The Harley-Davidson Softail has one major deficiency—its tail isn’t soft. When the Harley engineers reintroduced the Softail, they designed it to look like the more popular Hardtail, which has no rear suspension at all. The tire, seat and your butt were the only things absorbing road shocks on the Hardtail. To make the bike look like a Hardtail, the Softail uses a triangular swing arm with twin reversed coil-overs. The problem with that arrangement is noticeable over a series of bumps, such as railroad tracks. Ride quality is fine over the first bump, but the shock/spring design isn’t quick enough to recover for the subsequent bump, and the bike gets very harsh, feeling as if it’s bottoming.
Harley owners have tried many fixes, such as increasing spring rates, but the fixes usually just make the ride stiffer. Enter the KT Components Sofspension. Noted race-car builder and Pro Stock driver Ken Thurm has gotten away from the straight, fast and narrow and swapped to two wheels, and one of the results of that change in interests is the Sofspension torsion-bar kit for Softails. The Sofspension replaces the stock dual shocks with a torsion bar and single-shock setup. The torsion bar mounts where the stock swing-arm pivot shaft used to be, and the shock mounts in place of one of the coil-overs. Why a torsion bar? In theory, a torsion bar can react much quicker than a spring, allowing it to rapidly control the swing arm over closely spaced bumps.
Another advantage to the KT suspension is adjustability, allowing the bike to be raised or lowered throughout the entire range of suspension movement, using only a 5/8-inch open-end wrench for adjustment. Three different torsion bars are available, depending on the application. The light version is for riding solo or occasionally double; the medium bar is for two riders with full saddlebags, and the heaviest bar is for extreme loads. The base price is $699.95; add another $99.95 for chrome parts. Thurm claims it can be bolted on by the average biker in about an hour.
