In this review of a gorgeous 2008 Harley Davidson FXCW Chrome Rocker with over 100k kilometers on the clock, Nik of Pegasus Motorcycle tours & Consulting introduces you to one of his favorite HD factory chopper style motorcycles from the Italian north. Might this be the most underrated yet coolest H.D. most riders haven’t even heard of?
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There’s one motorcycle that Harley-Davidson produced for only about 2, three years that for me is quintessentially a Harley-Davidson, and it’s the Rocker, particularly the Rocker C. A bike that most Harley riders have never even heard of, much less seen. such a rare breed of nearly customl lookinging chopper motorcycles that I think speaks to the essence of what a Harley-Davidson has been able to capitalize in that feeling of the open road and freedom and the big 45° V twin. Stay tuned for a complete in-depth review of my favorite Harley-Davidson ever made. [Music] Buenos. Greetings riders and welcome to another Pegasus motorcycle tours and consulting review. Yours truly, Nick here. Thank you for your time and your attention. What I have for you is a gorgeous Harley-Davidson, the FX CWC customwide chrome. This is the uh chrome version of the Harley rocker. I’ll tell you everything about this motorcycle. I’ve had a chance to play with it here in Italy over the last few years. It waits for me loyally every time I come. And of course, northern Italy, home of Stelvio Pass and around Lake Ko. And it’s just a gorgeous place to ride. I actually have a video about it’s actually a tutorial of how to do the tallest dirt road in Europe here on the border with France, not too far from here, Baronia. This motorcycle for me is the quintessential Harley-Davidson. It’s a no frrills, big V twin motor, beautiful growling sound, low-end torque up the, you know, it’s just fantastic motorcycle and it looks like a custommade chopper with that really rigged out front end and the fat 240 rear tire, a lot of chrome, this gorgeous. I think the the the Vansenheind exhaust on Harley’s is like a must. I think it just adds that style, that sleek line as opposed to the the the linear exhaust that you get from factory. This motorcycle is also very intelligent because underneath the stock seat for the C model, you get a passenger seat as well, which kind of interesting. It although it looks like a hard tail, it’s actually soft tail. It’s got a horizontal coilover for the rear end and the whole rear end moves with the wheel. So, the this fender, steel actually fender, two-piece fender, is bolted onto the swing arm and it actually moves with the wheel. So, it’s kind of fantastic in that regard. And just the idea that you have a hidden passenger seat under the saddle makes it that much more interesting to ride when you want to share the experience. A lot of cool features on this bike, but again, a really fairly simple motor, fairly simple machine that really, really grabs the essence of what motorcycle riding is. And obviously, it just attracts looks, especially here in Italy where you don’t see too many of these. Interestingly enough, in my experience, I haven’t really found too many Harley riders that know what the rocker is. So, let me tell you all about it and why you might want to consider something like this because I don’t know, is it me or is it just getting older, but I’m starting to really love, you know, the the black on chrome look, that Harley feel and the V twin experience. I mean, I’ve I’ve I’ve reviewed a few of those bikes in this class, like the Yamaha Strat Liner. It’s a little more classy with the luggage. Uh, I’ve had two Warriors by Yamaha 1700cc monsters. Even bikes like the Indian Scout I find to be absolutely stunning and beautiful to look at as well as to ride. This is a little more raw in that regard. You get a massive 45°ree V twin that Harley is of course known for air cooled motorcycle so it does get a little toasty on hot days. It pushes out a whopping 92 I believe footbs of torque at 3,000 RPM. I mean, you get that right off the line, which I really, really love. I mean, who doesn’t like that kind of torque? This is a 1600cc or 96 cubic inch motor. So, technically 1,584, I believe, is the the cubic centimeter size of this motor. So, it’s the twin cam 96B motor married to a six-speed transmission. And the sixth gear is marked on the dash. It’s very simple analog. Uh meaning I take it to be kind of like an overdrive gear. I mean, everything under 70 in sixth gear. The motorcycle is really bogging. So, you want to be on the highway, put it in sixth gear, and just cruise. It’s not obnoxiously fast. That wasn’t the whole point. You do get that low-end torque, which is always great and always a pleasure, but it’s in terms of performance. It’s an older Harley-Davidson. It’s not a great performer in any segment other than looks on the street. I mean, if you park this in front of a cafe, all you have to do is sip your coffee and and watch while others admire your bike. It it’s it and you you yourself are still admiring your bike, you know, 15, 20 years later. It’s pretty incredible. It’s It’s a beautiful motorcycle and I think that’s what it was intended to do. Stopped in this beautiful little town when I passed next to a um ice cream shop. Holy what what an amazing ice cream. But the bike has been absolutely amazing. Amazing on these Italian lake roads. We’re in Leno, small town around Lago Mayor. And