Harley-Davidson 2025 range test
The Harley-Davidson 2025 test reveals a clear evolution in comfort, technology and benefits, especially in the Softail family. This range goes from 9 to 6 models, with three motor settings adapted to different driving styles. Now all software include driving modes, cruise control and new instrumentation.
The Low Rider S and ST stands out for their sports character, and the Heritage Classic for its surprising versatility. The new America Sta Pan bets on a lighter and more agile version, focused on asphalt. The Sportster s improves in suspensions and maintains its strong personality. Next, we analyze them in depth.
The software
The Softail range is one of the basic pillars on which the Milwaukee brand sits. Since its introduction there by 1970, motorcyclists of all generations have felt attracted by the mixture between their elegant appearance and the raw driving experience that involves putting the controls of any of the members of the range.
By 2025, it touches the Softail range to receive the improvements introduced last year in the Touring range. Beyond that, the number of components of the range has been updated and goes from 9 members to 6.
Harley-Davidson has Gala listen carefully to its customers for the evolution of their models. Asked why they like it most and what could be improved from the software for 2025, they replied that what attracted them most was the style of motorcycles, engine sensations and acceleration. On the contrary, they thought it should improve technology, march comfort and the aspect of instrumentations.
With this background, HD has focused its efforts on improving the benefits of its models, comfort and technology. With this they not only improve in the areas that their customers and users prefer, but also reinforce some of the key points -all not, because the style is better not to touch it.
Starting with the engine, the Softail Pivota range around 3 motor configurations that derive from the Milwaukee Train 117 CI (1,923 cc), that is, they share displacement, but not admission and escape systems (or power and torque figures), so that each of the configurations adapts better to the spirit of the models in which they are equipped:
- Classic: Reserved to Heritage Classic and Street Bob models, it develops 91 hp (is limited to A2) and 156 nm of torque. It maintains the classic round air filter and with its escape 2 in 1, it is scheduled for its torque curve to be as flat as possible and thus give a pleasant and unparalleled driving experience.
- Custom: For Fat Boy and Breakout models. With 106 hp and 168 nm torque, look for an extra power in accelerations and recoveries, for the Cruiser models that follow the long & low recipe. The air filter housing is touting, while from each cylinder arises a collector that goes to its own escape.
- High output: The Malote of the neighborhood. Here the power rises to 114 hp and 173 nm of maximum torque. With the heavy admission taking and its escapes 2 in 1, it is designed for the most aggressive drivers, carrying the red line to 5,900 rpm.
Despite the Spartan aspect in one of the models, technology is present in all models equally. For the first time, all the cruiser of the softable family equip driving modes (Road, Rain and Sport). Each of them implies a specific combination of elements, including power delivery, motor brake, curve ABS and traction control. In addition, they all equip serial cruise control, great news.
Instrumentation opens in all models with a single analog speedometer, without tachometer, but while in the two versions of the Low Rider, (S and ST), the Breakout and the Street Bob, the LCD screen is 4 inches, in the Heritage Classic and in the Fat Boy is 5 inches. On this screen you can read all the information regarding the modes, the pneumatic pressure control, the cruise control, the temperature of the fists -Opational- heating, the gear gear and even the RPM in figures.
To read all that information, simple pineapples are enough. He is pretty to rage, he intends, but not being able to see all the information at a glance is the toll to be paid. If you ask yourself if you have a USB cargo port, the answer is yes: USB-C.
The improvements in comfort arrive by the cycle part. The rear suspension springs are abandoned for the benefit of continuous performance. This has achieved a better balance between the dock and the hydraulic and incidentally improve the longitudinal balancing in accelerations and braking.
Reactions are more linear and improve motorcycle behavior that is not precisely light. In any case, the height of the seat of all models has not varied with respect to that of last year’s models.
In a single day it was not possible to prove all the motorcycles that present novelties by the year 2025. However, of the softail range I only left the street bob in the inkwell. There are major differences between the Classic, Custom or High Output range, not so much depending on the equipped engine, but of the combination between geometries and tire measures. That does not imply that some are better than others, but you have more options to choose what best suits your idea of what a Harley-Davidson is.
All emanate nonconformist spirit, in a wrapping that tilted between the classic, the terrace and the impertinent. With that premise, in my case I was pledged by the High Output (the two low Rider, S and St) in all the senses: aesthetics, attitude (posture) and a performance well above what I expected, especially braking and entering curve. In addition, its engine is the most exciting among software.
