Harley Sportster worthy of the name
A little pseudocustomisation is just the thing for Harley’s latest Roadster, reports Paul Owen.
It’s easy to see why Harley-Davidson sees style as a bigger seller of its bikes than sporting appeal.
If we track the 58-year history of the Sportster family and focus on two recent models – the XR1200 of the mid-noughties and the FortyEight of the early-teenies – we can see that the XR was a bit of a showroom wallflower while the 48 was, and still is, a rampant sales success.
But times have changed for Harley-Davidson. Sales in its domestic market are stagnant, South America has gone nipples-up, and Europe and Asia now represent the best opportunities for growth. So cue the new Roadster model tested here. It’s a reprise of the corner-friendly values that once made the long-deleted XR my favourite Harley, but one that doesn’t stray too far away from the long n’ low styling cues that continue to make the Forty-Eight such a success.
Something has also happened to the marketplace since the XR was dropped (more than five or six years ago if memory serves). A younger generation of riders began customising their bikes on a various range of themes – Cafe´ Racer, Bobber, Flat Tracker – and posting the results on social media to attract as many ‘likes’ as possible.
A custom-looking bike therefore quickly became as essential as a taste for craft beer, facial hair, and brown shoes to the urbane hipster lifestyle. So there was further reason for Harley-Davidson to resurrect the more sporting theme of the XR1200 than just the motor company’s geo-economic shift in sales growth. The XR was arguably the right bike built at the wrong time, while the Roadster now arrives in our well-manicured Harley showrooms while surfing a trend.
Essentially, Harley has created the Roadster by doing what any self-respecting customiser would do to the Forty-Eight. Fenders have been carved back for a leaner look, the instrument display is more minimal, and the headlight has been tucked more tightly into the bulk of the bike. The handlebar looks like it was stolen from some 1920s boardtrack racer in the company museum, and the new spoked alloy wheels retain a heritage look while allowing tubeless tyres to be fitted.
These are possibly more important changes than the improvement of the Roaster in the suspension, brakes, and wheel/tyre departments. For they allow the Roadster to exude plenty of carpark-credibility when it makes its arrival outside the favoured craft brewery or men’s grooming establishment of the week.
The same couldn’t be said of the unloved XR. It was a proper attempt to stimulate the interest of riders normally attracted to European and Japanese bikes in buying a HarleyDavidson, and therefore had its own high-riding frame and equally-high operator position rather than a minor modification of a cruiseroriented chassis shared with the rest of the Sportster range. But can a bike be both long n’ low and corner-friendly? The Roadster proves that it can, but only when rider comfort is compromised.
For the pegs must be raised for the corners while retaining the invitational appeal of a 785mm seat height, and this is a perfect storm for a rider ergonomic package that cramps the legs. Worse is the positioning of those pegs right where most riders will want to put their legs down when coming to a stop. And when combined with the low-sited bars, I found myself riding the Roadster in some kind of foetal squat that while not entirely uncomfortable, made me glad that the Roadster’s trademark ‘peanut’ tank still only holds 12 litres (up from the eight litres of the Forty-Eight).
Fortunately, the Roadster’s seat is well-padded and can do a decent job of carrying most of the rider’s weight with sustainable comfort as there’s little opportunity to transfer any of that human mass to the pegs. And the suspension improvements do deliver better ride quality than other members of the Sportster model family when they’re operating at open road speeds.
Up front, the inverted Showa fork actually feels a little too firmly sprung to me, but the longer rear shocks are right on the money with their dual-rate springs and extra wheel travel. Bumpy backroads will see the Roadster transferring quite a bit of the surface imperfections to the rider’s forearms but the compliant and supple rear wheel control means there’s none of the posterior pummelling you get from a more cruiser-oriented Sportster model.
There’s also none of the cornering clearance issues either, and the Roadster’s foot-pegs only touched down occasionally because Harley mounted them on wide spacers with generous warning feelers fitted. I found myself placing my feet on the mounts instead of the pegs, a position that felt both more natural and gave better access to the brake pedal and gearlever.
With a 19-inch wheel and a generous amount of steering rake and trail, it takes a firm input on the handlebars to initiate a change of direction with the Roadster, although the geometry is the same as the XR’s. The Roadster feels less eager to turn due to the lower rider positioning and centre of gravity, combined with the larger-diameter front hoop.
The $20,250 Roadster is the bestperforming bike on our winding backroads in the Harley catalogue, helped out by the extra front disc that it carries over the rest of the Sportster range. That you get a better-looking bike with more exploitable cornering lean angles and better brakes for just $255 more than the Forty-Eight places the Roadster precisely in the right context. It’s not a genuine substitute for the XR, but let’s not forget to celebrate that this is a new
Sportster model variant that’s more capable of living up to the family name.