Punchy Harley Street Rod
Indian-made Harley based on Street 750 Higher-output engine, revised chassis and riding position ‘Conventional’ handling and retro performance
LET’S GET ONE thing out of the way. The new Harley-davidson Street Rod is built in India. If that offends your sense of what a Harley is or should be, then get over it - Indian-built 500 and 750 Harleys are now 10 per cent of H-D UK’S sales volume and that’s only going to grow. Still here? Good, because wherever it’s made, there’s a lot to like about the latest addition to the Street family.
The Street Rod is based on the Street 750, but the chassis has a tighter steering angle for the new 43mm upside-down forks and there’s a longer swingarm. The silencer is shorter and fatter, while the mid-mount footrests and 55mm taller seat give a new riding position. The engine gets a boost, too, with more aggressive cam profiles, intake and exhaust ports opened up and dual throttle bodies added.
Harley claim 20 per cent more power and 10 per cent more torque (but the engine can be restricted for A2 licence holders). The extra pep injects fun into faster roads - as long as you rev it. The Street Rod pulls top fairly cleanly from around 30mph, but this is no big, grunty, traditional Harley motor - if you want to get a move on you need the top half of the 9000rpm rev range.
You can switch the inset digital display to show revs and gear position, but you soon get a feel for what’s going to happen when you twist the throttle. As you near the redline you feel the power dropping away as a signal to shift up. Throttle response is generally good, with the exception of the occasional lurch coming back from a completely closed throttle on the overrun.
Established Harley riders may find the riding position on the sporty side. To me it feels rather alien. Low seat, high and forward-set pegs and relatively high, wide bars aren’t my cup of tea and I wouldn’t fancy it for a long ride, but I quickly got used to it. I couldn’t get used to the footrests themselves, though, especially on the right - the peg itself is small and the curve of the brake lever arm forces your foot towards the outside of the peg.
The revised chassis gives sharper steering and though the suspension’s a bit crude, it has a decent ride quality at sensible speeds and is surprisingly composed when I start pushing it - at least until hitting a big bump mid-corner, at which point the rear shocks struggle to cope. The new stance helps keep the undercarriage off the floor, but ground clearance is still limited – and there’s a few degrees less clearance on the right, where the exhaust downpipes kick the peg out sideways. More ground clearance would probably have put the Spanish-made Michelin Scorcher tyres under a bit too much pressure anyway: they’re not that grippy so dusty, polished tarmac meant a few sketchy moments in tight corners. On the plus side, it’s easy to light the rear tyre up away from junctions...
I’m not surprised the Street Rod works on tight, twisty roads, but the way it handles the much faster, more sweeping curves is unexpected. The bike is rock-steady in the fast bits and perfectly stable hammering the brakes into tighter turns. No surprises, just stable, neutral handling.
But it’s not all good, sadly. For a bike that’s designed for town use, it’s a bit too easy to cook your inner thigh on the cylinder head on the left, and your inner calf on the exhaust on the right. It’s also hard to find neutral, especially when cold. The wide bars and bar end mirrors may limit filtering as well.
There are some cheap details, too - the plasticky switchgear pods and cheap Allen bolts on the handlebar clamp in particular. The rear axle nut and bolt look like they’ve been pinched from a JCB and the swingarm pivot bolt is not much better. But Harley will happily sell you some cosmetic covers for those JCB bolts.
There’s usually not much point comparing Harleys with anything else you either want one or you don’t. But the Street Rod is different - it’s less a Harley, more a completely conventional motorcycle that happens to say Harley on the side. On the road, I found myself comparing it to Triumph’s Street Twin (they’re clearly aimed at the same market) and though the Triumph wins on authentic retro looks, dynamically the Harley is every bit as good. And, at £6745 for the base bike, it’s a whole grand cheaper.
“The way this bike handles fast turns is unexpected”