Close the podium the Heritage Classic, a very pleasant surprise. His rolling is the most pleasant, but he also defends himself with flow in flow Sportya hidden surprise after its facade “Purette”. His engine is the least powerful, but I did not miss power, but its sweetness catches you without remission. I wanted to try the Street Bob, already convinced that the 95 hp engine is capable of transmitting very good sensations.
The intermediate engine is also fabulous, but both the breakout and the Fat Boy penalize in its conception Long & Low Regarding dynamic performance, especially Fat Boy. If both touch immediately with the platforms, the Fat Boy accumulates work, due to its extra wide front wheel. It is a thick motorcycle in its ways; Very comfortable wheel in a straight line, but dance is not theirs.
In the Fat Boy, you have to think what you are going to do in advance. Breakout is much more grateful, but also touches the minimum. In my opinion they are more than boulevard, said without acrimony, because it is undeniable that they enter the eyes.
PAN AMERICA ST
Every time a maxitrail comes out to the market, I wonder if a 17 -inch version will come out. Also in 2021, when Harley-Davidson presented the Pan America S. I was then surprised by the brand’s ability to launch its first trail and at the same time, fulfill two very important missions: that it was a good motorcycle and that it was different from what exists. There will be those who do not like the cyclopean appearance of the America: it is spectacular to me; Waste the good personality, you can distinguish it at the first glance.
The idea of launching the America PAN was present in HD, but the project catalyst was the preparation of a dealership (West Coast Motors in Holland), at the hands of Bas Leek, its owner. Owner of a America s, he decided to adapt it to the use he gave him, always on the road. In Harley-Davidson they sensed the presence of the Adventure Sport subsegment, imbued in the Adventure Touring.
It equips the same 1,250 cc of 150 hp and 127 nm of maximum torque of the America s, but with 17 -inch front tire. It has more electronics than software, because of driving modes and active curve elements (ABS and TCS), anti wheelie control is included, which in Milwaukee call Front Wheel Lift Mitigation.
Along the 17 -inch road has also lost 12 kg, thanks to the new escape, a smaller radiator, absence of defenses and a smaller screen. But it has also lost the system to reduce the height in standing (it is still optional, yes) and the off road mode, which loses all the meaning. The wheels are now the asphalt Michelin Scorcher Sport, now with 180 rear (before 170). The suspension now has less travel (21 mm) and the seat is lower. Good news for the lowest. It is comfortable, but not as much as that of his sister the warning bread s, of a superior comfort.
I was able to roll with the new America St, but not compare it with its sister, the S. still, I could see how it feels much lighter than your sister. The motorcycle earns a lot in agility, without losing stability in any condition. It seems that it has lost more than those 12 kilos and I consider it a fearsome rival for its competitors.
They could not confirm whether the seat of the S can be installed, but for my height (178 cm), it would be desirable. The engine is really energetic and Quickshifter is very welcome. Although the longitudinal balancing with respect to its sister decreases, it remains a motorcycle of long suspensions and does not cease to transfer with respect to a pure road motorcycle, but the balance between comfort, agility and performance is spectacular.
Street Glide Ultra
It is one of the motorcycles that I could not try. Apart from the chromatic combinations, it differs from the street glide in which it incorporates a higher screen, heating cuffs, glove compartment, windfall in fork, steel grids in steel, a new passenger seat with support, a King Tour-Pak grill and the possibility of incorporating chrome to gogó and leather upholstery.
Sportster s
Mild update for Sportster in 2025. A few mm has increased the route of both suspensions, in order to improve comfort. I was able to upload a few kilometers in it, but not to verify the changes, since I had not tried the previous version.
Sportster is a very particular motorcycle. Your stamp is spectacular. I consider that Harley-Davidson has brilliantly resolve the difficult ballot of renewing an icon like Sportster. Seen with perspective, the previous pale in any dynamic aspect with respect to it, but without losing the air of the previous one.
Now his nomenclature is justified, because the truth is that the previous Sporster, however pretty it was, was a career of care compared to the competition. It is no longer the case.
The Sportster engine is the same as the America bread. That is very good news. I recognize that it took a few kilometers to understand the position to the controls, in which the very advanced legs contrast with the position of the trunk forward. It is a motorcycle of sensations, in which the exaggeratedly wide front wheel conditions agility, to confer to Sportster a strange, but magnetic and attractive personality.
If you prefer a more orthodox front tire, its little sister, the Nightster Special, it gives you a much more agile behavior, in addition to a more conservative aesthetic, 975 cc engine and only 225 kilos of weight. Breaking topics.
