at the risk of dragging up a topic that may have been done to death b4, im interested in the topic of front wheel size and how it effects handling...
ive got a small front wheel (non standard on my softy, im mechanicly minded but not well versed on HD. i asked the guy when i bought it why he put the smaller wheel on and he said it handles way better into corners, and from what i can tell hes right..this may be because im used to sports bikes, but i find it dips beautifully into corners and handles very precisely.. i was riding a borrowed sporty prior and i know a lot of people say the sporty is the best handling harley.. for me personally i found the sporty a bit inclined to want to stand up in corners, and my now ex who owns it has the same problem with it..
any thoughts on the subject???
you can see my bike in a post in photo section by metalmickey
As you came from Sport Bikes you would know that you buy the tire and not the wheel. The best tires come on 17" rims period (for motorcycles). The heavier and larger the diamenter, the heavier the wheel/tire combo becomes. At 40 MPH/64.37 KPH the wheel is now 4X as heavy as it is at rest (static). To prove this be the last kid on the "Wip" like whan you was in grade school. Another way is to put a softball on a spring (lighter & not a garage type) and swing it around your head. The faster you swing the longer the spring gets because the softball is getting heavier. Inertia. With the weight of a tire/wheel on a Fat Boy @ 46 lbs and traveling at 40 mph you can see the difference bertween the 9 lb tire mounted on a 17" carbon fiber 4.2 lb wheel compaired to the heavy, sold 17" wheel and a heavier tire with 50 caliper holes in it.
