CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA. This town is what I’d imagine would happen if Austin, Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana, had a lovechild on the Atlantic, dressed it in Seersucker, and fed it hush puppies and BBQ. It’s quaint, “aristocratic” and quiet considering it’s the biggest city in the state.
The marble columns that make up the Greek façade in front of old homes and portside government buildings give the town an air of overindulgence. A glamorous aesthetic paid for by a troubled past, and by people and moments we shouldn’t be proud of. It’s polite like towns in Texas, and simultaneously colorful like the back alleys of Bourbon Street. Southern charm meets Texas hospitality on the Atlantic seaboard, or at least that’s how I saw it.
I’d been before. A few times, actually, but was always passing through on my way to elsewhere. My last visit came during a cross-country motorcycle ride that began in Baja California, where I met a fellow motorcyclist from Charleston. He’d ridden his Ducati Multistrada to Los Cabo, then north to the sleepy fishing village on the Sea of Cortez where I’d been staying. He owned a sailboat and ran charters out of the Daniel Island Yacht Club and made the mistake of telling me, “Next time you’re in Charleston, I’ll take you sailing.”
As it turned out, a few weeks later, I was aboard his sailboat headed up the Wando River. That cross-country ride also afforded me the opportunity to travel down the coast, edging the Atlantic Ocean on my way to Daytona Beach for the 75th anniversary of ‘Bike Week.’
Harley-Davidson knows how to make a touring machine. It introduced the Electra Glide in 1964, which came equipped with hard panniers and a windscreen. The 1969 iteration of the same model saw the debut of the ‘Bat Wing,’ which lives on with the modern-day Street Glide wearing the famous fairing. The latest line of “Grand American Touring” motorcycles - as the Motor Co. likes to refer to them as – sit at the summit of a mountain of machines made by the Milwaukee manufacturer.
Apart from the bespoke CVO line, the Street Glide Limited and Road Glide Limited are the ultimate American-made touring motorcycles, with a five-digit price tag to accompany all that chrome. They both feature premium parts and paraphernalia, such as locking saddle bags and top cases, touch screen TFT displays with built-in navigation, adjustable suspension, heated grips and seats, stereo systems, and LED lighting.
This is the “Kitchen Sink” model in the Harley-Davidson lineup.
Ten years on from my first trip to Bike Week, I found myself saddling a 2026 Street Glide Limited wearing a Purple Abyss meets Vivid Black livery. The bike sat alongside a dozen others, prepped and ready to ride south thanks to the folks at Low Country Harley-Davidson in North Charleston. A two-day ride had been planned, an opportunity for journalists like myself to test ride the latest, and arguably greatest, touring models offered by the Motor Co. Departing from the dealership, our route the first day would take us out of Charleston, traveling south on two-lane backroads, through the quintessential southern city of Savannah, Georgia, and eventually landing on Jekyll Island. We made a stop somewhere along the way for lunch, but honestly, I couldn’t say where.
A barrier island off the coast of Georgia, Jekyll Island is known for its white sand beaches, historic mansions, and sea turtles. The ride to the island was uneventful, all things considered. We avoided the crowded highways and instead motored along the backroads beneath southern live oak draped in Spanish moss, past countless churches and through small rural communities living at a slower speed.
The Street Glide and Road Glide Limited supersede the Ultra edition at the top of the Grand American Touring lineup, bested only by the CVO iterations that carry a price tag nearly double in size. That is mostly because of the custom paint applied to the CVO and a slight increase in cubic inches. The Limited models are both powered by the Milwaukee-Eight VVT 117 motor, which makes 105 hp and 131 ft-lb of torque.
According to H-D, this motor makes 7% more torque and 14% horsepower than the outgoing model (MY24). Additionally, the Street Glide Limited is 24lbs lighter than the previous generation, while the Road Glide sheds 13lbs of excess weight over the MY24 version. That’s not nothing, especially when you’re talking about bikes that, loaded with luggage and full of fuel, can exceed 1000lbs.
The 2026 Limited models include the Tour Pak with an integrated LED taillight housed in the top case, along with "fairing lowers" featuring LED fog lamps and storage compartments. There are new colors, too, namely Olive Steel and the aforementioned Purple Abyss, with black or chrome trim options available on all colorways. The touchscreen TFT display is massive, measuring 12.3 inches, and laid out horizontally like an IMAX cinema experience on your handlebars. It features Skyline OS Embedded Navigation, which provides turn-by-turn instructions, moving maps, and live traffic and weather updates. It’s fully customizable, too, and the user interface was intuitive and, dare I say, easy to operate.
And while our ride from South Carolina to the sunny state of Florida didn’t afford me any opportunity to test the dual zone heated seat and grips, they come standard, and I trust they work as well as others in this category.
There was a sea turtle in my room at the Jekyll Island Club Resort. His name was Flipper, and he fit perfectly in my top case along with my luggage. A cute gift for the girlfriend. He was constructed of polyester plush and stuffed with soft fiberfill and, unbeknownst to me, was not a gift to go home with, but instead carried a $30 price tag. But the proceeds from his sale go directly toward saving actual sea turtles along the eastern seaboard, so I didn’t feel so bad about it all. But that didn’t save me from catching shit from my fellow journalists who, unlike me, checked the tag before packing Flipper into their Tour Pak.
The stuffed turtle rode comfortably in my top case along with a duffel bag loaded with layers in case the weather went in one direction or the other. When we had stopped for lunch, there was even enough room for me to leave my helmet and gloves in the top case, secured by a traditional keyed lock and guarded by my new Cryptodira friend. The saddlebags are the same as you’ll find on the outgoing generation Road and Street Glide motorcycles. Made from fiberglass and locked using a key, the old-fashioned way. When asked if they intended to make a keyless locking system standard on the Limited models, “they’re available on the CVO models,” is what I was told.
