2024 Harley Davidson X440

The Harley-Davidson X440 is the most affordable bike that the American motorcycle maker has ever made. It was developed in collaboration with Hero MotoCorp and is even manufactured in Hero’s plant in Neemrana, Rajasthan. Unlike other Harley-Davidson motorcycles which all use V-twin engines, the X440 is a simple, air-cooled single-cylinder motorcycle that has been designed to compete in the burgeoning 400cc motorcycle market in India. It is, in fact, the most affordable Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the world at the moment.

When it was first introduced in India back in 2023, it caused quite a bit of stir among Indian biking enthusiasts. A lot of people perceived an “affordable” Harley-Davidson to be “cheap”, but that can’t be further from the truth. I’ve had the chance to ride the X440 quite a few times on different roads in India. In fact, I’ve also used an X440 as my personal long-term test bike for a couple of months in Pune, where I clocked about 2000km on it, riding it on my daily commute as well as taking it out for longer rides from Pune to Mumbai and the surrounding areas.

Harley-Davidson X440 design

Unlike other Harley-Davidson motorcycles, the X440 might appear quite compact. But when compared to other retro-styled motorcycles in India, the X440 certainly has a sizable presence on the road. The design is flat-tracker inspired and pays homage to Harley’s bigger bikes like the XR1200. And it’s got all the typical Harley design traits as well, such as the turtle-shaped fuel tank, the minimal body panels, round headlight, the 18-inch front and 17-inch rear wheels with chunky tyres, round headlight and minimal taillight.

What I really like about this design is that it doesn’t feel like a generic motorcycle with a Harley-Davidson badge. It looks like a proper Harley from all angles, and it feels really premium too, with a chunky upside down fork, metal tank and fenders and its exposed trellis frame. The round LED headlight screams modern-day Harley-Davidson too, with an LED DRL strip running across the middle and circular LED elements.

Harley-Davidson X440 build quality

The X440 feels quite solidly built too. The paint finish is great and the welds on the chassis are also quite clean. In all my experience with it, I never encountered any rattles or loose parts on the bike. That said, I had received my long-term test X440 with only 4500km on the odometer, and it had a badly loose cone set. But the same bike had been ridden in Ladakh extensively before I got my hands on it, and might have been abused badly on broken roads, which might have been the root cause of that loose cone set. There are some bits on the X440 that don’t feel as premium though. Some of the plastics around the instrument console feel a bit cheap, and personally, I feel  that the exhaust is just too plain looking.

Harley-Davidson X440 colours

The X440 is available in 7 colours - Industrial Yellow, Gray Haze, Redline Red, Goldfish Silver, Mustard, Baja Orange and Vivid Black across 3 variants - Denim, Vivid and S. My favourite colour among these is Baja Orange, as the orange tank and fenders beautifully contrast against the blacked out engine, exhaust and underpinnings. Plus the machine finish on the alloy wheels and engine cooling fins looks quite premium.

Harley-Davidson X440 Safety Features

Safety-wise, the X440 only gets dual-channel ABS as standard. There are no other safety features such as traction control, which is offered on the Honda CB350. The top-end S variant with eSim connectivity also get an emergency SOS button (under a safety flap) on the right switchcube, which can send a message with your location to the company’s roadside assistance service.

Harley-Davidson X440 Convenience Features

All variants of the X440 get a circular instrument console which houses a 3.5-inch rectangular colour TFT screen which displays all necessary information such as a digital tachometer, speedometer, odometer and tripmeters. This console features Bluetooth connectivity too for call and message alerts as well as turn-by-turn navigation. That said, the top S variant gets eSim connectivity for connected features such as vehicle tracking, geo-fencing and remote immobilisation.

My main gripes with this console are the fact that the screen itself is too small, making some of the text difficult to read. Also, the shape of the screen really leaves a lot of negative space in the circular instrument pod, making it feel a bit cheap. And the screen is not particularly readable under bright sunlight. I even found the controls for this screen, located on the left switch cube, quite unintuitive to use. And the switchgear quality itself should’ve been better. As it stands, it’s just about ok and doesn’t feel particularly tactile when using motorcycle gloves. The X440 also gets a USB charging port between the instrument console and handlebar. While I appreciated having the option to charge my phone on the move, it’s a USB-A port, not Type C, and the port itself is quite hard to reach.

Harley-Davison X440 Rider comfort

The X440 has a large single-piece seat with a fairly large scooped out section for the rider. The seat itself is quite wide, slightly firm, and even for my slightly heavy build of 80kg, offered great support for long rides. Thanks to a tall and wide handlebar, along with mid-set footpegs, the X440 offers a very neutral riding position. I found this position very comfortable for city as well as highway riding, but the moment I tried to have some fun in the corners, the riding position felt a bit awkward. The seat height is a fairly low 805mm, and with my height of 5’9”, I could easily flatfoot the bike. And even though the X440 is a bit wide, my shorter colleagues, who were 5’5” and 5’6” felt quite comfortable getting both their feet on the ground.

Harley-Davison X440 Pillion comfort

The pillion section of the X440’s seat is a bit on the smaller side, but does offer decent padding. And because the pillion section isn’t raised too high, even shorter pillions will easily be able to get on and off the seat. The only issue here is that the pillion footpegs are set a bit high, and many of my pillions complained after long rides that the knees-up seating position was getting uncomfortable for them.

Harley-Davidson X440 Engine

The X440 has a fairly simple 440cc single-cylinder, 2-valve, air-and-oil cooled engine which makes 27PS of maximum power and 38Nm of maximum torque. This is not a high revving, high performance engine which makes a lot of power. But it does provide sufficient torque for easy city and highway riding.

