155/80R15 car tire for my 06 Midnight RSV. The tire cost $84.76 shipped to my door. My local motorcycle dealer politely declined my invitation to mount my new car tire. They said they were aware of people using car tires on motorcycles; however, in today’s litigious society, they didn’t think any liability waiver signed by a customer for such work would hold up in court. So, a friend and I mounted and balanced the car tire, easy job, and no problems. The maximum inflation pressure imprinted on the tire is 35 psi, but I inflated it to 40 psi because I believe that another "Darksider" is using that pressure in the identical tire. Now for the test. A friend and I took an approximately 350-mile ride through the beautiful Black Hills of NE Wyoming & South Dakota to include Spearfish Canyon, Mt Rushmore, and the Iron Mountain Road. Great ride, gorgeous scenery, and road conditions that varied from gravel to Interstate and every possible road surface except ice, snow and mud. Fortunately, we missed the hail storm that deposited several inches of hail on Hill City. From the beginning, the bike felt a bit squirrelly. On straight roads the bike had what can best be described as a slight wobble; like you get when going through a high speed sweeping corner with worn shocks. This "wobble" wasn’t bad, but it was always there except when under throttle. Reducing the tire pressure to 35 psi almost, but not quite, got rid of wobble. Reducing the pressure to 30 PSI increased the wobble. Turns: Low speed turns and parking lot calisthenics, (lock-to-lock figure 8's), were as easy as with motorcycle tires. Low speed curves, (under 40mph), under throttle were precise; however, the handling was nowhere near as forgiving as with a motorcycle tire. We hit Spearfish Canyon with approximately 110 miles on the car tire. Pushing the bike hard into several curves caused the rear tire to kick out before anything could drag. In fact I did not drag anything through the canyon. I have ridden this road many times, and the car tire did not corner as well as a motorcycle tire. The bike cornered fine if I stayed at or near the posted speed limit, except for the ever present wobble. We ran the canyon in both directions because road construction closed the road near the top of the canyon. High speed sweeping curves accentuated the wobble and at times were more than I cared to deal with. I only came close to losing control once and that was in Spearfish at a whopping 20mph. Road construction crews were removing asphalt with a roto-mill machine and the resulting grooves combined with the wobble were enough to have the front and rear of the bike going in different directions at the same time. It wasn’t fun. Despite, or in spite, of the ever present wobble, the car tire provided excellent rear wheel braking. It took quite a bit of pedal pressure to lock the rear wheel and brake induced skids were very controllable. I believe there would be fewer motorcycle accidents if motorcycle tires could provide this level of rear wheel braking traction. The car tire also excelled at wet traction and gravel roads. In conclusion, my experience doesn’t match what I’ve read from others who have gone to the "Darkside." Why? I really don’t know. Maybe they’re more skillful riders than I, or maybe I ride harder and faster then they do on their car tires. I believe that other car tires will perform differently, but only a couple of companies manufacture car tires that can fit the RSV. My $84.76 experiment with the "Darkside" is over. I’ve ordered a Michelin Commander to replace my car tire. I’ll keep the car tire around to use as an emergency spare, but I doubt if it will ever be on the rear of my bike again.

Sorry, no trade here as we installed a the largest Clearview windshield with vent almost two weeks ago. Very nice. My wife is very pleased with the reduction in wind for her. This windshield actually sheds the rain so you can see through it.

WOW! What a ride! Ain't GOD absolutely Fantastic?!!! Give us a call when you pass this way. If you have time, and don't mind riding on a little gravel, we can arrange a steak diner that beats anything you could buy in any restaurant.