the bike has just been fantastic. Hot day today, but for this kind of touring, the bike is basically at home. Can you do a lot of highway riding on a motorcycle like this? Well, the mileage tells the story. This thing has over 65,000 miles, so tells you everything you need to know. It’s been to the Balkans and back, mostly on highway and the coastal roads multiple times. southern Italy multiple times. I mean, on the clock, it’s over 100,000 km right now. So, pretty impressive. Never really any issues. A few oil drops here and there as to be expected. I mean, it’s a big vibrating machine, but never left stranded. Never had any kind of unpleasant experience this motorcycle. Just absolutely fantastic. Now, the name rocker uh comes from the rocking tail of the motorcycle. So the how the whole end moves uh it’s uh in in a very counterintuitive way. You’re looking at it, you would think this is a hard tail, but it’s it’s actually not. The rocking tail of the motorcycle gave it its name. Uh and I think it’s a great name. Initially, I believe that it had to do with music and rocker scene, etc. It’s actually that whole part where the whole wheel just moves up with the fender as well. And I think that’s supremely attractive. It’s just beautiful. So, you get the uh 19-in in the front wheel married to this 18-in rear that’s 240 mm, a fat fat tire, fairly expensive. It goes through it pretty quickly because of the torque and but it just looks so beautiful. The custom styling of this motorcycle was actually the goal that Harley-Davidson was going after because um that it was very popular at least in the day that it was launched 2008 that uh most Harley riders would not most Harley rider many Harley riders would invest a lot of money into customizing their motorcycles with aftermarket producers then and and shops chop shops basically to make a chopper. That’s what a chopper is. A simplistic machine where everything’s been chopped off, right? that’s that’s not really necessarily be there. So, that’s what you get with this kind of minimalistic style, and I I I love it. Harley-Davidson, of course, was able to produce this motorcycle to ride better, to feel better, to it came with a 2-year warranty in in its day, the non C non-chrome version, basically was at $1,7300,000 in its day. For another $2,200, you get the C version, which changes the saddle. It’s actually a little bit thicker saddle by an inch so that it could fit the passenger seat, which actually just pulls out from the when you when you lift the seat up, it pulls out a frame. And then inside the seat is the saddle little pad. Lady better be small cuz, you know, the pad’s very small in itself. And that it kind of sits fairly high, but it actually looks kind of good in my opinion. I like it. And I like the fact that you can hide it too because that way you don’t have to be given rides when whenever you’re being asked. And that saddle has about 250 pound maximum weight limit. So again, lady better be small. The nonse version had an optional $500 carrier. Basically luggage little little luggage rack that looked good. I did not like that motorcycle. It’s kind of interesting how you can you can uh not like the base version versus the chrome. So there are three colors, blue, red, and black. And as we say here in Italy, absolutely black is the way to go. You get the flames on all of them. I mean, kind of cool, right? Flames on a tank. Uh on the red, uh the flames are dark. On the blue, the flames are actually gray. So it kind of takes away from the blue in my opinion. Doug Clarkson was the chief engineer, chief designer behind the rocker C and the rocker version. Again, the rocker base model, the non-chrome version had the stainless satin metallic powder coating on much of it, such as any of the frame elements, the fork bottoms. Uh, I think also the the oil cooler or the oil reservoir and it just did not look right to me and I don’t think that should have left the factory. It really looked unappealing because it look like plastic. I mean, it metal pieces that look like plastic on purpose. Just boggles the mind, especially on a Harley. I think the wheels as well were just awfully awfully awfully unappealing. Motorcycle, uh, it’s amazing how much the chrome on black changes things. Let’s take you through some of the details of the motorcycle. You get LED lights throughout so that it doesn’t vibrate loose. Um, for example, the rear here, the blinkers, the way that they’ve been installed with the with the with the brake light here is uh kind of nice. So, there’s not even like an inch of space between it. And that’s kind of the style, the look they were going for was the hard tail. But this is a two-piece stainless steel on the top and steel on the bottom that’s been stamped together basically joined so to give it more rigidity. So according to Harley, this wheel exerts over 100 gs of force on this fender. So it needs to be super super strong to withstand that. I think Harley made a miss by not chroing the wheels as well because I think they really stand out. I think the wheels for me, espec the the front in particular, is a total miss for this motorcycle. They needed to be spoked and that was the only way to get that bike out of factory in my opinion, but neither here and there. This is what we’re working with. So, again, you get the 240 uh tire in the rear. Fantastic. Who doesn’t like a fat ass in the back, you know? It’s pretty incredible. I