2023 Harley-Davidson CVO Road and Street Glide Review | Motorcycle Test

2023 Harley-Davidson CVO Tourers Tested
CVORoad and Street Glide Review

By Rennie Scaysbrook

Harley-Davidson has just notched up 120 years since the first machine rolled off the production line and to celebrate, the company has given their chart-topping CVO Road and Street Glides a new lease of life.

These two are the king daddies of the Harley touring line-up and command a whopping $62,495 price tag. That jumps to an eye-watering $70,305 if you include the – admittedly very special – Whiskey Neat with Raven Metallic hand-crafted paint scheme.

They are essentially two sides of the same coin, the Road and Street Glides. The only difference between the two – aside from the handlebar position and assorted colours – is the fact the Street Glide has its fairing fitted to the forks, while the Road Glide’s is attached to the frame.

Under the hood is Harley-Davidson’s brand new Variable Valve Timing-equipped liquid-cooled 121 cubic inch (1977 cc) Milwaukee-Eight motor, boasting eight per cent more torque and nine per cent more horsepower than the 117.

VVT has long been the domain of the Japanese with the Europeans, especially BMW, gradually getting in on the mix, but this is the first time we’ve seen its implementation on a big American twin.

The 121 runs a single camshaft and the VVT system moves through 40-degrees of crankshaft rotation, which equals 20-degrees of cam rotation. It’s a system that uses a phaser that sits between the cam drive sprocket and the camshaft, and uses a solenoid plunger to control the hydraulics that change the cam timing. The VVT system is claimed to improve the fuel economy by three to five per cent.

Christina Exner – Harley-Davidson’s Principal Engineer

“We use a very unique phaser that takes advantage of the small number of cylinders were have. With the two cylinders, we have one event, so to speak, per revolution. We get a pretty torquey characteristic. We use the cam torque itself to actuate the phaser, so we don’t need the oil pressure from the oil pump. We use that and we have a valve that sits in the centre of the phaser that allows us to pump oil between the two chambers of the phaser to advance or retard the phaser. It’s very clever system. The single biggest contributor to the performance increase is very likely the camshaft. We’re using a very aggressive cam to reach the performance numbers we’re achieving.”

The result is a silky smooth delivery of low-down torque that’s deceptive in its efficiency. Mated to a vastly improved six-speed gearbox that largely does away with the metallic ‘clunk’ we’re so used to with Harley-Davidson big twin ’boxes, the Milwaukee-Eight 121 will roar up the rev range to its 6000 rpm limiter quickly, but the best performance is offered between 2500 rpm to 5000 rpm.

H-D claims 115 hp at 4500 rpm and a stout 139 lb-ft (188 Nm) of torque at 3000 rpm. That last number means you can leave it a gear higher or two if you like and lug your way through corners while trying not to ground your floorboard past the 32-degree lean angle mark.

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Another big factor in the 121 is the liquid-cooling, which works on the exhaust valve area for each cylinder head and helps dissipate heat to keep the rider cool and, working with the larger four litre airbox, 3 mm larger, single throttle body (58 mm), longer piston stroke and revised combustion chamber, sees compression go from 10.2:1 to 11.4:1.

Having said that, heat dissipation was still a bit of an issue while stuck in some of the start/stop traffic surrounding Milwaukee as the 120th Anniversary festivities raged on. Once you’re underway and have plenty of airflow, it’s fine, but if you find yourself not going anywhere you’ll begin to notice the excessive heat quite quickly.

This isn’t as much of an issue on the smaller faired Street Glide as it is on the Road Glide, the latter of which has an air duct built into the lower halves of the fairing to facilitate a bit of cool air (or keep the hot air in on cold days).

The chassis on both the CVO Street and Road Glides are mechanically identical, but it’s here we start to run into problems. These are premium touring motorcycles that will be loaded with a myriad of weights and luggage over their lives, which necessitates suspension changes to ensure the best ride quality.

