+ Click to Enlarge LEAN AND MEAN: There are Harley customers who prefer the stripped down look of the traditional Sportster. Pictures: DAVE ABRAHAMS

February 15, 2004
By Dave Abrahams

Harley-Davidson's Sportster series has just undergone its most far-reaching design since the model was introduced in 1957. The motor is now rubber-mounted in a new frame to reduce vibration and the bike has a new look, bringing it closer to the bigger F-series machines.

Not everybody thinks this is a good thing; there are Harley customers who prefer the stripped down, lean look of the traditional Sportster to the chunkier presence of the 'Glides, so the new Sportsters are available in both Roadster and Custom format.

The Roadster models have the 12.9-litre "peanut" fuel tank and minimalist styling of the original Sportsters while the Custom variants have a wider 17-litre fuel tank and an altogether more tricked out, laid-back look.

The first 2004-spec Harley that motoring.co.za was offered for review was a brand new 1200 Roadster, with the slim tank, cast wheels and twin front disc brakes – very tasty.

Motive power

The 2004-spec Evolution motor has new cylinder heads with improved porting, new pistons with cooling jets that spray oil on to the underside of the crowns, performance cams and bigger cooling fins on the barrels.

The result is more torque (93Nm at 3300rpm), better mid-range and a 6000rpm redline - spectacular for a long stroke, pushrod V-Twin.

At idle the motor jumps around in the frame like a landed fish and there's some ferocious power-thudding below 2000rpm but then it smoothes out like no Sporty before it and pulls like a locomotive. The single Mikuni CV carburettor (given that this is a whole new motor I'm surprised that it's not fuel-injected like the bigger Hogs) provides energetic, precisely modulated response and there's always something there when you need it in a hurry.

Dare I say that the new Sportster would make an admirable commuter?

The test bike had nine kilometres (yes, nine) on the clock when we got it so we were unable to test its top speed but it should be in the region of 168km/h, judging by the motor's power curve and the gearing chart. It may be due to this machine's extreme youth but the new motor also seems to emit an inordinate level of mechanical clatter – maybe it'll settle down as it beds in.

Milwaukee makes no claims about upgrades to the transmission; the test bike's clutch was typical of the breed with its smooth take-up and slightly over-centre action but the gearshift, although slick and positive, was one of the most vocal I've come across in a long time, especially from neutral into first and first to second.

Perhaps, as they used to say of the old BMWs, you'll never miss a shift because you always know when it's in.

Nevertheless, I soon found that at higher revs (over 3000 – we're talking about a Harley here, Cyril) the quietest way to change up was without the clutch, so that's how I did it, while always using the left hand for downshifts - the long-stroke motor has enormous engine braking and the consequences of getting it wrong are too dire to contemplate.

The Kevlar-reinforced final drive belt is immune to snatch and has just enough elasticity to render cush drives unnecessary, but there is some lash in the layshaft dogs, which comes through as a faint clonk on take-up in the lower gears – it's more felt than heard, actually, nowhere near as noisy as the shift mechanism.

New chassis

Rubber-mounting the mill has meant an entirely new frame, altogether stiffer than before, especially in the mid-section, where up to now Sportsters have relied on the engine plates and crankcases to keep the swing-arm in line.

The redesigned tubular steel structure is considerably beefed up in this area, with the added advantage that there is now somewhere to mount passenger foot-pegs rather than on the swing-arm. The swing-arm itself, however is till the same spindly rectangular steel unit and if this frame has a weak point, it is likely to be the rear suspension.

This has specific significance on the new Sportsters because the size of the rear tyre has been increased to 150/80 across the range, which should theoretically further increase the stresses on the swing-arm.

In practice the fatter rear rubber steadies up the back end of the bike, allowing you to turn on the power harder, earlier in the turns, without inducing any wallowing or headshaking except on the severest of bumps.

Within the limitations of the bike's ground clearance, the frame handles anything you can throw at it while the larger footprint reduces the tendency of the rear tyre to skip over sudden changes in the road surface.

Harley-Davidsons have always had dry-sump motors with separate oil tanks; on the new Sportster this reservoir has been rounded off and moved to a central position under saddle. This means that what look like understated black side covers are actually the two ends of the oil tank.

