You’ll Never Guess Which Harley Motorcycle Just Bagged a Royal Title

Having spent all of yesterday at New Jersey Motorsports Park, my mind really is racing this afternoon.

While I saw loads of two-wheeled action, the highlight was a behind-the-scenes hang with Harley-Davidson as team rider Kyle Wyman officially claimed MotoAmerica’s King of the Baggers title. 

Harley-Davidson

Telling me it was “the ultimate individual team sport,” Wyman, the grandson of a Harley dealer, was quick to give huge props to the whole crew, the tailwind behind his triumphant campaign.

The victory has to be especially sweet for the H-D x Dynojet Factory Racing Team, which has come agonizingly close to topping the podium in recent years, only to be beaten out by rival Indian.

Even if these sentences leave you with more questions than answers, relax, because 1. I will explain all about King of the Baggers momentarily and 2. The real upside is, you can actually buy a version of what just claimed this historic championship and ride it around town — even if you wouldn’t be caught dead in racing leathers.

Garage days

After everything I saw and experienced yesterday, I feel like there’s a pretty big story to tell about the burgeoning bagger racing segment, but in the interest of expedience, let me give you a quick off-the-cuff synopsis.

Coming to life in the midst of the pandemic, King of the Baggers is probably the closest thing motorcycle racing has to NASCAR (or perhaps the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series).

Brian J. Nelson

Just as that sport involves (heavily modified) stock cars, KOTB features (heavily modified) production bikes, specifically baggers, meaning touring-style bikes with fairings, big (131 cubic inches/2,146cc) engines and yes, saddlebags. 

As MotoAmerica COO Chuck Aksland told me, KOTB is the brainchild of Rob Buydos, a longtime moto racing announcer and promoter of the Bagger Racing League — and in some ways a funhouse mirror image of superbike racing such as MotoGP, which, for all its adrenaline, can seem very divorced from everyday riding.

Interestingly, Harley’s own KOTB team emerged not from some corporate edict but rather from a small group of very passionate folks working on Screamin’ Eagle Performance, which develops parts and accessories specifically designed to make your bike quicker, faster and more powerful. 

Harley-Davidson

Led by now HDMC team director Jason Kehl, this little incubator quietly — if anything involving motorcycles can be done quietly — began developing a prototype in his own garage. 

Fast forward a few years, and not only has corporate bought in, they’ve invested heavily in building up a highly competitive team to topple Indian, with some of the biggest bikes you can imagine.

Halo effect

How big? As Kehl explained to me, the minimum allowable dry weight of a KOTB race bike is 620 pounds. Contrast that with MotoGP, where the minimum weight is 346.1 lbs, and you can see we’re talking about a very different type of bike. 

What’s perhaps even wilder is the fact that the production bike Harley is working with is the majestically massive Road Glide, which has a dry weight closer to 820. 

A whole lot of blood, sweat and carbon fiber is involved in shaving 200 pounds off the thing — and in case you were wondering, the saddlebags are plastic shells, akin to the fake headlights on NASCAR vehicles.

Brian J. Nelson

The knock-on effect of these big rigs ripping around the track at near superbike speeds continues to ripple out, but one big thing I noticed taking a lap around the grounds yesterday was unmissable.

Even though this was a MotoAmerica event with lots of races, most involving sport bikes, there were a ton of big ol’ cruisers and touring bikes in the parking lot. 

You would not have seen that just five years ago, but, not unlike how the fictional Happy Gilmore sort of democratized pro golf fanhood, KOTB has brought in hordes of new fans who see their bikes on the track and want to join the party. 

(When I hesitantly made this observation to Aksland, he just chuckled and said, “yeah, if Happy Gilmore were real.”)

Harley-Davidson

Of course, what’s really cool for Harley is a return to “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” competitive racing, which has long been part of the brand’s heritage, in various forms, for well over a century. 

No matter how you feel about racing, one thing that can’t be denied is that competition drives innovation, which does indeed make its way from the racing bikes into the actual production models, resulting in a virtuous cycle — quite literally.

Trickle-down two-wheelers

This year, Harley has produced five different purchasable bikes with Road Glide in the name, and all five benefit in some way from what has been developed for KOTB.

At the highest end, you have the limited-edition Road Glide CVO RR that I wrote about back in March. This absolute beast is the closest you can get to what Wyman and company race on Sundays. 

Harley-Davidson

Carbon fiber bodywork helps to slim its running weight down to 785 pounds, and, like the race bikes, it has an actual pommel emerging from the gas tank. You know, for gripping with your thigh when the knee of your opposite leg is dragging on the track.

However, it’s not the only Road Glide with race-derived benefits. As Wyman’s teammate, 2025 MotoAmerica Super Hooligan champ James Rispoli told me, he actually owns a CVO Road Glide ST — which for him is more of a chill-out ride, of course.

One surprising thing Rispoli shared is that it’s not so much the speed of this bike that impresses, but the stopping power. As I’ve learned during my own track days, racers not only ride faster than anyone else, they brake harder too. 

Harley-Davidson

As Rispoli explained, what Harley has learned making a 620-pound race bike decelerate from triple digits to cornering speed in a heartbeat is making its way into your standard baggers. 

In other words, thanks in part to the victorious H-D KOTB crew, rather than being caught dead in racing leathers, you can live to Glide another day in your regular ATGATT kit.

Availability and pricing

The 2025 Harley-Davidson Road Glide is available now at a starting price of $27,999. The CVO Road Glide ST starts at $44,999.

Harley-Davidson

2025 Harley-Davidson Road Glide

• Starts at $27,999

Want to stay up to date on the latest product news and releases? Add Gear Patrol as a preferred source to ensure our independent journalism makes it to the top of your Google search results.

Related Topics