PackRat. Tell us your demo experience on the Roadmaster? Top heavy, balanced, smooth, what??? dying to hear what you got to say. I've put my deposit on a red-cream on in Indianapolis, but I haven't had a chance to ride one. I did ride the '14 Chieftain though and loved it.
First of all it is heavy. You really feel it taking it off the stand and a bit in the corners, but other than that it is well balanced with a low center of gravity, not top heavy. Like all tourers I expect if you load up the trunk you'd feel it more. The trunk is a quick release, so you can turn into a Chieftain (sort of) in a few seconds, and you can tuck away the trunk wires into a little pouch on the back seat.
The fit an finish was very good. I did notice a bit of a gap between the rear speaker grill and the trunk, but otherwise everything was top notch. The chrome just pops (especially on the black Roadmaster) and there's plenty of it. The hidden wires are nice, and the radio/cruise controls integrate very well.
The seat is sweet. Very cushy and comfy. My wife fell in love with her accommodations, loves the plush seat and the wrap around trunk backrest. The Polaris/Indian rep said they spent a lot of time on passenger comfort, more than any other production bike. I like that the seat is leather and hopefully they have fixed the fading problems from last year's bikes. The seat is definitely higher than the Chieftain and I felt I had more room (I'm 5'9"). I'd still want highway pegs as I like to stretch out on long rides. Even with the higher seat I was flat footed when holding the bike up. I don't know how much air pressure they had in the shock or how much travel there would be when pressured all the way up, but we had no issues with whatever setting they gave us.
The windshield was ok. I like that you can move it, but when heading west in the morning, the sun behind me reflected off the tank/handlebar chrome and onto the windshield all distorted. It was distracting, but I could move the windshield lower and very easily see over it. It was a bit warm so the wind was welcome for me, but the wife said it was pretty windy. I raised it again going east and didn't experience any bad reflections.
The handlebars are moved just a bit from last years Chieftain. I think they angled the grips back a bit. I don't know if that will carry over to the 2015 Chieftain (and I didn't look/try a 2015 Chieftain that day), but they were comfortable for me.
The controls were easy to use, and the 200W stereo is nice. I cranked it up and could hear well at highway speeds, and the quality was excellent for a motorcycle audio system. The gear indicator works with the clutch in (unlike my Victory). The multi-function display was VERY hard to read in the sunlight, and my polarized glasses didn't help. You can control the brightness and 100% brightness didn't help. I didn't get a chance to try out the cruise control.
The Thunderstroke engine is awesome. So much torque, it's amazing, definitely stronger than the Freedom 106 on my Victory. The sound of the engine is great too. I'm not a loud pipe guy (did that for years and it screwed up my hearing) but I bet it sounds awesome with an opened up exhaust. It was smooth in every gear, smooth at idle when stopping, smooth accelerating. I tried to lug it and couldn't. I plan on getting the open air cleaner and stage 1 pipes to get a bit more out of the engine, because that's what we do! The throttle by wire is a bit annoying, as I felt disconnected from the engine and there's a very tiny lag between twisting the throttle and a response from the engine. Most people probably won't even notice and I'm sure I'd get used to it. The transmission shifts literally as smooth as butter, very impressive. I found myself wondering why they put 6th gear on it because I was cruising at 80mph in 5th with no real need to shift.
We were lucky enough to have our demo go through a bit of a canyon, so I had the opportunity to push it through the twisties with my passenger on board. The bike handled very well, and while the total weight of the bike was noticeable (compared to when I rode the Chieftain solo), there was no problem bringing it down close to dragging the floorboards (I didn't and usually don't on a bike I'm unfamiliar with). I felt more confident wringing the Roadmaster through the canyon than I did the Scout, but I'm sure that's just a personal thing. The Scout is much much lighter but I didn't like the Scout's fat tire up front.
The trunk is larger than it looks on photos, VERY deep and has a tall lid. The carpet lining and LED light were a nice touch. I can't remember how many times I fumbled for things at night in the trunk of my Vic.
We didn't ride at night so I didn't get to see how well the LED lighting system works, but EVERY light on the Roadmaster is LED, which means zero maintenance and no real worry about a light burning out. I did check out the visibility from the rear when I rode the Scout (I was in front of the pack when I demo'd the Roadmaster). Very visible, and the trunk LED's really help bring the brake lights into the field of vision. The turn signals on the fairing are huge and easily noticeable, just like the Chieftain.
I didn't like that the compartments in the lowers didn't lock, but I looked on the inside and they have the same pre-printed cutout lines for locks, just like on my Victory. In fact it looks like the exact same setup, and I think the Victory locks would fit right in. For the Victory, you just take the little doors off and dremel out along the pre-printed lines, put the locks in, and you're good to go.
The lowers had 2 adjustable panels on each side to control airflow. I fiddled with it a bit and there's probably a setting that is best, but I didn't have time to find out. The setup is ok, but I don't think it's as good as the wind management on the Victory. On the standard air cleaner there's a duct to direct airflow to the engine. Eavesdropping on some conversations, supposedly the Roadmaster runs cooler than the Chieftain due to that little duct in combination with the lowers.
The hardest part was deciding which color we liked best. We put the deposit on a red one, but may switch to black. Yeah, I know about black bikes, but the black Roadmaster sure was pretty.