So this will be my one and only Harley Defender post. I DO NOT like the company called Harley Davidson for many reasons (Eric Buell's treatment comes to mind). I love Harleys. Very much. I've owned only two of them in my life - a 96 1200 Sportster sport model, and an 06 RoadKing Custom model, but both did their jobs extremely well. Both were super reliable.
The image of a greaseball Harley rider wrenching his shovelhead on the side of the road is 35 years out of date. My bullet proof Sportster went over 100 THOUSAND miles before I destroyed the engine getting cute and looking for 1400cc of displacement - it would have gone much further had I just left it alone. I took it on a 5000 mile cross country trip by myself that was absolutely epic.
The road king was superb at what it was meant to do - go somewhere far away in comfort, but still be a daily rider. It didn't corner for ****, it wanted to run at 70 mph all day and didn't really appreciate anything over 85, but 600-700 mile days were easy with me and the wife on back (I don't do iron butts - not my thing). I sold it after three years and 60 thousand trouble free miles because I still owed money on it and I was starting a business and didn't need the monthly expense (Still had 2 other bikes in the garage at the time). I regret it terribly.
While I demand reliability, I like more than performance on motorcycles, I like character - one of the reasons I am forever stuck lusting after bikes from the early 80's - they all had character! Harley's have character. (This Connie has character - I'm just not sure yet exactly what it is...lol)
I'll sum it up like this - of all the bikes I've ever owned (2 Kawis, 2 Hondas, 3 Yamahas, and 2 Harleys), the Sportster is my favorite all around bike - A Harley Davidson. I love all types, all brands, all styles of motorcycle, and all have flaws, but Harley gets unfairly treated, IMHO, because of the history of the MoCo itself, and the history of the Harley culture, not the bikes.
Now, as to the original idea about twins - I'm a "V" fan and a thumper fan. Only my 2 Kawi's were inline engines. My Honda's were an '86 V-twin shadow and an '84 V4 Magna (WHAT A BIKE!). My Yamaha's, are two '78 SR500 thumpers (can not tell you how cool these bikes are!) and a V4 '85 Venture Royal. And, of course, 2 Harley's. I'm extremely interested in the new Indians and I've looked a Victory bikes several times over the last few years.
In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy, "I love torque. Torquie torque torque." The biggest challenge to the Connie is re-learning to keep the rpms ABOVE 4 grand instead of under 4 grand...lol