Lifelong RE enthusiast buys a Harley Davidson x440: First impressions

The sound/ thump, till now, is distinctive, but not as noticeable as a RE of yore.

BHPian chefvikas recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So after a lot of dilly-dallying and uncertainties, I got my HAX440 delivered yesterday, the auspicious day of Dhanteras. I had booked the bike on August 4, without test riding it but had seen it physically in the store, and took the test ride about a month back. The overall experience, I should say was quite nice, maybe due to the very nice executive that was dealing with me.
I had insisted that I should get the delivery on Dhanteras, or cancel my booking since I was initially convinced that the delivery would be before the Durga Pujas, which somehow didn’t materialise and was ridden with a lot of confusion and opacity.

In any case, reached yesterday evening at the Bengal Harley in Kolkata, and was delivered the bike, they had only two accessories, the knee guard and the bottom engine cover that I got installed, thankfully, the accessories were not as expensive as I thought they would be. The dealership was teeming with new bikes, there must have been no less than 100 that were awaiting delivery, I don’t know why they aren’t handing those out already. I was intrigued by what many have paid in different cities, and I seem to have paid much less, I paid a total on-road of 332998 for the top variant.

After a brief photo-op and a quick explanation of the features, I rode off to experience the real world on what I still call the ‘Poor Man’s Harley’.

Although it has been only about 50 odd km that I have ridden the bike, and I have been a lifelong RE enthusiast, for some 25 years now, these are my first thoughts:

NOT A HEAD TURNER: So I had secretly hoped that I would be flexing the HD but sadly, no one seemed to have noticed, not on the road, not inside my complex, in contrast, I remember how people were gung-ho when the Jawa initially hit the street, the more expensive Harleys and Triumph always turn heads but those are not ‘Poor Man’s’. The sound/ thump, till now, is distinctive, but not as noticeable as a RE of yore, I’m so disappointed in that. Maybe, it just looks too much like some of the other cheaper bikes on the roads.

NOT A DAILY COMMUTE: In most cities in India, this one would not be the perfect daily office ride, found it to be a bit heavy and requires too many shift changes, as indicated on the cluster, will need to test more.

NOT A HARLEY HARLEY: This one is obvious, I share the parking with some Harley owners, and if you didn’t have the tank batch.. enough said.

BOUGHT BECAUSE: frankly I got bored of the RE, and there just weren’t any other options based on the parameters, didn’t want to buy a ‘failed’ bike, although who’s to say that this wouldn’t turn that way too? Overall the ride quality on open roads is very good, and you get that occasional HD feel too. The pricing for the product is very good and all Harley-obsessed will finally get a chance to use ‘Harley’ and their name in the same sentence, It wouldn’t be possible if this didn’t happen.

Overall, it is still early days, but my gut feeling says this will succeed wildly, is like a Creta that rewrote the way the Indian middle class viewed SUVs. Will add on as and when. Happy Diwali, all!!

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