HARLEY GOES BOLD WITH THE ROADSTER
New bike is a ‘mash-up’ mixing Dark Custom, retro-rod, and just enough modern sporting hardware, writes David Booth
There’s a whole new design trend in custom motorcycles that I seem to have missed. It involves taking an unsuspecting cruiser — mostly Harleys, but if you’re down on your bucks anything will do, even the Honda CX500 Custom I saw last week — and bolting on some sportbike hardware. These add-ons can include sportier exhausts instead of the “slash cut” originals and low “clip-on” handlebars instead of “apehangers.” And then anything considered superfluous — fairings, windscreens and even turn signals — are stripped away. Some call them café racers, but if you want to prove you’re really au courant, call ’em hooligan trackers.
Done poorly, they look just like what they are mechanically — abominations. However, let someone who knows what they’re doing have a hand at the reinvention and you have the 2016 Harley-Davidson Roadster, something The Motor Company calls a “mash-up” of different “styling genres.”
It is one part Dark Custom (there’s barely a glisten of chrome), one part retro-rod (Harley evokes memories of its mid-’50s KHR racer, though I see more 1958 XLCH) with just enough modern sporting hardware for a soupçon of back-road bona fides. The Roadster is — along with the Low Rider S Driving recently tested — a bold move by Harley into the performance cruiser market.
So, what we have is a basic Sportster upgraded with some high quality rear shocks and a set of inverted forks that look like they got lost on the way to a Suzuki GSX-R. Like the Low Rider S, the Roadster gains a set of tri-rate gas emulsion shocks. Not a huge leap forward for motorcycling, but a major advancement for the Sportster nonetheless. Like the Low Rider S, the Roadster gains a cartridge “inverted” front fork, a 43-millimetre affair mated to some seriously beefy triple clamps. Throw in some café racer handlebars, a bobbed fender or two and you have the production version of what a new breed of speed shops — Speed Merchant and Roland Sands come to mind — have been quietly customizing for the past few years.
You have to admire the designers’ ambition, although the Roadster is somewhat limited in the ground clearance department: 31.1 degrees on the left and 30.8 muffler-grinding degrees to the right (again, like the Low Rider S). That said, this is the only Sportster, other than the nolonger-available XR1200, that is even remotely competent at apex clipping or trail-braking. Thanks to a steeper rake, turn-in is more precise than other Sportsters, and once leaned over will hold its line come rut or pothole. It won’t challenge sportbikes for backroad prowess, but a well-ridden Roadster will surprise many a CBR up a mountain pass.
This upping of the performance quotient is equally apparent in the braking department. The front calipers may be only two-piston affairs, but they grip (relatively) huge 300-mm discs. Not only are they substantial, but said rotors are also floating. Bite is immediate, lever effort moderate and the sheer stopping grip from the sticky Dunlop GT502s impressive.
Indeed, the only negative surrounding the brakes is that the big discs prevent prominent display of one of the Roadster’s most attractive features: the new Offset-Split 5-Spoke wheels. Pictures don’t do them justice; they’re far more impressive in the metal.
Unlike the chassis, the Sportster’s traditional 1,202-cc 45-degree V-twin engine remains largely unchanged, though in this rubber-mounted guise it feels smoother than previous renditions. Give credit to Harley’s rubber mounting; the Roadster is sport-touring comfortable to 145 km/h and beyond.
It is not, however, a powerhouse. The fuel injection is spotlessly precise and throttle response is excellent, but it is still, after all, a twin lacking both overhead cams and multiplevalve heads. Low-end torque is generous — 76 pound-feet at 3,750 rpm, says Harley — but the party’s over by 5,500 rpm.
The one salvation is that there are all manner of performance upgrades available. Harley’s own Screamin’ Eagle’s Stage IV Sportster engine kit promises a boost to a seriously rorty 90 rear-wheel ponies, about 30-hp up over stock. Perhaps, as with the Low Rider, Harley will produce an S version of the Roadster.
The Roadster’s limitations are mostly seen in its seating position. The problem isn’t the seat itself — it’s surprisingly comfy considering its diminutive size — or the sport touring-oriented low-rise handlebar, but that both have been combined with the Sportster’s traditional feetforward foot pegs. The combination of a sportbike’s upper riding position with the cruiser foot peg location will not be easy on those with wonky lumbars. Were I buying a Roadster, the first order of business would be to find some way to rear-set the foot pegs.
But I’m not part of the target clientele. But those 20-something hipsters who look like they’re trying to recreate the American Civil War? They’ll absolutely love the thing.