This is rare on Milwaukee products, where everything has a decorative cover and nothing is quite what it seems – for a clear-cut example just look at the exhaust headers. They're actually rather roughly welded bits of "choob" covered with beautifully-chromed sheet-metal plates – which are held in place with hardware-store Jubilee clamps!

In order to get to the dipstick, which is now half-hidden under the edge of the saddle, the Motor Company has come up with an ingenious button on the right side of the oil tank. Push it in and a large chrome-plated plastic knob pops up; half a turn to the left, the dipstick comes out and you can check the oil level without getting your fingers dirty.

The front end remains much the same as before, except for the twin front disc brakes (unique in the Sportster line-up) clamped by chunky twin-piston floating callipers. By the standards of the rest of the world they lack initial bite, but a good squeeze will haul down this quarter-ton motorcycle a lot quicker than you expect – in fact the limiting factor is not the brakes but the skinny 100/90 x 19 front tyre.

Older Harleys had a pronounced rearwards weight bias, as well as a tendency to "push" the front end when loaded, so they were all fitted with more powerful rear brakes than front (just like a scooter, although Hog riders will hate me for saying it). The latest Sportster is a much better-balanced motorcycle and is intended to do most of its braking with the front wheel.

Thus the rear brake, although its disc measures the same 292mm as the front platters, has to make do a single-piston calliper and has little power and less feel – it's just about right for hill-starts and steadying the bike on wet roads – if you can find a Harley rider who will ride in the rain!

Beautiful finish

As always on Milwaukee products, the finish on individual components is breathtaking; the quality of paint and chrome-plating is way ahead of anything else on the road – including most of the custom builders. How they manage this standard of quality control on a production basis is beyond me.

A long-established Harley idiosyncrasy is the rough-and-ready cadmium-plated Allen screws that hold most of the bike together, in sharp contrast to the luxury finishes on the components they secure. That's not because Willie G Davidson is stingy – it's to persuade you to buy lots of the neat little chrome-plated "official Harley screw covers" that your local Harley dealer has in stock – or slightly more expensive stainless-steel screws, which really look the part.

That's how most Harley owners get started on the customising trail, where the only limit is the depth of your pocket.

Some of the ergonomics are not quite perfect; the beautifully re-sculpted air cleaner cover still catches your right knee, the inside of your left heel will eventually leave chafe marks on the clutch cover plate and your right boot is hard against the rear header pipe, but the slim fuel tank means that you can see both the ignition and steering locks (which use the same key – no more padlocks!) from the saddle and operate them without getting off the bike.

In terms of detail styling the new Roadster is one of the neatest Harleys I've seen, with a tiny, chromed headlight cover, bullet-shaped indicators, clean flowing mudguards and superbly executed dual shorty exhausts. The new motor is powder-coated in black and two shades of grey, and the deeply dished saddle is finished like a quality jacket.

The saddle is very firm, limiting you to sitting in just one place, so the dreaded Numb Bum syndrome sets in after a couple of hours – which is just about time to take a break, fill up the peanut tank and park your Harley where you can see it glinting in the sun while you enjoy a coffee.

Perhaps more than any bike, a Harley teaches you that the ride is more important than the destination, however fast or slow you like to pitch it into the corners.

Thanks to Ad Keukelaar at Cape Town Harley-Davidson for the test bike; the two-tone Roadster in the pictures costs R109 000, while plain colours are R2000 cheaper.

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Specifications:

Motor: Air-cooled four-stroke V-Twin.
Capacity: 1202cc.
Bore x stroke: 88.8 x 96.8mm
Valvegear: Pushrod with two overhead valves per cylinder.
Compression ratio: 10:1.
Torque: 93Nm at 3300rpm.
Induction: One Mikuni CV carburettor.
Ignition: Capacitor discharge ignition.
Starting: Electric.
Clutch: Cable-operated Multiplate wet clutch.
Transmission: Five-speed, constant-mesh gearbox with belt final drive.
Suspension: conventional cartridge forks at front, twin hydraulic shock absorbers adjustable for preload at rear.
Brakes: Twin 292mm discs with twin-piston floating callipers at front, single 292mm disc with single-piston floating calliper at rear.
Tyres: Front: 100/90 H19 tubeless. Rear: 150/80 H16 tubeless.
Wheelbase: 1520mm.
Seat height: 713mm.
Dry weight: 251kg.
Fuel capacity: 12.9 litres.
Price: R109 000.

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