New Guy

monster7 said:

Checking in Harley Rider from way back, been looking at 1600gtl, how many wished they would have waited for next year 1600gtl, thanks

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A little background first: When the new generation K1200GT was introduced, I pre-order one, and waited months for it to come in. It just never fit me well, although by the time I decided that, my wife had one too. She's smarter than me, and quickly decided it wasn't for her, and went back to an R1200RT, while I traded mine for another new GL1800 Honda Goldwing (huge mistake!).

She enjoyed her RT, while my 'Wing just sat, and I rode my R1200GS Adventure, which I felt was the best bike ever made, for me at least. When the K1600 series was introduced, I pre-ordered a GTL, and waited, and waited By the time it finally came in, I was "almost" convinced that I'd made another mistake, as the demo GTL bike was by now in, and my first ride with the low seat left me concerned about comfort. My smart wife prompted me to go through with the purchase, as she knew I really didn't like my goldwing at all (only 400 miles on it after two years!). I've grown to LOVE the K1600, its awesome. With a simple seat and windscreen change, it's full boat touring ready, and easily capable of iron butt type rides (not the IB rally, that's a a whole different setup, with fuel cells, and electronic gizmo's galore!). I liked it so much, and my wife liked it so much that she finally traded her RT off this weekend to buy a GTL of her own.

Long winded way, of saying, if in doubt, go for it. At your height, you'll probably want a windscreen and seat change too, but compared to blinging out a typical HD, that's pocket change! :histerica

PS: My beloved R1200GS Adventure has only been ridden once since I got the GTL, the K bike is just that much better in every respect, except for stream crossings, which I don't do much of in Florida :histerica

jetsnboats said:

What seat did you get?

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I didn't mind the OEM high seat, but I like to ride for really long all day rides without seat discomfort, and I'm fat so tend to wind up sitting on the seat pan of any OEM motorcycle stock seat.

So, I sent my seat to Russell to build me a Day-Long. Wow, what a job they did, built it exactly as I asked, and it's great, and has a great rider backrest.

Corbin had announced that they were building a seat for the K1600GTL, so I ordered one long before my build date approached, thinking I'd use that until the Day-Long got built. The joke was on me, as the Corbin didn't arrive until after I got my Russell back. The Corbin is a pretty good seat too, I've had great luck with them, but riders less than 200 pounds tend to find them too firm. My Corbin is probably the finist quality seat I've gotten from them, works well, even though I prefer the Day-Long. My wife is now using the Corbin, and seems to like it. The Corbin does sit the rider back a half inch farther, and with the rider backrest, tends to crowd my fat wife a bit. Would be no problem if we removed the backrest, but that's a bit of a bother. With the Day-Long, the back rest pops of in seconds, without removing the seat. The Corbin does make reaching the ground pretty easy, as it has a narrow nose leading to a pretty comfortable seating pocket.

Hope that helped.