July 11, 2000
By Dave Abrahams

Before choppers, cruisers and customs, motorcycles were just motorcycles. Before Willie G Davidson made greasy leather a fashion statement, bikes had footboards for comfort and wide bars for control. There were a few golden years after the Depression when riding a motorcycle was good clean fun, when the bikes all had springer forks and no rear suspension because nobody knew any different..

Hollister changed all that, with considerable assistance from Hollywood, and, as American bikers withdrew into their own sub-culture, so did the bikes.

Perhaps it was inevitable that Harley Davidson, the first motorcycle manufacturer to give nostalgia a part number, would recognise the appeal of that naive pre-War mindset and market it.

They already had all the ingredients: the "hardtail" look had become important enough in the custom field for the Motor Company to develop a frame that looked rigid but wasn't, with its underslung suspension hidden under the gearbox. Leading-link "springer" forks, so-called because the springs are in full view at the top, were still available on the thriving US aftermarket, and the deeply valenced mudguards were current on the Road King models, along with foot-boards and 1930's-style riding lights. Add a low-slung tasselled saddle (not a seat!), fishtail pipes, whitewall tyres and a trio of high-mounted lights and you get something that looks like it came out of a vintage Chesterfield advert.



But the final touch had to be the colour scheme; bad-ass bikes are black, right? So the Heritage Springer comes in the palest cream with royal blue accent stripes, a colour that looks as if it were mixed for a 1941 Packard, a colour so period it's almost a caricature. Factor in acres of show-quality chrome and it's Middle America on wheels, but what's really special is that there's also a surprisingly practical motorcycle in there.

The motor is the now familiar Evolution 80-cubic-incher, which made its debut in 1984 and has gathered a reputation for total reliability - just as long as you don't try to extract more than the standard 51,5 kW out of it. For this model the makers re-mapped the tuning to liberate its maximum torque of 91 Nm at 2 000 rpm rather than the 95 at 3 000 of the Electra Glide. The wider spread of power makes the Springer very impressive in urban conditions, with instant acceleration available from close to idling in the lower gears. I tried that in top once though, and was rewarded with some ferocious juddering - there is, after all, a pair of 90 mm pistons down there and they demand some respect.

The single Mikuni CV carburettor is perfectly set up, providing clean response throughout the motor's rev range. To my surprise Harley has succeeded in lowering the torque peak without losing top-end power; in fact this was one of the fastest Harleys I've ridden, topping out at an indicated 182km/h. More impressive was that it got there quite quickly and held its maximum velocity without sounding stressed.

The clutch is standard H-D stuff, light and positive in action, as diaphragm clutches usually are. It became a little grabby when hot but coped well with traffic, as well it should considering its size. By contrast, the gearbox is a real let-down; all the Harleys I've ridden so far had remarkably slick and pleasant transmissions, but this one was atrocious: loud and clonky, yet vague. I was never sure that it was in - in fact I once missed a shift, the first time on a Milwaukee product.

Not even the forgiving belt final drive could hide the excessive lash between the cogs, with the result that it refused to countenance clutchless upshifts without loud complaint and neutral was so elusive that I gave up during day one and just parked the thing in first. I hope that this grotty box is confined to this particular machine and not generic to Springers.

The frame is Willie G's "Softail" which looks like a rigid rear end but actually has an ingeniously pivoted swingarm and two underslung Showa shock absorbers, which lack any sort of adjustment but cope admirably with a (large) single rider. The front suspension consists of a fixed fork with two forward-facing links pivoted at its lower points. The front axle passes through the free ends of these links, hence the English definition "leading link suspension".

Between the two is a second fork, sprung at the top and pivoted on the links at the bottom, with a single chromed shock absorber in the middle, under the centre headlight. This is the "springer" front end, notorious for premature wear in its sliding bushes and quirky low-speed steering.

What the legends don't tell you is that the leading links confer the equivalent of a lot of trail without excessive steering head rake.

On smooth roads the Heritage Springer is impressively stable at any speed it can reach and it steers with real accuracy and remarkable stability on long sweeps. Both suspension systems are characterised by very limited travel so can easily become overwhelmed on bumpy roads. Otherwise this was in some ways the best-handling Harley I've ridden.

Braking is by the usual Harley single disc at each end with the usual single-piston floating calliper. It's underwhelming; the one time during the rest period I tried an emergency stop, I wound up taking evasive action as the bike simply couldn't stop quickly enough in what was actually a very normal urban situation. When riding Milwaukee iron, always look (and plan) well ahead - most of 'em don't stop very well.

Alone among the Evo-engined range, the Springer's motor is bolted straight to the frame rather than rubber-mounted. As a result the test bike vibrated a fair bit more than I'm used to but not as much as I expected.

The worst vibes, not surprisingly, came through the rubber-mounted handlebars and footboards, proving once again that rubber mounts are essentially a waste of time on a twin. But Harleys are not high-revving machines and the shakes never became a problem. Those cowhorn handlebars, incidentally, are the only part of the bike that doesn't fit the period look, but the original wide, low, almost semi-circular bars look silly to today's eyes and are less effective in heavy traffic.

The instruments and controls are common to the rest of the Harley range, including the separate indicator switch on each grip, but they are now self-cancelling.

The Heritage Springer has the look of the golden autumn just before Pearl Harbour; it's the innocence of 1940s America brought to life. Fit and finish, as always with the products of the Motor Company, are exemplary. In particularly the chroming - and there's an awful lot of it - is uniformly spectacular, superb as only this factory can get it.

But under the period looks there's a modern motorcycle which starts first time, copes well with traffic and reaches better numbers at full chat than most of its stablemates.

It's pleasantly rideable, surprisingly practical, and one of the few Harleys that doesn't promote the outlaw image, which is why the purists won't like it. I did, though, and I liked riding it.

Thanks to Henry at American Motorcycles in Cape Town for the loan. A new Heritage Springer will cost R166000.

SPECIFICATIONS

Motor: Air-cooled 45-degree V-twin four-stroke.
Capacity: 1338cc.
Bore x Stroke: 88.8x108mm.
Valvegear: Two overhead valves per cylinder, pushrod operated.
Power: 51.5kW.
Torque: 91Nm @ 2000rpm.
Induction: Mikuni CV carburettor.
Ignition: Electronic.
Clutch: Cable-operated wet multiplate.
Transmission: Five-speed gearbox with toothed-belt final drive.
Suspension: Front Springer leading link girder forks. Rear Softail cantilevered swingarm with twin underslung Showa shock absorbers.
Brakes: Front single 290mm disc with single-piston floating calliper. Rear: single 290mm disc with single-piston floating calliper.
Tyres: Front: MT 90 - B16. Rear: MT 90 - B16
Wheelbase: 1615mm.
Seat height: 654mm
Dry weight: 323kg.
Fuel capacity: 15,9 litres