Luxury Touring Shootout

You can see it in your mind as you daydream about it. Every inch of storage is loaded with all you’ll need for the next three days or three weeks. Whatever music gets your motor runnin’ is pumping from the CD player or satellite radio receiver. Your significant other may or may not be along for the ride, but if they are they’re perched comfortably in the armchair-like passenger accommodations.
Any cold weather you may encounter doesn’t bother you because your seat is heated at the flick of switch, and a big windscreen shields you from wind, rain and bugs. Getting lost doesn’t really worry you ‘cause you opted for the GPS system, and once you’re finally out on that long stretch of lonely interstate you can relax a little after setting the cruise control.

You’re on a road trip, the Great American Getaway. But are you in a car or on a bike? Judging from the above carefully chosen wording it’s hard to tell. Slippery wording aside, the truth is that we’re talking about motorcycles. And if we’re talking about motorcycles with such accoutrements, then we must be talking touring bikes!

Because touring is such an important part of the U.S. bike market, we wanted to get the best of what of each manufacturer had to offer. In light of that we went with a trio of luxury liners that are made in America, and we ordered them as loaded with options as we could get them. Let the trip begin…

Custom Vehicle Operations, or CVO for short, is a small collection of bikes gathered from Harley’s substantial array of motorcycles. This separate line-up usually consists of four bikes chosen from among the standard models, each receiving the hop-up treatment from a group of designers and engineers dedicated exclusively to the CVO line.

Each bike is a rolling display of many of the thousands of accessories available in the fabled Harley-Davidson Parts and Accessories Catalog. The bikes have rap sheets of chrome bits and custom accessories too long to list. Three available paint schemes that are unique to the CVO line, and truly are custom, receive hours of closely supervised painting and hand-laid pin-striping.