My previous experience with a Street Glide wasn’t the best. Compared to the competition, the bike lacked the technology that justified the price tag hanging from the handlebars. But Harley-Davidson has caught up, and in some ways surpassed the other options on the market. The Limited models come standard with Cornering Enhanced Electronically Linked Braking, ABS, and Traction Control, as well as a Cornering Drag-Torque Slip Control System that helps keep the rear wheel from slipping or locking up when you quickly downshift or let off the throttle, especially on wet or slippery roads. The suspension is sorted, too, with a pair of three-inch SHOWA adjustable shocks with remote preload adjustment on the left side, and threaded preload on the right.
There’s four ride modes available on the Limited models – Road, Rain, Sport, and Custom - which can be toggled between on the fly. I spent most of my time riding in Sport, however, when we found ourselves in traffic, the ability to switch into Road on the fly - by simply pressing a thumb-operated button adjacent to the throttle – allowed me to manage throttle response and reduce the urge to chirp tires between stoplights. And while we’re on the topic of chirping tires, the 105hp and 131 ft-lb of torque produced by the Milwaukee-Eight VVT 117 motor, coupled with an overall reduction in weight, gave the Street Glide Limited a kind of hustle I hadn’t experienced from a naturally aspirated, air-and-oil-cooled Big Twin before. The torque gets you going, but typically, the top end of these Big Twin motors is where you run out of energy. The four valves per cylinder (eight in total, hence the name), allow you to spin the Big Twin to nearly 6,000 rpm, and the Variable Valve Timing (VVT) gives you that "VTEC kicking in" vibe you know you’ve always wanted.
Just south of Jekyll Island is where the state of Georgia ends and where the St. Marys River exits into the Atlantic Ocean following a journey from its source in the Okefenokee Swamp. Our second day of riding began much like the one before. An early morning marine layer had lifted, and we were greeted by that lukewarm Florida bathtub climate - a combination of sunshine, humidity, and salty air. As we crossed the St. Mary's River and headed slightly east to Fernandina Beach, we regrouped for an early lunch. Less than two-hundred miles lay ahead of us before we’d reach our destination in Daytona Beach.
I’ve been a fan of big, American-built V-twin “baggers” since I first threw a leg over one more than ten years ago. They’re intimidating at first, sure. The sheer size of the thing. The weight. Riding one at slow speeds, or with a passenger, is an art. Not to mention deciding how or where to park one so that assistance isn’t required when you’re ready to leave. But I like a challenge, and learning how to handle 1,000lbs of chrome and fiberglass sitting atop two wheels didn’t take long.
In my early twenties, I saw big American touring bikes as part of a cosplay outfit for dentists and accountants looking to have their Peter Fonda moment. But after a few hundred miles in the saddle, I quickly discovered what I’d been missing. Comfort, namely, and convenience. I’ve since logged thousands of miles around North America on a bagger, crossing the United States no less than ten times. But as much as I loved the big American touring machines I rode, I couldn’t afford one.
I still can’t.
We rolled into Daytona Beach late in the afternoon following a scenic but rather crowded ride down the coast. Motorcyclists made up most of the traffic, and as you might imagine, the pace was somewhat subdued. Our ride had provided some highway miles, though, and therefore an opportunity to test the wind protection provided by the Bat Wing, lower fairings, fork, and fairing air deflectors and windscreen (which is four inches taller than the previous iteration, I might add).
At freeway speeds, the Street Glide Limited is all luxury. The Rockford Fosgate audio system, with its 200-watt amp and four 6.5" speakers, meant I could listen to Creed even while passing semi-trucks and cross-over SUVs at speeds that may have exceeded the posted limit. The seat is plush and comfortable, the wind protection plentiful, and the overall experience made me wish there were more miles ahead of us – Key West was just another 400 miles down the road after all.
Sitting at the beachfront bar that evening with some fellow journalists, I rattled off reasons I loved these things – thundering American-made machines designed to travel great distances across our country. The sounds they make. The comfort and convenience they provide. That “Grand American Touring” vibe. But one thing kept coming up - the price. The Street Glide I’d been riding those past few days, coated in Purple Abyss paint with the chrome trim package, will set you back $34,999.
Our time in Daytona Beach ended with a trip to the Speedway to watch the first ‘King of the Baggers’ race of the 2026 season. I stood at the start/finish line and watched as 600lb V-twin powered touring bikes tore down the front straightaway at 186 mph. Purpose-built racing machines based on big American baggers. It’s silly on the surface, but insane when you see it with your own eyes. Those bikes, though, are the byproduct of our collective interest in these things. I see them everywhere. On the highway and deserted backroads, at truck stops and old taverns, or parked in someone’s garage, waiting for a sunny day. They represent the American Dream in some respects. Where opulence intersects with heritage, a rolling, thundering signal of success and pride.
But the American Dream feels different these days.
When the Bat Wing-wearing Electra Glide came to market in 1969, it retailed for roughly $1,895. At that same time, a new Ford Fairlane 500 would cost you about twice that price - $3,890. The motorcycle was a luxury, not a necessity. Fast forward to 2026 and you’ll find that the Street Glide Limited is priced similarly to the new model Honda Accord.
Sure, the motorcycle is still a luxury, especially for those of us who call the United States home, but when it’ll cost you the same (or more) than a mid-sized sedan, it becomes harder to justify. I know the cost to make things has increased, wages have stayed stagnant, and inflation is creeping ever higher, but I wonder what the future of the Grand American Touring machine will be, given those factors? Will the Millennial generation be able to afford one as they edge closer to retirement age? Will Gen Z even want to ride that kind of motorcycle? Or does the Big Chrome American Bagger die with the Baby Boomers?
