www.ATVPT.com

My Impressions:

Pros:

New color scheme.

Fully adjustable rear shocks & front forks.

Larger front brakes.

Blacked out engine & exhaust.

Cons:

Still no gas gauge, but the fuel light does give you some warning that you need fuel right away.

Bottom Line:

Last year we did a ride review on the Harley Davidson XR100, and we were very impressed with that version of the bike, but we wanted to get our hands on the Euro version but it wasn't available in the USA at that time. 2011 brought the Euro version to us in the form of the XR1200X, and this model had most of the goodies that was on the Euro model last year.

Key features on the XR1200X are the fully adjustable front forks and rear shocks, larger front brakes, blacked out exhausts, and blacked out engine.

The cosmetics give this bike a more of a 50's era hot rod look, especially the Black Denim finish paint that we have on our bike. Combined with the blacked out exhausts, engine, and wheels, this color combo sets this bike off very well. I have had many good comments about how well this bike looks already, and a lot from long time Harley Riders, and that is big in my book!

My favorite feature is how many setting you have for your forks and rear shocks. This suspension set up is stellar and is very easy to tune. We rode the bike home from Milwaukee and with a few short pit stops to make suspension adjustments, we had the bike dialed in before we made it to Escanaba Michigan, a distance of 243 miles. The bike rides and performs very well on the open highway, but really comes into it's own when the road turns twisty. Being able to adjust the riding stance to open road, or dialing in the suspension to tackle the twisties takes very little effort, and can be done in minutes after you have learned how the system works. My advice is ride it, and adjust it to your riding style as you go, like we did on the way home from Milwaukee.

We received the bike with very very low miles, so the bike is getting broken in while we have it, so gas mileage is down a little from last years bike. It could also be because I cannot get out of the throttle, but this bike just wants to play, so who can resist that. I am getting right around 40 miles to the gallon for all around riding right now, and I bet you as soon as we get a few more miles on this bike it will improve some. The specs say roughly 38 city to 53 highway, and I know we will get very close to that. We have a ride coming up with the PGR from Escanaba to marquette, and I will be riding at constant highway speeds, so this should give me a chance to average out the gas mileage and see how well it is doing then. By the time we have that ride I should have about 700 miles on the bike this week, Yes I am riding everyday

One thing you get when you purchase this bike is a bike that feels at home in the city, rockin through the twisties or rolling down the highway, it just makes any ride you go on fun & enjoyable. In my opinion this is the most nimble Harley Davidson that I have every rode, and I am thoroughly enjoying doing the ride review on this machine. I feel that despite the fact that this is a 1200cc machine, it is very forgiving, and you will have to do something really stupid to make this bike misbehave for you. The power delivery is very smooth, but has great bottom end torque, and is very easily handled by most people that have some riding skill.

So far the XR1200X is rockin the stable here at ATVPT, and I feel Harley Davidson has done exactly the correct thing by upgrading last years XR1200 to the XR1200X model.

Note:

This review is strictly about my initial ride impressions, and doesn't in anyway reflect a long term review. For a long term review we need to have the vehicle here to ride for a period of 6 months to a year. That is the only way we can determine effectively if the bike will hold up to long term driving without any long term maintenance issues.