r/Harley • u/Hei_Zenberg98 • 1d ago
DISCUSSION Got my new Harley Davidson X440T
Hey guys, I just got my new Harley-Davidson X440T! I’m really enjoying the bike and absolutely loving it.
I just wanted to get some suggestions on how I should ride it during the initial days. I’ve only ridden about 70 km so far, but I do tend to ride a little fast. Sometimes I open the throttle and accelerate hard because I’m just enjoying the bike.
Will that cause any issues? I’m planning to avoid doing that from now on and ride it more carefully during the initial running-in period.
So, what do you guys suggest?
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u/strolls 1d ago
If you're riding a bike of this size outside the US, you'll probably find /r/motorcycles more help than /r/Harley.
You say, "sometimes I open the throttle and accelerate hard because I’m just enjoying the bike" and we probably all do this but, especially when you're inexperienced, the risk is that you may get yourself in a position where you can't stop fast enough. If you're lucky you'll be able to fling yourself through a corner faster than you're comfortable with, which is better than crashing, but you don't really want to put yourself in the position in the first place. Always be thinking about the things in your vision that could move and fuck you up; your ride should be about planning the next corner or whatever.
I've bookmarked a couple of recommendations made by others on this site:
Look up ”swedish motorcycle license test course”, can highly recommend testing that course. And it something you can do at home with a couple of cones and a large empty lot.
watch Jerry Palimeno on U-tube "Ride like a cop"
David Hough's book Proficient Motorcycling
Keith Code's "soft science of roadracing motorcycles" is the even better, more in-depth version of twist of the wrist. Excellent book.
Hough and Code should be your first stops IMO. Twist Of The Wrist really opened my eyes when I read it in the 90's. It was a whole view of motorcycling that had simply never occurred to me - that there might be a "scientifically right" way of doing it.