Harley Davidson

[f14rio]

re:" Harley customization is for aesthetics,. increased noise, or engine performance.

naw!

http://www.webundies.com/mens_underwear_harley_davidson.html

 

[BC1100S]

My Street Rod engine is stock aside from a K&N air cleaner and a re-map. It put 102 horses to the rear tire but the mixture was so rich the mileage was awful. We leaned it out a bit (still thirsty at mid 30's) and it puts 98 horses to the rear tire.

I stand corrected. I completely neglected the Street Rod. Of course, the Motor Company faithful don't consider it a real Harley. But I do.

 

[Delaware.Dave]

Eh, I rode some R-1200s, an F-800 and the K-1200S. The only one I thought was a better bike than my carefully modified old K-100RS was the K-1200S. The others weren't as smooth or refined as that old K bike (ok, it has been fettled to perfection by a guy who used built the prototypes of the K when he worked at BMW in research and is an amalgam of parts spanning about ten years of the flyinbg brick), nor as comfortable. The R's have no feedback through the bars and all the ABS bikes had numb feeling brakes.
The K-1200S was an amazing bike without ABS or ESA but the maintenance requires too much in the way of specialized tools and skills to be something I could maintain at home. I live over 140 miles from the nearest BMW dealership so the ability to perform all routine maintenance in my garage is essential.
The Harley Street Rod turned out to be far more refined than any R bike ever was, expecially as the revs climb. It has a distinct German feel to it, outstanding feedback from the front tire, neutral steering, plenty of cornering clearance, tremendous brakes (BMW should have this kind of feedback), a compliant suspension and you can walk the back tire with the throttle in corners. Routine maintenance is simple enough for my skills (access to the valve covers to check valve clearances is a bit sporty but you figure it out quickly) and you don't need computers for any item of routine maintenance. Fastener quality is as good as BMW, and very German. So I bought the Street Rod and never looked back. After five years with it I am quite certain it will last as long or longer than any modern BMW. With their accessory saddlebags, a tank bag and windshield I can approach BMW levels of day to day utility. Their accessory Supersport Windshield has less buffet than the wind tunnel tested fairing on my K bike, and I am officially spoiled by carbon fiber drive belts.
But please don't call me a Harley rider.

The Street Rod is the only Vrod that has mid controls, and isn't produced any longer. All Vrods now have forward controls, which I find uncomfortable. Legs out ahead of me, and arms stretched for the handlebars isn't a good positions for me, and I suspect for many other riders also. The engine is amazing, but it's packaged into the model that has the smallest customer base. I wish they would expand the Revolution engine line to include an "RT" style sport touring bike. That machine would be a bike to be reckoned with.

 

[milo]

The Street Rod is the only Vrod that has mid controls, and isn't produced any longer. All Vrods now have forward controls, which I find uncomfortable. Legs out ahead of me, and arms stretched for the handlebars isn't a good positions for me, and I suspect for many other riders also.

I like mid controls also. In addition to the Street Rod the Super Glide Sport also has mid controls but it hasn't been made since 2005. They came with lower bars, mid controls, dual front discs, more ground clearance (longer travel suspension with adjustable damping F&R), a tach and speedo both up on the handlebars where you can see them, and very little chrome. This is my 2004.

 

[BC1100S]

This is my 2004.

Now THAT is a nice looking bike.

 

[42906]

The Street Rod is the only Vrod that has mid controls, and isn't produced any longer. All Vrods now have forward controls, which I find uncomfortable. Legs out ahead of me, and arms stretched for the handlebars isn't a good positions for me, and I suspect for many other riders also. The engine is amazing, but it's packaged into the model that has the smallest customer base. I wish they would expand the Revolution engine line to include an "RT" style sport touring bike. That machine would be a bike to be reckoned with.

