Smooth, easy to ride, and fast.
That was the verdict delivered by 250cc Grand Prix World Champion Marco Melandri, Randy Mamola, (a 13-time 500cc Grand Prix race winner), and Simon Crafar, (also a 500cc Grand Prix race winner), after lapping on Harley-Davidson Road Glide MotoAmerica-spec King of The Baggers machines at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The demo laps were organized by the company as part of an announcement that Harley-Davidson and Dorna would be working together in the future. The collaboration is designed to increase the visibility of Harley and MotoGP around the world.
The trio were joined by MotoAmerica competitors Kyle Wyman and James Rispoli, as well as former MotoGP, World Superbike and British and AMA Superbike racer John Hopkins. After several laps, Melandri, Mamola and Crafar held a news conference to talk about their experience.
“From the outside, it looks like a game,” said Melandri. “But when you are on it, it’s a racebike. And the engine is powerful, like a Honda V5.” (Melandri raced a Honda RC211V in MotoGP, taking the V5 machine to five victories.)
Crafar said that in 1989, he had raced in a BEARS series – the name indicates that the eligible bikes are British, European or American in origin – on a racebike with a Harley-Davidson engine in a dedicated racing chassis. He remembers the bike fondly, but loved the power of the King of The Baggers machine, and the sound as well. “The engine is so good, I want one!” he said.
Mamola said his bike fit him perfectly, and that his expectations of a hard-to-manage beast proved unfounded. He was pleasantly surprised at the power, the braking and the shifting, as well as the lack of vibration. “Everything was in a perfect zone,” Mamola said.
The only real downside was getting going from a dead stop. The machines are so tall and heavy that even the tall, lanky Crafar had to shift his body off the machine to get one foot down, and that was critical because, as Mamola said, “If it starts falling, you’re not going to catch it!”
The other downside, Melandri said, was that they told him just before he started out exactly how much one of the Bagger racebikes cost, and that meant he was very nervous about crashing. When asked how much the bike cost, Melandri said only, “Too much!”
