In Hello Lowrider, I said I thought the Harley and I were going to get along just fine.

That was based on a few short rides, a lot of staring at it in the garage, and the completely unbiased opinion of a man who had just bought a shiny motorcycle with his initials on the number plate.

This weekend was the proper test.
Two days.
Two very different rides.
One Harley-Davidson Low Rider.

And one slightly rusty rider attempting to remember how all this motorcycle business works.

Saturday: Raglan, because apparently I ride motorcycles again

Saturday was my first proper solo outing on the Low Rider.

The destination was Raglan — close enough to Hamilton to be an easy ride, but far enough away to feel like I had actually gone somewhere. Raglan sits about 45 minutes west of Hamilton, surrounded by coastline, bush, black-sand beaches and some fairly spectacular scenery.

More importantly, the road to Raglan has corners.
Lots of corners.

The sort of corners that quietly ask:

“So… do you actually remember how to ride this thing?”

The answer, at the start of the day, was:

“Mostly.”

I was still getting used to the Low Rider. The weight. The steering. The relaxed riding position. The big lump of Milwaukee-Eight torque sitting underneath me, waiting for the slightest excuse to shove the whole operation down the road.

A Harley does not feel like a sports bike.
A sports bike feels like it wants you to attack every corner, tuck yourself behind the screen and pretend there is a trophy waiting outside the Raglan Four Square.

The Low Rider feels different.
It rolls into a corner with a kind of deliberate confidence. No panic. No fuss. Just point it where you want to go, keep everything smooth, and let the torque pull you out the other side.

I began the ride concentrating very hard on everything.

Road position.
Speed.
Braking.
Corner entry.
Where I was looking.
Whether my indicators had cancelled.
Whether I still looked cool.

The answer to that final question remains unclear. 😂

By the time I reached Raglan, though, everything had started to settle down.

My shoulders had dropped.
My hands had loosened.
I had stopped trying to consciously operate every individual part of the motorcycle.

The old instincts were beginning to come back.

Not all at once. More like a computer slowly restoring from an eight-year-old backup.

A few files were missing.
Some settings were definitely wrong.
But the important stuff still seemed to be there.

And the bike looked absolutely magnificent parked beside the water.

Black paint.
Red tank detail.
Chrome everywhere.

The ridiculously tidy PW NZ plate hanging off the back.

It looked exactly like the sort of motorcycle that belonged in Raglan — although perhaps slightly more leather and significantly less barefoot surfing.

A stop at Manu Bay

From Raglan, I headed out towards Manu Bay.

Manu Bay is one of Raglan’s famous surf spots, known for its long left-hand break and its appearance in the classic surf film The Endless Summer. Also, this year it hosted a 2026 World Surf League (WSL) Championship round!

I did not surf.
Obviously.
I arrived wearing a leather jacket, cowboy boots and enough protective equipment to survive being fired from a small cannon.

Instead, I parked up, looked out at the water and enjoyed the very satisfying feeling of having nowhere else I needed to be.

This is one of the things I had forgotten about riding.

The destination matters, but not as much as the bit between destinations.

You can drive to Raglan in a car and arrive warm, comfortable and completely unaware of every change in temperature, road surface and wind direction.

On a motorcycle, you experience all of it.

The cool air coming over the hills.
The smell of the countryside.
The West Coast wind trying to move your head six centimetres to the left.
The occasional insect committing suicide against your jacket.

You are not merely travelling through the landscape. You are being lightly assaulted by it.

And it is excellent.

To be fair, Shelly the Classic Mini also does something special when a country road is involved.

Naturally, I also took the compulsory helmet selfie.

Because there is no point owning a Harley, a black leather jacket and a personalised number plate unless photographic evidence exists.

Saturday had been exactly what I needed.

A solo ride.
No pressure.
No timetable.

Just me, the Low Rider and enough corners to start waking up all the riding muscles and instincts that had apparently been hibernating for several years.

Which was fortunate.

Because Sunday was going to be slightly more serious.

Sunday: Going for Gold

On Sunday, I joined a Pro Rider Ride Forever Gold course.

The Gold course is advanced, full-day coaching for experienced, fully licensed riders. It covers fundamentals such as emergency braking, hazard awareness and slow-speed control, then develops advanced vision, cornering and roadcraft skills over open highways and challenging back roads. It as an eight-hour day that covers more than 200 kilometres.

In other words:

This was not a gentle ride to a café followed by an extended discussion about tyre pressures.
This was a proper day on the bike.