As such, I find it disappointing Harley-Davidson chose not to grace their chart-topping, high-price tourers with electronically-adjustable suspension. The fork is non-adjustable, the rear shocks emulsion units require the removal of the side cases to get to the rebound adjuster, with pre-load altered with a knob on the left side.

Knobs and spring collars are not revolutionary technology and I can’t think of why electronic springers weren’t fitted when there are other machines in the Harley line-up that do have them.

It’s just as well that the ride on both bikes is, for the most part, smooth and precise. I only rode with just me — no passenger or luggage, which is what these bikes are designed for — so I can’t comment on the loaded-up performance of the Road and Street CVOs, but at face value, the suspension performs well.

The Road Glide has a slight edge over the Street Glide in its steering fluidity simply due to the size and placement of the fairing. The fork-mounted fairing of the Street Glide gives it a slightly heavier initial turn-in feel to the Road Glide, and the smaller screen on the Street means head buffeting for a 183 cm rider such as myself is par for the course (why a bike of this price doesn’t have an electronically-adjustable screen is beyond me).

Another face-palming feeling comes over me when I see Harley-Davidson has not fitted radar-adaptive cruise control to a motorcycle that looks like it was built for it. Radar-adaptive cruise control has been out for three years now on the Ducati Multistrada V4 S, with other models and manufacturers gradually getting on board. A bike of this price and exclusivity should come with this technology — no ifs or buts about it.

These are extremely heavy bikes, 380 kg ready to go for the Street and 393 kg for the Road Glide, and their weight is matched by the opulence they exude. The paint work is absolutely first class, especially the Whiskey Neat with Raven Metallic option, and the ride command system is one of, if not the finest, I’ve tested on any production motorcycle.

The expansive 12.8-inch dash is an absolute joy to use. All the safety systems are easy to navigate to and change (cruise control, traction control, variable ride modes, tyre pressure monitoring, Cornering ABS, etc), and everyone will be able to — very clearly — hear your terrible taste in music thanks to the Rockford Fosgate system.

Harley-Davidson’s also put in a massive Rockford Fosgate Stage II audio system powered by a new four-channel, 500-watt RMS amplifier. The system includes the Stage II three-way 6.5-inch fairing speakers, and twin Stage II three-way 5 x 7-inch saddlebag speakers, but you’ll have to go to the accessory catalogue if you want the Stage III 6 x 9-inch saddlebag speakers that we had on the test. I must say, this audio system absolutely rips.

At low speed the sound is crystal clear, and even while cruising at 110 km/h the wind noise didn’t make the distortion too unbearable. However, as good as the system is you’ll still not get the sound quality you get with a decent Bluetooth helmet headset, just so you know.

If I were throwing down on a CVO, 100 per cent, I’m going for the Road Glide over the Street. The mini ape-hanger handlebar on the Road offers better long range comfort than the Street’s more cramped lower-set ’bar set-up, and I’m absolutely getting that $7K paint Whiskey paint job as well, which makes the Dark Platinum with Pinstripe grey look decidedly second rate (hey, what’s an extra $7K on a $63K motorcycle?).

However, I find the lack of electronic suspension adjustment and the no-show of radar-adaptive cruise control concerning. There are bikes a third of this price that do come with that stuff, and I feel Harley-Davidson’s premium customers deserve more for the high price of admittance they need to pay.

That aside, the CVO Road and Street Glides are very regal motorcycles and are stand outs in the huge Harley-Davidson line-up. The new Milwaukee-Eight 121 with VVT is an excellent powerplant and with how good that Ride Command suite is, I can almost overlook the suspension and cruise control, but then, I’m not spending half a house deposit on one.

If that’s you, well done. You’ve clearly made the right choices in life to get this far. Enjoy the ride.

2023 Harley-Davidson CVO Street Glide Gallery

2023 Harley-Davidson CVO Road Glide