Yesterday and today I noticed a strange scraping noise from the rear of my Ultra Limited, and was thinking grit in the brake, or possibly a bearing going as every time I looked there was nothing. Then when pushing back I heard a clunk and spotted this.
Looks like the rim that holds the drive belt on. My local Harley shop is 16 miles away - is this safe to ride there? Or is this a big no?
Considering I did 50 miles over the last two days on it and I don't think the noise had got worse...
The answer is: It depends.
The ring which came off is the guide for the belt. You can see the belt is ~1/2 way on the cog. It might stay there on the short trip to the dealership. It might not. That's your gamble. If it does come off, you run the risk of damaging the drive belt as well as locking up the back tire. A drive belt isn't very expensive in the grand scheme of things, however, bike riders should know if a tire locks up, you lose the gyro-stabilization of that tire, which means you lose control of the bike. I don't know about you, but I'm not fond of road rash (I'm assuming most people are not ... but there are a few people out there who might ... ;-).
Realistically, you need to put your bike on a trailer and take it to the shop. It's the safest/surest way of getting it there without issue.