think they also made a mistake of of putting this bracket for the license plate so out there. I mean, it should have been mounted on the side where you would expect it to be so that it cleans out the rear, but they didn’t do that. Belt drive, so you don’t really have too much maintenance there. You get this huge horseshoe style old school uh oil reservoir, and it’s finn for that old school look. As well, supposedly also helps with uh, you know, attracting some of the wind to take away from the heat. It does run fairly hot, of course. I mean, it’s a Harley-Davidson that’s air cooled, and on a hot day, you don’t want to be idling. That’s for sure. It likes to move. But once you’re moving, everything’s in order. As hot as it gets, interestingly enough, it doesn’t have a temperature gauge, just a overheating warning light right here. The primary has been uh pushed up a little bit to allow for the movement of the rear which has about 3.3 in of suspension travel. The front has about 5 in of suspension travel. Regular 49 mm uh right side up forks, uh which is about the same amount of ground clearance as well. Even though the bike is fairly long uh thanks to its around 37 37.5 degree rake, it uh it doesn’t have any issues with, you know, hitting speed bumps or anything to that effect. Uh obviously, it’s not a speed demon. You don’t want to be taking this canyon carving. It’s just a very heavy motorcycle. Wet weight 717 lbs. You feel it. You feel it in corners and especially with that front wheel, it lightens up the front and then it’s it’s kind of a you kind of have to fight it and you’re always really pushing on on the counter steering with the with these really intelligent V style handlebars. So, these are actually independent handlebars. And the reason for that is that you can ultimately rotate them to your liking should you desire to change the angle. They’re independent. They’re not one piece. So, that’s kind of interesting. They join here at the V and all the cabling has been routed through them so that you don’t have to look at it. Another really beautiful little touch for the custom. So, uh you don’t have any adjustability on the clutch cable or the brake or the lever itself. Again, chopper style, right? Bare minimum. You don’t get any sort of uh ABS or traction control or cruise control. Mind you, this was 2008 when this motorcycle came out. All of that stuff was fairly novel for Harley in any case. So, uh, all the controls are chrome on this particular C version. And again, fairly fairly simple. You do get a gas gauge on the left side. Uh, that’s supposedly incredibly accurate. If you hit zero, uh, you actually get a on on the dash, you get you get a counter. And if you’re approaching zero left on your trip meter, you better be near a gas station. Otherwise, you’re going to be well, you’re not going to be pushing it for very long cuz it’s fairly heavy. Uh, it’s a 5gallon tank. I think 19 1/2 L tank. And, uh, it’s fairly thirsty bike, I got to say. But, who cares, honestly. You get a simplistic looking shop style analog speedometer. And it does give you two trip meters and again a trip counter as well, how much miles you have left in the tank. So, it’s kind of neat. very very simple. The Harley also came with optional alarm system that blinks and and you know sounds when the bike is moved. Again, six-speed overdrive. They really tried to uh uh give a few details on this motorcycle, the designers, so that owners can continue to appreciate it even years down the line. So, for example, the ignition here uh is uh it looks like a grenade. It’s kind of cool. That was the intended purpose. And they were actually going to change the key so that it looks from the from the tumble key uh that’s round uh to a pin so that it looks like you’re pulling a pin. It’s kind of fantastic. I think that’s those are those little details are always cool. So you look at it and you know if you if you don’t know that history you wouldn’t really think twice but you know if you owned it down the line and you had a key that you pull out like a pin you’re like hey especially if you’re you know back from Vietnam you probably remember that more than you wanted to. So really really beautiful looking bike. This one has custom forward controls. It’s really, really out there. I mean, very, very out there. When I’m on the highway, I actually put my feet back here. And I can, you know, I can cuz obviously you don’t have any wind protection. So, it it really matters to be down under as far as you can. So, this is how and I can cruise like this all day. It doesn’t vibrate too much. Um, I think my hand just gets numb in general with every bike. Obviously, no control of the suspension. The suspension feels like I want to say a Cadillac, but more of a Lincoln than a Cadillac. It absorbs the road really well. You’re not really riding this hard. So, it’ll take everything that you throw at it in that regard. And I think that’s the best you can ask for from a bike like this. So, let’s see what else. Again, regular 49 mm suspension up front. Don’t like those wheels. And I wish they added a second brake because the the caliper or the rotor on the front is the same size as the rotor in the rear, which boggles the mind. I mean, that’s typically never the case. Two 92 mm rotors, both front and rear. Uh, the front has a four piston caliper on the left side only and the rear has a two piston caliper. Uh, braking could obviously be