First, if he really put “millions” of miles on that trike, then it’s almost certainly not a Harley factory trike. I’m pretty sure Harley only recently started offering trike conversions from the factory. The strain of turning all the extra metal to drive the rear axle, and push all that extra weight from the wheels and frame of the trike conversion, would have to be at least as much as those flags would cause. If they have no problem with the load caused by a trike conversion, or a sidecar or similar, then there should be zero issue with a couple of flags.
Second, Harleys are so agricultural, I have a hard time believing that something so trivial could cause a clutch to fail unless there was legitimately something wrong with the clutch in the first place.
This is almost to BMW-dealership levels of “f$%&-you” customer-blaming.
I’d want to see the engineering calculations. Some rectangles of cloth following the wind are probably not going to have as much impact as the rider’s and bike’s own broadside.
You are correct.
Previously they only offered after-market trike conversions from the dealership and the individual *dealership* covered the bike itself, under warranty, not Harley.
Now, they have “Harley trikes” which are still after-market kits but they have “branded” the kits with their name and they theoretically warranty.
[it was Lehman, the Canadian company but they’ve switched yet again]
For almost $40K, you don’t get near the trike that we build for half that cost.
You are paying for the name.
Lots of our riding buddies have huge flags on their two-wheelers and have never had any “flag drag issues” other than the bike wiggling around in high crosswinds.
This should be a total non-issue with a trike.