Size is a divisive issue if ever there was one. Depending on your choice of proverb, bigger is better, small is beautiful or size doesn’t matter as much as what you do with it.
But when it comes to bikes, and their weight in particular, the general consensus is that less is more. Bike makers will regularly brag about shaving 17 grams from some unseen component deep inside the engine, but you never tend to see them saying: 'Look, our bike’s heavier than anyone else’s!'
Unfortunately, picking out a list of the 10 lightest bikes currently on the market would result in a line-up of 10 scooters or mopeds. So we’re calling out the fatties instead.
So, what are the 10 heaviest bikes on sale right now? As usual let us know if you think we’ve missed any.
10. Harley-Davidson Road Glide Special – 385kg
At 385kg, ready-to-ride, the Road Glide weighs as much as a Penguin AGM-119B anti-shipping missile – which is the sort of thing launched from boats, helicopters or F16s against waterborne targets – or about as much as the average adult Caribbean leatherback seat turtle.
9. Honda F6B – 385kg
Drawing exactly level with the Road Glide at 385kg wet, the stripped-back F6B tips the scales at the same weight as a 1968 Porsche 909 Bergspyder racing car. Which, incidentally, also had a horizontally-opposed engine of around the same size as the Honda’s, albeit with eight cylinders and 275bhp to haul its mass rather than six pots and 118bhp.
8. Victory Vision Tour – 386kg
Victory’s Vision Tour is just a fraction heavier than the two bikes below it in the list, although it’s worth mentioning that Victory only lists a dry weight, where the others are ready-to-ride. If like-for-like figures were available, it would probably be a fair bit higher on this list. Even so, at 386kg dry it weighs as much as the shell from a WW1-era 12-inch naval gun.
7. Harley-Davidson CVO Street Glide – 395kg
The glittering, £28,630 CVO Street Glide is marked out from its less ostentatious brethren in part by its unashamed brashness and also by its ridiculously powerful sound system, with a pair of 300 watt amps. So it’s fitting that it weighs as much as the world’s most insane iPod Dock, the 15,200 watt, €399,000 AeroDream One, designed by Jean Michel Jarre. Like the Harley, it’s shiny, loud and not entirely practical (you need to climb a ladder to dock your iPod on top of it…)
6. Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic – 399kg
It’s not a big surprise, but there are several Harleys on this list. The near-as-dammit 400kg Electra Glide Ultra Classic happens to weigh precisely as much as a single blade from the rotor of a Mil Mi-26, the world’s largest mass-produced helicopter. To be fair, the helicopter has eight of them, but then again it weighs more than 28 tonnes when it’s empty and can carry another 20 tonnes of cargo. Which is 50 Electra Glide Ultra Classics.
5. Kawasaki VN1700 Voyager – 406kg
Finally we’re past the 400kg mark and it’s not a Harley. While the Ultra Classic in 6th place weighs as much as a helicopter’s blade, Kawasaki’s VN1700 Voyager is as heavy as a whole helicopter! Seriously, 406kg is the unladen weight not only of the Voyager but also of a Hughes 269A helicopter, also known as the TH-55 Osage, which is the classic bubble-shaped lightweight helicopter used as a military trainer for decades in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Alternatively, 406kg is also the weight of an entry-level twin-oven, cast iron Aga.
4. Indian Roadmaster – 408kg
Another one that’s not a Harley, Indian’s heaviest machine so far at 408kg is as heavy as the entire RD-0110 third-stage motor assembly of a Soyuz rocket. It’s not as fast or powerful (67,000lbs of force for the rocket) but significantly more comfortable.
3. Harley-Davidson Ultra Limited – 414kg
The Roadmaster might be as heavy as a rocket motor, but the Harley Ultra Limited weighs as much as a whole spaceship. Really. At 414kg it’s the same mass as the Genesis probe that travelled 1.5 million km towards the sun and collected samples of solar wind between 2001 and 2004. Unfortunately, the Genesis’s parachute failed on re-entry and it slammed into the ground at 193mph – which is presumably about as fast as an Ultra Limited would go in free-fall.
2. Honda Goldwing – 421kg
You knew that the Goldwing was going to be on this list, didn’t you? The only question was which of the podium positions it would fill. As it turns out, 421kg ready-to-ride isn’t enough to take the top. It’s the same weight as a Pratt & Whitney PW100 turboprop engine (and if you’ve ever flown to the Isle of Man, you’ve probably experience a couple of them powering one of FlyBe’s Bombardier Dash 8s).
1. Harley CVO Road Glide Ultra – 439kg
And the biggest of the big is, of course, another Harley. In ready-to-run form the CVO Road Glide Ultra is the heftiest bike in the firm’s range (with an equally heavyweight £29,130 price tag.) To put that into perspective, 439kg is about 70 stone – as much as Britain’s former fattest man at his peak.
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