Added A Sissy Bar And Backrest To My Road King Classic

After taking my wife and my mother for a ride on the back of my 2009 Road King Classic on the 3rd of July, we all realized that two-up riding is fun.

For those of us who are in the drivers seat - me - it's more fun.

For those of us who are trying to stay on the passenger pillion without slipping off the back - my mother, wife and anyone else who happened to jump on - it's not as much fun so much as a terrifying.

I'd imagine that slipping off the back of a motorcycle that's going about 40-50 miles per hour would be very bad.

So the consensus is that passengers would feel much more secure riding if they either had something to hold onto, or if they had some kind of backrest that would keep them from flying off the back of the bike when it got moving. I, on the other hand, did not want to have something permanently bolted to my bike. I like the looks of the solo seat too much.

To that end, the wife and I drove over to Dillon Harley here in Omaha to see what we could buy to address the problem satisfactorily.

After talking with Dan Von Seggern at the Dillon Brothers Harley parts counter and explaining to him what we needed, Dan pointed us to part numbers 52627-09 and 52886-98c.

52627-09 is a Harley-Davidson brand detachable, standard-sized sissy bar that fits Harley's touring motorcycles, such as my 2009 Road King Classic.

52886-98c is a Harley-Davidson brand smooth passenger backrest pad that conveniently comes with the hardware required to bolt onto the detachable sissy bar mentioned above.

If you order the 52886-98c smooth passenger backrest pad from here, be aware that it will not look like the picture shown on Amazon. It will look like it does in the pictures shown below:

Once I put together the detachable sissy bar and passenger backrest combo, a process which took all of 5 minutes with an appropriately-sized allen wrench, I took it outside to my bike and put it on.

Fortunately, when I ordered my bike, I had them put on the Harley-Davidson 4-Point Docking Hardware Kit - which is part number 54205-09, for your convenience should you decide to order it for yourself.

I would highly recommend getting that kit when you order your bike, however, as it makes attaching and detaching hardware designed for it incredibly easy, even if you have no actual mechanical aptitude yourself.

Here are pictures of the end result:

The seating for the passenger was now, according to my wife and my mother, comfortable.

Even babies like it.

Since the whole setup is designed for the passenger on your motorcycle to keep their balance and not feel like they're going to fall off every time you accelerate off a green light, I put it to the test with my mother, who volunteered to be a crash test dummy.

After taking mom for a quick spin around the block, she pronounced the new passenger seating to be "just about perfect," with the only thing missing being a cupholder of some kind.

The cupholder thing will not happen. She will have to deal.

Here's the mileage of the ride we took, before and after:

If you decide to buy this setup for your own bike, take care to pay attention to the installation instructions. You connect the black front brackets on the sissy bar to the black bracket holders located to the immediate inside position of your rear shocks. Once you locate these (picture/other side), which can be a bit difficult if you haven't had your saddlebags off, installation is a snap.

Taking it all off takes less than 2 minutes. Putting it all on takes less than 4.

Overall, I would say that the detachable sissy bar and passenger backrest combo is a worthwhile purchase for anyone with a Road King or Road King Classic that plans on taking anyone for a ride.

Here are more sissy bars available for sale on eBay:

And here are more passenger backrests for sale on eBay: