July 18 I rode a Street Glide across Italy last year. Normally you would associate Rome with scooters but I wanted to see how the big fella would cope in the melee.

I hadn’t taken into account how busy the capital is – how narrow the streets are and the cobble effect! Perhaps not surprisingly, I realised pretty soon that a Street Glide isn’t nimble enough for urban riding.

It can also be a bugger to get into neutral without practise and you need a big space to park up. The Harley is heavy to push about and there are no reverse gears on a motorbike (not this one, anyway).

The Italians loved the bike of course. And having sat nav takes the stress out of trying to locate your city centre hotel. I was even able to Bluetooth the directions  into my helmet system.

Luggage? Well, the Street Glide has two big panniers and with the pillion backrest in place there is a Harley bag that hangs off the back.

The Street Glide is really a grand tourer better suited to A-roads than motorways. But it’s a talking point wherever you ride it – and the Italians love a big motorbike…