Harley-Davidson X440 City Performance

The X440’s engine makes a lot of torque and low-rpm, which makes city riding quite easy. That said, it’s not the most tractable engine in its class. It could manage just about 40kmph in 5th gear, but I had to be really smooth with the throttle at these speeds to prevent the engine from juddering. The clutch action is decently light too, but the span of the clutch lever is quite long. Even with my XL sized hands, I struggled a little bit with the clutch in stop-and-go traffic. What I enjoyed most about this engine in the city though was its exhaust note. Harley-Davidson has really worked its magic in tuning that exhaust to almost sound like a V-twin and the way it burbled even with small throttle openings was just addictive for me.

Harley-Davidson X440 Highway performance

Just because it has a 440cc engine doesn’t mean that the X440 can manage very high speeds on the highway. In fact, 90kmph in 6th gear is the sweet spot for cruising on the highway. On occasion, I did ride much faster than that, but at around 100kmph, there were distinct vibrations on the handlebar, seat and footpegs. Every time I would ride at 100kmph for a slightly longer duration on the highway, my hands would inevitably start tingling. So if you’re planning to go touring on the X440, I would recommend sticking between 90 and 100kmph. On top of that, both 5th and 6th gears are overdrive gears, and don’t provide too much acceleration for passing traffic at highway speeds. So for making quick overtakes, I would generally need to shift down a gear or two. And this is more of a personal gripe, but the exhaust note, which sounds fantastic in short bursts, got a little annoying for me at higher speeds.

Harley-Davidson X440 Gearbox

The X440 gets a 6-speed gearbox with a slipper clutch. When I rode a brand new X440, the gearbox was quite smooth, but had fairly long throws. However, my long-term test bike which came to me with 4500km on the odometer had a really hard gearbox, which made shifting both up and down a very tiring experience.

Harley-Davidson X440 Mileage

During my daily commutes to work and back (a 40km journey in total), I would always get a mileage of around 29-30kmpl. On my longer highway rides, I’ve seen a mileage of 33-34kmpl regularly. Considering the size of the engine and the bike’s heavy weight, I think these mileage figures are pretty decent. With its 13.5 litre fuel tank, I could easily ride about 300-350km before I needed to refuel.

Harley-Davidson X440 Underpinnings

The X440 is built around a trellis frame and has a 43mm upside down fork from KYB, and twin gas-charged preload-adjustable shocks at the rear. It’s running with an 18-inch front and a 17-inch rear wheel with MRF Zapper Hyke tyres.

Harley-Davidson X440 City Handling

With a kerb weight of 194.5kg, the X440 definitely feels a bit heavy at slow speeds, but it’s not unmanageable by any means. It does have a slightly wide turning radius, so whenever I was in heavy traffic, navigating around slower vehicles was a bit of a task. And I could especially feel the bike’s weight when trying to take U-turns on narrow roads. But thanks to its low centre-of-gravity, once I got moving, the weight stopped being a concern and riding through medium-speed traffic was a very relaxing experience. 

Harley-Davison X440 Highway handling

Out on the highway, the X440 feels really composed, even when you’re at triple-digit speeds. Changing lanes at highway speeds did take slightly more effort at the handlebar initially, but once I got used to its handling characteristics, it felt completely at home on the highway. That said, around fast corners on the highway, the X440’s tyres felt a bit lacking in grip. The grip levels were fine as long as I was taking it a bit easy, but the moment I started pushing hard, my confidence levels dropped a little. Then again, the X440 is designed more for straight line cruising rather than corner carving.

Harley-Davison X440 Braking

The X440 gets a 320mm disc brake at the front and 240mm disc at the rear. I really wish the front brake lever had a little less travel, and would start engaging the brake as soon as I started squeezing the lever. But once I squeezed the lever hard enough, the braking came in fast and strong, to the point where it would overwhelm the front tyre’s grip on concrete roads. Thankfully, the standard dual-channel ABS does a good job of keeping the tyres from locking and skidding under hard braking.

Harley-Davison X440 Ride Quality

The X440’s front suspension is set up a bit on the softer side. At slow speeds, I found that it absorbed pretty much anything on the road quite well, whether I was riding over bumps, potholes or particularly nasty rumble strips. But the moment I hit a sharp bump with a little speed, the front suspension would bottom out, sending a jolt up my arms, reminding me to slow down. The rear suspension on the other hand is set up a bit on the firmer side and while I could feel bumps through the seat, it never felt jarring. However, as soon as I had a pillion sitting behind me, the ride quality at the rear would get much better.

The best thing about the Harley-Davidson X440 is that it doesn't feel like a random bike rebadged with the Harley-Davidson logo. It genuinely feels like a proper baby Harley-Davidson that offers good performance, solid build, decent comfort and fantastic soundtrack from the exhaust. Sure, it's not the most feature-loaded bike in the segment, nor the sportiest, but it does what a Harley should - it makes you feel like a boss when you ride. If you’ve always wanted to buy a Harley-Davidson, but most of their bikes were out of reach, the X440 is a great option. But if you want more performance or more features, you should look elsewhere.

Harley-Davison X440 vs Royal Enfield Classic 350

The Classic 350 has a much more charming retro design compared to the Harley, but doesn’t offer features like Bluetooth or eSim connectivity as standard. The Harley also offers more performance than the Royal Enfield.

Harley-Davison X440 vs Honda CB350

The Honda is a lot smoother and more feature-rich than the Harley, but falls a little behind in performance. And in my personal opinion, the CB350’s design looks like a rip-off of the RE Classic 350, whereas the X440 looks quite original and stunning. Plus you can’t really beat that Harley-Davidson badge when it comes to bragging rights.