When you’re considering buying a new bike, the dealership walks you through the usual numbers like MSRP and monthly payment while you weigh the horsepower per dollar. Frankly, these numbers are enough to return home that day. However, in reality, those are not the entire mathematics behind owning a motorcycle, as the costs that matter only emerge years later, during its maintenance, and especially when you are ready to part with the bike. And it makes sense, after all, that in the excitement of having a new motorcycle in the house, almost no one thinks that far ahead. Defining the purpose of your purchase should bring more cost considerations to the fore, and the touring motorcycle buyer is the one who usually keeps the higher numbers in mind.
Long term value is a separate consideration
Touring riders have a narrow-focused objective, rain or shine, of simply logging miles. The excitement of a new bike is still there, but gearing up for greater distances, fuel economy, and most importantly, a service schedule to keep that tourer rolling on the road are included by default. However, depreciation is the biggest expense in motorcycle ownership.
And almost no one budgets for it because it remains somewhat hidden until you post that bike for sale. Flipping the bike every couple of years makes the situation worse, as the steepest part of the depreciation curve is absorbed, thus paying again and again, with each purchase resetting the clock to its most expensive point. It’s the difference between a bike that rides smoothly and a bike that holds its value surprisingly well.
Touring bikes offer the best reward for that patience. They certainly cost the most when new, so more value is at stake, but the good ones reduce this gradually over time. Built to absorb miles, valued for character that doesn’t age, classic proportions that don’t age, and desired by buyers who prize proven ones, they remain steadfastly in demand among long-distance riders. It helps when a model has been on sale and barely changed for over thirty years, as parts remain abundant, and the look never goes out of fashion.
The Harley Road King debuted in the 90s and has been in production since
The Road King’s enduring design proves that true classics never fade
The Harley-Davidson Road King is a touring bike that refuses to lose its value
The bike that has served as the unsung hero of Harley’s touring lineup for three full decades is proof that some bikes offer more value than others. Introduced in 1994 to replace the Electra Glide Sport, the Road King took the full Touring chassis, removed the bulky front fairing, and left a clean, classic profile defined by a detachable windshield, a large chrome headlamp nacelle, and hard saddlebags. That classic bagger silhouette has barely changed since then, and there’s more than enough difference between the 2005 example as well as the 2022 example.
The Road King has sat near the top of Harley’s touring ladder for a long time, and while it may be the least wrong. No batwing or sharknose fairing, no touchscreen infotainment, no speaker arrays that failed for a decade, that’s the beauty of simplicity, and the Road King offers a great example of that. Riders who want long-range capability without full-dresser bulk have one of very few remaining options in the modern tech-heavy motorcycling world, and it’s the narrow, loyal demand that keeps resale value up. The current 2025 Road King Special is easy to overlook, but it carries the same old-school logic, is built on the proven Milwaukee-Eight 114, is priced at $24,999, and is designed in the same luxurious manner as its predecessors.
milwaukee-eight era vs twin cam years
Engine generations divided the used market with Road Kings from 1999 to 2016, which ran twin cams as 88 cubic-inches, 96 cubic-inches, and finally 103 cubic-inches. And after 2017, the Milwaukee-Eight was brought back to its 107 format, arriving on the 114 Special. Twin cam bikes are budget-friendly, plentiful on the market, have proven reliability and are affordable, although early examples require a careful eye on the cam-chain tensioner position.
Milwaukee-Eight bikes command a premium for their smoother, cooler-running, torquier character, and they’re the ones with the strongest values. One caveat sits right at the beginning of that era, where 2017 and 2018 bikes had an early oil-pump “sumping” problem that Harley fixed under warranty, so it’s worth confirming a verified fix when purchasing used.
How the Road King has evolved over the years
Buyers aren’t just paying for an engine, they’re paying for steady, sensible refinements of the model over the years As Harley said “If it ain’t broke why fix it?” For practice. The 2017 Milwaukee-Eight facelift was a big one, as it brought a chassis upgrade that the model was long overdue for. Showa dual-bending-valve front forks and easy-adjust rear shocks replace Harley’s older suspension units, as well as optional reflex-linked Brembo brakes with ABS.
Through it all, the Road King held its line with the detachable windshield, one-touch locking hard bags, six-gallon tank and fairing-free simplicity that has always defined it. That consistency in a model is the whole point, because a bike that makes improvements where it counts while staying true to its template makes a Harley built to last practically forever.
What is the price of a 7 year old Harley-Davidson Road King Special today?
Introduced in 2017, the Road King Special has remained largely unchanged since then and the 7-year-old model offers good value
What used prices and depreciation really look like over the years
The Road King depreciates just like every motorcycle does, but the shape of its depreciation curve is unusually kind to anyone who buys it and keeps it. As is the case with any new machinery, the steepest decline occurs in the first few years, when every new bike absorbs the hit to its value, after which the line flattens out and remains so for a remarkably long time. Clean, well-kept examples only begin to drop steeply in value once they cross the decade mark, which is when the oldest of them become one of the best used Harley Touring bargains of 2026. This means that a rider who keeps one for ten years ends up spending almost the entire useful life of the bike on the lightest part of the money-losing curve.
The numbers support the theory. The trade-in value of a 2017 Road King in good condition is around $8,430, and a 2017 with 8,100 miles listed is $12,500. Look back far enough, and early, highest-mileage examples slip into the bottom of the used Harley touring bike range at prices under $5,000, while later, lower-mileage bikes reach around $19,000, while the market-wide average hovers closer to $14,000. Supply is deep rather than scarce, with over a thousand listed nationally at any given time, yet prices remain stable, a sign that demand is keeping pace with availability rather than simply flooding the market. Buy the right one, keep it, because why would you ever trade in a Road King?
Source: Harley Davidson, K.B.B., bicycle dealer