The Night Rod, built on the lower frame shared with other models of the V-Rod, came with mid controls and Harley offers a mid control conversion based on Night Rod parts for Night Rod Special models. The bandanaheads condemned the Street Rod in large part because it was "too tall".
The Street Rod riding position is pretty much a wide R-100S riding positon. The distance between the legs is greater, but otherwise the amount of forward lean and the location of the pegs relative to the backside are very similar. It has ooodles of cornering clearance if you remove the peg feelers and replace them with hardened allen head screws.
Lots of us have cried for a sport touring V-Rod. Such a bike was prototyped and cancelled with the prototypes supposedly crushed. A firm in San Diego, Cycle Visions, makes a nice business selling brackets to fit a Road Glide fairing to the other V-Rod models. They claim it won't fit the Street Rod, but there are a couple of guys who have hung Road Glide fairings on their Street Rods using their brackets. It looks better than it sounds. Making Road Glide guages talk to a V-Rod CAN-Bus is interesting. I have an old FXRT fairing in good condition sitting in my man cave as I contemplate the possibilities. It has the exact same Bosch headlight as an R-100! That particular fairing was designed for the cancelled V-4 Nova and I bet would work just fine on a Street Rod. The only gripe is it's a bit heavy and would add to the weight of an already heavy motorcycle, though it wouldn't weigh as much as an ST-1300. I have also sized up an R-100RT fairing. It would require a little cutting around the fork opening and even narrower bars, but oh the possibilities.
What I can say is the back side of the plastic guage housing of the Street Rod has four threaded holes in it that are not used to mount them in the R. It makes me wonder what might else have been on their minds.
You know the guy who developed the Street Rod for Harley was a German guy and a road racer named Peter Michael Keppler. Herr Keppler knows most of the BMW Research guys from the track and is fluent in things BMW too.

 

[42906]

I stand corrected. I completely neglected the Street Rod. Of course, the Motor Company faithful don't consider it a real Harley. But I do.

Yep. When I do a parts run to the Harley dealership on the old K bike I usually get some favorable comments from the bandanaheads. When I show up on the Street Rod there is complete silence and the sorts of facial expressions one expects when someone just farted shamelessly.

 

[milo]

Now THAT is a nice looking bike.

Thank you BC1100S!


I just wish HD would give a "sporting" Dyna or Street Rod another go. Or a modern Cafe Racer off the VRod drivetrain (new frame geometry though) But currently they seem enamored with apes and the "slammed low to the pavement" thing.

 

[42906]

Thank you BC1100S!


I just wish HD would give a "sporting" Dyna or Street Rod another go. Or a modern Cafe Racer off the VRod drivetrain (new frame geometry though) But currently they seem enamored with apes and the "slammed low to the pavement" thing.

There are still a handful of unsold '06 and '07 Street Rods in the US if you go digging. Sometimes they are not even on the published dealer inventory.

 

[42906]

Here is a V-Rod with a Road Glide fairing and Corbin Beetle Bags. Not a bad looking bike actually. I don't like floor boards but a lot of riders do.

Here you go, a Street Rod with a Road Glide fairing and the accessory Sport Saddlebags. The top case is from Givi I believe attached with a bracket to the accessory luggage rack. The seat is a genuine accessory called the Sundowner Riders Seat and passenger pillion. They work.

Here is mine. I run XR-1200 wheels, the Sport Saddlebags (removed in this photo), Works shocks, Race Tech Gold Valve, True Track linkage and a seat made by a local upholsterer to match my ample derrier. You can clearly see how much cornering clearance you have to work with.

 

[BC1100S]

Here you go, a Street Rod with a Road Glide fairing and the accessory Sport Saddlebags. The luggage rack is from Givi I believe attached with a bracket to the accessory luggage rack. The seat is a genuine accessory called the Sundowner Riders Seat and passenger pillion. They work.

And Harley won't build them like this because....?

Nice ride you've got there, 42906.

Milo: Were you to find yourself in the mood to sell your Super Glide Sport, how much would you ask for it?

 

[42906]

Here is another image of my Street Rod, this time with hard luggage attached. The hard luggage is from the original anodized aluminum V-Rod and is a work in progress as the right bag touches the pipe under use and has melted a hole in it! Sigh. At least it doesn't fall off like some BMW bags I am intimately familiar with.

 

[42906]

27 May 2011 on US 6 in Currant Nevada on the way to World Superbike in Utah. It is 168 miles from Tonopah to Ely. The bike has five gallons of gas but temps in the 30's combined with altitudes between 6000 and 7500 feet plus effectively no speed limit drops the mileage dramatically and makes bringing an extra gallon of gas along a necessary precaution. The few gas stops on this route have long ago closed, something I found out two years earlier when I almost ran out and had to mooch some gas from this little podunk oil refinery just south of where this photo was taken. Tank bag from Marsee, tail bag from Chase Harper, HD accessory Sport Saddlebags and the windshield is also an HD accessory that works a lot better than appearances might suggest.

