I have owned 3 fattys, 98, 2010 lo, 2016 S and now the 18... Initially I was impressed with how much more you can lean her without scraping the boards, but still had the 16 S just in front as far as overall rideability, till I changed a few things on the 18.. Screaming Eagle Tuner and Vance and hines big shot staggereds with quiet baffles in... well the quiet baffles were a mistake, they were quite loud in the fatboy lo with same pipes but the M8 motor being 4 valve heads is a lot quieter due to the pulse difference with the 2 extra valves, so I took the quiet baffles out and its about perfect, not really too loud. Would of been a lot louder on the twin cam. Next was the Burleigh bars, perfect for me, changed the whole feel of the bike and look, I don't care what anyone says my harley has to do it for me visually... Next was the rear shock, the stock one is not that great in my opinion plus a big fat tyre like that needs to be closer to the guard, didn't look right with the guard sitting so high so I put legend air suspension in, did about 1000kms and decided they were not for me, the ride was great when I had it tuned in right which was easy but when you hopped off it the air shocks make the back go really high in the air unless you drop the air.. now me being anal about visuals of my bike I just couldn't walk away with the backend looking like a trail bike so would dump all the air which looked cool as slammed down but then when back on you had to get it just right again... good shocks but didn't want to do that all the time.. So looked into alternative aftermarket shocks and discovered YSS shocks that did one for the new softails, what I really liked about them is that they can have their length changed +/- 10mm which would be somewhere around half to a inch at the swingarm in height.. so I ordered a custom one at 305mm so could go up to 315mm lengthened right out, stock shock is around 318, 310mm drops your rear about a inch or so. As you can see in the pics the bike now looks low and mean, like a fatty should but the amazing thing is the ride with the YSS shock is at least as good if not better than the stock that is longer and has the back guard too high, 2 of us on the bike bouncing it up and down did not bottom it out, really impressed with them and cost about 950 dollars, superior to Progressive in my opinion and cheaper.. So now I have owned 4 fattys and 4 other harleys, and which one is my favorite now for overall riding and visuals etc... now hands down it is the 18 fatboy, but only with the changes that I made.. Still want to put a cam in it, undecided on which one. Well thats enough talking shit from me, just wanted to put a good positive plug out there for the new fattys after a few changes...
Looks good Nelson.
Nice bike . Only criticism on the 2018 Fat is that when you sit on the seat you can see into the "rear" of the front headlight ( its not covered like the previous Fatboys)
Plus with the extra power its still only got ONE front brake - what the fork
nice write up you did though
Good write up. Quick question, how do those solid rims feel on a windy day. Most know that the earlier Fatty's use suffer a bit by getting blown around a bit on windy days with the solid rims on them, any difference with the new bike.
Yeah steelo I think it's established that public toilets are ok in the background of photos but not helmets haha