better. It’s a Harley. It’s a heavy Harley, etc. So I, you know, and I just think that two two sides uh symmetrical looking uh braking system just looks better. Aside from it obviously functioning better, you do have these very very long long uh forks up front. It would have been nice maybe for another another stabilizer because there is space. Again, there’s only about 5 in of travel there. So um yeah, so that’s basically the bike. I really like it. I really really like it. Especially with the Vansenheind exhaust. I mean, to have that torque so low is addicting. I mean, once you have a twin that’s that wonderful to ride, you don’t really get excited about a a four cylinder super smooth motor, it almost lacks character after a while. So, I do realize the, you know, I totally appreciate the appeal of of Harley’s. the the Harley that I also um reviewed on this channel uh that kind of started that whole craze, right? It 1936, the knucklehead. I mean, everybody’s heard of a knucklehead. I had the pleasure to ride one uh that actually sold for about Well, I shouldn’t say what it sold for to respect the buyer, but after that review, it sold for above $100,000, well above $100,000. I mean, I think at Mikum it fetched in the ‘9s and uh that wasn’t satisfactory. So, it actually sold for well over 100 to a private party after that and that was a that was an amazing motorcycle to ride. So, I definitely uh you know understand the appeal of Harley’s and I myself was have been the owner of the Harley Electric Glide as well which I had married to a sidecar for my Pegasus sidecar tours. If you’re ever in San Diego, let me take you on a private guided narrated tour of the coast and San Diego to the wineries, etc. in the most unique ways. Pegasusour.com. And um I ended up changing it to the Gold Wing just because that was an older Evo motor and it had a hard time kind of keeping up with four passengers and a 250 lb side car on the side on the hills of San Diego. But I also had the Night Rod and I love that motorcycle. That was a great motorcycle. uh not pure Harley because Porsche developed that motor. It was a water cooled motor and uh I it’s just I just feels different. Feels much sportier than any Harley that you would sit on um that I actually can compare to. So, a lot of people compared this to the the original soft tail, but there’s been too many changes to actually call it uh the soft tail in that regard or compare it to um a breakout or something to that effect. I just don’t think it has that line. The tank has been extended. You have this really cool looking chopper seat. The four the or the rear end. The the seat itself is about 4.5 in of height. So, it’s very low. I just I just think it’s in a class of its own. I think it’s a beautiful beautiful motorcycle. Even if you don’t like cruisers, if you saw this on the street and heard it, and especially if you threw a leg around and took it for a spin, I think you would be pleasantly surprised. Might even make you a convert. Uh, I would definitely consider owning one because um, yeah, they’re just they’re just classy and classy is always going to be cool. Now, some of the competition for this motorcycle, like the Honda Fury, for example, great motorcycle, but has this awkward space right here with this little puny peanut tank. Just again unattractive wheels in my opinion. That’s a beautiful motor up front, but uh just a weird pass through space between the frame underneath the tank. It just does not look right. I mean, it’s almost like when the when when the Japanese started hitting the cruiser scene, they were doing everything they can to copy Harley-Davidson. And a copy is never as cool as the original. Now, you do also have the Yamaha Raider. Pretty pretty mean looking bike, too. But, um again, to me, if you’re going to go that route, go with the Harley at least. There was some optional bags that, you know, came with uh with the Harley’s from the catalog, and I believe that um Viking also makes some bags that could fit this motorcycle if that’s what you’re looking for. I actually reviewed the the Viking um Bar tactical backpack that I still use many years down the line. It’s been holding off really well and I really like that backpack. So, again, you would need a bar to to utilize that as intended if you don’t want to carry it on your back. But you can check out the playlist for that review. Thank you for watching. I hope that was uh a good little introduction to this fantastic motorcycle that you don’t really see too much on the road. If you see one, pick it up, use it. I mean, they’re they’re they actually been holding their their uh price on the used market for for a good while now. I’ve been looking at at them for over 10 years, and it just prices does not budge, which is kind of interesting. Not too far from the breakout actually news market. Thank you for watching. Stay safe. Uh, greetings from Italy. Let me know if you’d like to tour this place. I also have a Balkan tour. Pegasus motorcycleours.com has trailers and info for that. Reach out if I can be of assistance. And until next time, Nick, I’m out. Very annoying to have to stop all the time to do this. Sometimes there are people, sometimes there are not. probably like a euro and today I paid about $50 worth of this Can I chill? Oh yeah. No, not not you. The ice cream. The ice cream. Ice cream. Look at that. Oh my god. Italian. Huh? Thank you.
1 Comment
😂 Noise polluting eyesore.