 

[42906]

Oh yes, I have some BMWs too. The V-Rod was an unexpected diversion. The Alaska Blau K-RS in the background has 287,000 miles and was purchased new, by me, in October of 1984. The little G/S is my latest acquisition, restored by my friend from BMW Research who now has his own shop in Long Beach CA. The K-RS in the foreground is one I restored a couple of years ago.

 

[Delaware.Dave]

Yep. When I do a parts run to the Harley dealership on the old K bike I usually get some favorable comments from the bandanaheads. When I show up on the Street Rod there is complete silence and the sorts of facial expressions one expects when someone just farted shamelessly.

It's bound to happen with an uninformed population. When we bought the Evolution engine when it first came out, all the old Shovel riders gave us crap. "If it ain't a shovel, it ain't sh!t." Whatever. The evo went on to be the best Harley Engine of it's time.

As a joke, many of us jumped online the very day the Twin cams came out. "If it ain't an Evo..."

 

[42906]

It's bound to happen with an uninformed population. When we bought the Evolution engine when it first came out, all the old Shovel riders gave us crap. "If it ain't a shovel, it ain't sh!t." Whatever. The evo went on to be the best Harley Engine of it's time.

As a joke, many of us jumped online the very day the Twin cams came out. "If it ain't an Evo..."

I remember that vividly. The Evo looked "too Japanese". The triangulated frame of the FXR, the best handling Big Twin HD has produced, was also panned for looking "too Japanese". So instead we get the Dyna flexy frame and the bandanaheads are quiet. Sigh. More business for Alan Sputhe and True Track building kits to cure the Dyna's poor engine mounting system.

Phil at Supermax had to narrow a belt from Victory from 28 mm wide to 1 inch wide for the Street Rod project (I needed a 147 tooth belt and Harley doesn't make one, that rear pully is the Isolated Drive System from the P&A catalog for 2007 Touring Bikes!). When I told him what I was doing he pompously announced that my bike "wasn't a real Harley and wasn't American", but he'll "work on anything". Geez. Don't do me any favors dude.

 

[42906]

Bar-b-que or mobile meth lab?

 

[ANDYVH]

HA! That pic reminds me of what I saw years ago on HWY 43 going into Milwaukee: a FLHUTC (whatever) full dresser, the flexy-framed one, pulling a trailer. The trailer was home made, clearly, because the box was made of sheet metal. Looked like all the fab guy had was sheet metal, a hand brake, and a welder. The trailer had a long tongue and a platform behind the box and ahead of it.

The platforms were clearly for his mobile grilling jones. On the rear platfom, now, this is about eight feet behind the bike, was a full size gas grill strapped on. Which of course, means it needs propane. Yup, on the front platform over the tongue, were TWO 20lb propane bottles!

Lesse, two propane bottle, about 55lbs each, a gas grill, another 50lbs easy, a metal box on the trailer, say 20lbs, plus whatever the trailer itself weighed, 100lbs and whatever was in the trailer box. This guy was dragging some 300 lbs or more behind an Evo engined FLHUTC. Wonder how long his clutch lasted.

Oh, the rider? No riding gear, helmetless, bandana firmly in place though!

 

[bikerfish1100]

It's bound to happen with an uninformed population. When we bought the Evolution engine when it first came out, all the old Shovel riders gave us crap. "If it ain't a shovel, it ain't sh!t." Whatever. The evo went on to be the best Harley Engine of it's time.

As a joke, many of us jumped online the very day the Twin cams came out. "If it ain't an Evo..."

which in English, translates to "If it IS a shovel,....."

 

[71243]

which in English, translates to "If it IS a shovel,....."

Well,...motorcycles aside,...engines aside....it just goes to further prove that we have become a nation of control freaks.....

I don't care what ya ride....enjoy it,..hope ya enjoy it as much as I do mine.

My favorite HD was the Pan,...But that said....I like the V-Rod as well.