The Future is Behind You

​

For those who ride old school, heritage is everything. For me, it was the beginning. The year was 1959, maybe 1960, hard to remember. My uncle had just roared up to Grandpa’s place, leather cap for a lid, black collared shirt instead of the ubiquitous ad-smeared t-shirt we see nowadays. I froze in wild wonder. What was that?! A magic dragon? Crusader Rabbit? Clark Kent breaking into a phone booth?

Uncle John walked in, big black boots clomping on hardwood floors. The grownups started talking and making a pot of coffee. This was my chance. I wasn’t really supposed to leave the house but I wasn’t much for rules, even back then. I slipped outside, around the house and over to the kitchen window where this great big wonderful thing was resting, just sitting there slouched over, looking ready to eat me or take off to the skies. I inched closer, reaching out and… then my dad suddenly stuck his head out the window and screamed, “Get away from that thing before it falls on you!” Right then and there, in that moment, I knew my destiny. That thing was a Hydra-Glide. And my uncle, the king of cool, rode it to adventure.

The original King of Cool, my Uncle John.

Fate? Perhaps. There seems a strange and fortuitous series of events and peculiar coincidences that led to Harley’s fourth in its retro Icon series landing in my happy hands—some 65 years later. Somewhere, Uncle John is smiling and cracking a throttle, filling a heavenly cloud with the sweet aroma of motor oil and extra-leaded gasoline.

The 2024 Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide Revival is right out of America’s Golden Age of Design, the Space Age thrust into artful forms of innovation and style. The Revival is an homage to the original 1956 Hydra-Glide (1949-’57), which introduced hydraulic front forks. It’s the fourth iteration in the Motor Company’s limited and numbered Icons Collection, its factory version of a resto-mod. Earlier Icons included the 2023 Electra Glide Highway King, 2022 Low Rider Diablo and 2021 Electra Glide Revival. Modern performance wrapped in vintage looks can be an irresistible combination. I hope H-D continues bringing back its style heroes. Maybe a 1959 Sportster would be nice, or a ’36 Knucklehead.

2024 Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide Revival. Uncle John would have approved.

Even as pretty as the Revival is, this bike is built around performance. The Milwaukee-Eight (for eight valves) 114 cubic-inch (1868cc), counterbalanced, oil/air-cooled motor pushes power through six speeds, making the highway feel like home. The agile softail chassis, beefy 16-inch tires, low center of gravity and an engine that produces little vibration provides the force and fluidity to create a comfortable and responsive ride. The ergonomics are second to none, highlighted by not only one of the most eye-catching seats in motorcycling but the most comfortable I’ve ridden for any significant distance and time. Over some 2,400 miles and long hours in the saddle, the butt offered little complaint.

At a 742-lb wet weight, the Hydra Glide is surprisingly nimble, able to handle mountain curve and hairpin with alacrity, and stretching out on sweepers with ease. The Hydra-Glide moves smoothly, but also feels firmly anchored to the ground. Even high crosswind gusts did not deter it from its path, which was especially impressive since windshields can act like sails. But the aerodynamics, wheelbase and suspension on the Revival work together to create a ride that inspires confidence. The 27-inch seat height makes it a cozy perch for those who like to plant both boots on the asphalt. The metalwork looks pretty much right off the Heritage Classic, which shares the motor, frame and engine and costs about $2,500 less.

Perfect fit and finish. Art on wheels.

The differences are cosmetic, but decidedly sets the special edition Hydra-Glide Revival apart. The paint is flawless and faithful to the 1956 Hydra-Glide two-tone colors, tank badge and “slash” graphic, as the Motor Company calls it. The big cushy seat with the old school rail, bedazzled saddlebags and two-tone windshield kick up the cool.

The Revival is a bit short on stock amenities, however. No luggage rack, no back seat, no sissy bar, no passenger pegs, just bike. I do like motorcycle minimalism, but a bike packing a big motor, six speeds and a windshield right off the showroom screams tour the hell out of me. Probably also has cruise control, but I never bother with it. Go back to the 1950s and you can see Hydra-Glides festooned with racks and rails, reflectors, fender “bumpers” and other chrome bits that often had some practical purpose. Those rider seats were larger and could accommodate two-up, close and cozy style. Uncle John called them “pogo” seats because they floated on a piston, like a shock absorber, and moved up and down like a pogo stick. He smiled when he told me about those seats, apparently lost in some bosom memory.