There was a good mixture of machinery in the group.

Sports bikes.
Adventure bikes.
Touring bikes.
BMWs.
Suzukis.
And, sitting among them with chrome shining in the sun, the sole Harley-Davidson.

The motorcycle equivalent of turning up to an athletics meeting wearing cowboy boots.
Oh, yeah, I was wearing cowboy boots!

At the start of the day, I was stiff.
Really stiff.
My arms were tense, my shoulders were tight and I was holding the handlebars as though someone might attempt to steal them while I was riding.

Every corner felt like a small project requiring planning permission, a risk assessment and several meetings.

I knew what I was supposed to be doing.

Look through the corner.
Stay relaxed.
Be smooth - smooth is fast, and fast is smooth.
Use good road position.
Do not stare at the piece of road you are trying to avoid.

But knowing something and actually doing it are two very different things.
Especially when a professional instructor is riding behind you, watching everything.

Suddenly you become intensely aware of every movement.

Was that the correct line?
Did I brake too early?
Did I turn in too late?
Was that smooth?

But kilometre by kilometre, things started improving.
The stiffness disappeared, my hands relaxed, and my shoulders loosened.

I began looking farther through the bends instead of studying the road directly in front of the bike.

The Low Rider started flowing.

That big, heavy Harley was no longer something I was carefully escorting around corners.
We were working together. 💖

I would set the line, look through the bend, give it a little throttle and feel the whole bike settle.
Then the Milwaukee-Eight would deliver that wonderful low-down shove on the exit.

No screaming engine.
No frantic gear changes.

Just:

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

And away we went.

The big Harley starts moving

As the day continued, my confidence grew.

Not stupid confidence.
Not "I have watched three MotoGP videos and am now internationally competitive" confidence.

Useful confidence.

The sort that comes from being smoother, seeing farther ahead and understanding that going quickly is often less about aggression and more about doing fewer things badly.

The Low Rider did not surprise me.

It is a big motorcycle.
It has plenty of weight.
It has long chrome exhausts, mid controls and absolutely no interest in pretending to be a lightweight race machine.

But when everything is smooth, it can move.

By the afternoon, I was properly enjoying myself.

The corners linked together.
The bike felt settled.
My body was moving naturally again.

The stiffness from the beginning of the day had gone, replaced by that familiar rhythm where you stop fighting the motorcycle and simply ride it.

And then came the comment.

One of the sports-bike riders looked at me and said:

“Oh, I had to work a little harder to keep up with you.”

Now, I am not saying this immediately became the most important sentence ever spoken in the history of motorcycling.

But I am also not saying it didn’t.

Here I was on a Harley-Davidson Low Rider — chrome exhausts, relaxed riding position, cowboy boots — and the sports-bike riders were having to put in a little extra effort.

Did I remain calm and dignified?
Externally, yes.

Internally, I was standing on a podium while fireworks exploded and an eagle flew overhead carrying a PW NZ banner.
And I text Matt of course 😝

Back home, slightly less rusty

By the end of Sunday, I was tired.
A full day concentrating on riding properly uses far more energy than simply sitting on a motorcycle and making engine noises.

But I also felt dramatically better than I had at the beginning of the weekend.

The bike felt more familiar.
My riding felt smoother.
My confidence had returned without turning into stupidity.

And the Low Rider had proven that it could do far more than cruise between cafés looking shiny.

It could handle a full day of technical riding.
It could hustle through corners.
It could keep the sports bikes honest.

And it could still look fantastic parked outside the house afterwards.

Back home, it joined the rest of the completely sensible vehicle collection.

The Harley.
The classic Mini.
The expedition truck.

Three vehicles with personalised plates, excessive character and very little interest in being anonymous.

Perfect. 😇

Ride Forever

My first full weekend back on a Harley gave me exactly what I wanted.

Saturday was about remembering why I loved riding.
Sunday was about learning how to do it better.

At the beginning of the weekend, I was still treating the Low Rider like a large, expensive object I was responsible for transporting safely.

By the end, it felt like my motorcycle.

The stiffness had gone.
The old instincts were coming back.
The corners were flowing.
And apparently, the sports-bike riders had to work a little harder.

I am definitely not going to become unbearable about that.

Probably.

So yes, the Low Rider and I are getting along just fine.

I am completely, hopelessly back into motorcycles.

Ride Forever.

Or at least until it starts raining heavily and I remember how much chrome I have to clean.

FUCK YEAH. 🤘