Loaded for travel. We made it work.

The Harley press fleet center said they had no bolt-ons for the bike, which posed a problem for my then-upcoming tour of Utah and Arizona. The Motor Company made it clear they didn’t want the bike returned with so much as a smudge, so I had to figure out how to carry a couple of weeks worth of gear on the rear fender without touching the paint. Thought about reaching out to David Copperfield and other magicians for levitation spells and such, but the solution was simpler: I placed a portable suction-cup rear pillion pad on the fender, laid my big bag across the saddlebags and pad, then bungeed everything down.

This did, of course, preclude me from getting into the saddlebags while on the road with the duffel battened down, but otherwise it worked beautifully. The fender remained unblemished. After offloading, the Revival returned to its unburdened profile. Kept the pad in the saddlebag, though, just in case a wayward wandering woman needed ride or rescue. Chivalry just seemed to go hand-in-hand with this classy ride. Besides, if the pad is not weighted down it could blow off.

Beautiful bikes, problematic bags. Note the hole and bungee cord on top of the Heritage’s right side case.

I’ve already written a letter to Santa making my case as to why I should find the Hydra-Glide under my tree come Christmas instead of the usual bag of, you know, but there were some things I would change. The saddlebag locks were a problem. At first, they didn’t work at all, thought maybe I had the wrong key. The fleet center said I had the right key. We agreed to disagree. After multiple tries and wiggles, thrusts, shakes and cussing, I figured if it don’t go, oil it.

A squirt or two of WD-40 did the trick, although the mechanism always felt stiff and sticky. My riding partner rented a 2023 Heritage Classic with what looked like exactly the same bags, sans fancy bits, with the same locks. He fought them the entire trip, with one literally falling apart on the road, leaving a hole at the top of the bag. He wrapped a bungee around the newly ventilated bag to keep it from flying open, and closed the hole with an extra-large bandaid. Brilliant. But for a $25,000 beauty of a bike, this was frustrating.

Good sized tank, at least appears to be.

The massive Milwaukee-Eight mill makes plenty of power, a claimed 94 hp at 4750 rpm and 119 ft-lb of torque at 3000 rpm. Where there’s power, there’s heat, and this air/oil cooled engine threw off a lot of it. My thighs roasted, particularly pipe side, while sitting at long lights on hot days. Surprisingly, the big motor did not gulp fuel. H-D estimates 47 mpg and I found that pretty close on average, giving the Hydra-Glide excellent range on a single 5-gallon tank of premium. But there was a complication or two.

When refueling, the tank would fill to the top only to drain down a moment later.  I once continually topped it off until I ended up adding about another three-quarters of a gallon. That can be a bit unnerving, especially if you find yourself on backroads where seldom a gas station is seen. The other side of this was trying to get an accurate read on fuel efficiency. Depending how much I actually filled the tank, I got anywhere from 40 to over 50 mpg. It just became hard to trust the fuel gauge, and as a general rule I don’t on any bike.

Adding to the vagary is the real-world fuel capacity. The specs say five gallons, and it looks like a traditional five-gallon tank, but the fuel pump, hoses and other bits reduce actual capacity, yet how much precisely no one seems to know. Some say a couple of pints; others say maybe as much as four-fifths of a gallon. It is an inconvenient reality. To be on the safe side, I gassed up more frequently, usually pulling over before hitting 150 miles, which is a good time to take a break anyway.

Ride it, or gape in wide-eyed wonder at it. That is the question.

Everything else worked as expected. At first, the front brakes felt pretty grabby, but I got used to it and later appreciated their stopping power. The speedo and pan air cleaner cover were a nice nod to the ‘50s, but the plain dash looked like it needed something, something on-brand to cover the bolt that held it down. I think I missed the dash ignition switch. The handlebar control switches were standard stock issue as was the tail lamp. They looked out of place. Something that was more 1956 would have been a nice touch. The two-tone windshield was not only just damn cool but did it’s job well.

Sometimes lost in thought on the endlessly rolling miles though dreamlike scenery, it was easy to imagine OG Uncle John on his original Hydra-Glide, somewhere just ahead, leather cap somehow staying on at a rakish tilt, smiling approval as the future rode right behind him.

J. Joshua Placa

*For specs, descriptions and more details, click here:

2024 Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide Revival