American-V Issue 38 by American-V

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PIMP YOUR HARLEY!

So you want to dress your Sportster?

Zodiac has loads of accessories for Sportsters. Not only for the 2004 thru 2010 type as shown here, but also for older models. Also not only what’s shown here, but much, much more. More at your Zodiac dealer or in the Zodiac Biker’s Book. 012805

301015

Chrome oil tank cover

£ 101.20 also available as left frame cover (301016) Starts at £ 107.00

Unpainted Stock style gas tank

Chrome brake master cylinder

Detonator mirrors feature built-in LED turn signals Sold in pairs £ 229.50

levers has anti-rattle device Starts at £ 256.40

302180

723315

Turn signal lenses

with chrome flames are available in amber, red, smoke or clear Sold in pairs £ 57.60

Chrome rocker box cover set

741390

Hydraulic Clutch conversion kit for a super lite clutch Starts at £ 361.90

032547

Chrome finish choke lever bracket

sets are sold for 1 cylinder £ 185.60

£ 42.00

090407

Rear fender with supports

056206

comes raw. Starts at £ 127.60 105053

15, 1 and 17 Janua6ry 2010

053263

270607

looks all the same as OEM, except for the price! Starts at £ 294.00

VERONA, IT ALY

Chrome engine isolators are sold each Starts at £ 42.00

Chrome upper belt guard £ 53.20

733041

SuperTrapp’s Paul Yaffe X-pipes availabe in black or chrome £ 963.20

056135

302215

Chrome plated rear pulley cover £ 61.50

302190

Die-Cast and Chrome plated engine sprocket cover

Chrome forward control kit also available in 2” extended for long legged riders Starts at £ 495.50

056206

Chrome engine isolators are sold each Starts at £ 39.00

£ 71.50

173047

Chrome horn bracket £ 21.20

THE 2009 ZODIAC BIKERS BOOK Now available at your Zodiac dealer or order at sales@zodiac.nl Price £ 9.00 excl. postage.

The new Zodiac catalog is available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Over 1.400 full colour pages with thousands of new and exciting parts and accessories from all over the world.

YOUR GUARANTEE FOR:

Perfect Fitment • Wide Product Range • Fast Delivery Quality & Excellence • No Nonsense Warranty

ZODIAC INTERNATIONAL UK, P.O. BOX 21, STROUD GL5 4YD. PHONE 01453 758 451, FAX 01453 752 939. ZODIAC INTERNATIONAL B.V., INDUSTRIEWEG 44, 3641 RM MIJDRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS. PHONE +31 297 288 621, FAX +31 297 288 226. SALES OFFICES IN: THE NETHERLANDS, GERMANY, ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, ITALY, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND, HUNGARY.

For all Harley’s and American V-Twins we recommend

Internet: www.zodiac.nl E-mail: zodiac-uk@zodiac.nl Original Zodiac parts and accessories are only available through a Zodiac retailer (not directly from Zodiac by mail-order). Check out http://www.zodiac.nl/en/locator/index.html for your nearest Zodiac dealer. Suggested retail prices include VAT. Prices can be subject to change without notice.

9905-917 ZODIAC UK AMERICAN V 210x297.indd 1

10-11-09 12:39

American-V: Issue 38

Editorial Farewell, Buell World ... or is it? The bad news from East Troy is so old now that it’s hardly worth mentioning it in the news section, but there's a huge benefit of having that thinking space between then and now: it’s easier to get the real information now the emotions have calmed down and the dust has settled. We've also got the news, of course, that Erik Buell Racing is starting up in East Troy, specialising in building and preparing race-only 1125 Helicon bikes under licence from HarleyDavidson, which caused me to interrupt my musings for a moment, but no longer than that because it actually slots nicely into an emerging picture that could well be fanciful, but which would make a lot of sense. Harley-Davidson have closed Buell. Not sold it, note, because they say the two companies are too inextricably linked, which is patently not true: where there is a will, there is a way. There is no will. They share a dealer network, but not one that really knows how to sell Buells outside the core Harley market, which is where it should be selling. Most dealers wouldn't mourn their passing: the margins weren't brilliant. Harley build the engines, and they could continue to do that as a precondition of the sale if they wanted to, or an independent Buell could source XB-Series engines off S&S if they didn't. The future of Buell, though, is in the Helicon engine, whether we like it or not. That will lose any last vestige of common spares and technology between Buell and Harley further separating them. No, Harley-Davidson killed it. Completely, clinically, and very expensively – $125m, of which $115m would be in this financial year – and this at a time when net income was down by 84.1% Credible sources suggest that a sizeable proportion of that sum was buying themselves out of the BRP/Rotax deal relating to the Helicon engine, which ended up with Harley retaining the tooling for the new engine: maybe they got wind of Erik wanting to set up a race team and got him a leaving present? There is a future for the Helicon, but somehow I can't see it being in a Harley-branded product: have you seen the reaction that putting an 'Austrian' engine into a Buell caused? That's a can of worms that Harley can't afford to open. Buell was a distraction at a time when the new CEO needed to focus on protecting the core business, but I think there is more to it than that. It is more likely that Harley-Davidson closed Buell and killed the brand off quickly and completely because by doing so they could create a myth: another legend. By the time the Buell Motor Company closes its doors, there will be no new bikes or merchandise at Harley dealerships or in the supply chain, and what there has been since the news broke has been sold off at a fraction of its list price ... but then who's going to pay full price for a discontinued brand? Actually, lots of people. Last chance and all that, but they wanted the floors cleared. All the better for creating a legend quickly. It wouldn’t be the first time that a brand has been elevated to classic status after closing their doors for good – Indian and Vincent to name but two – but those two didn’t have a parent like Harley-Davidson who would have the ability to resurrect it ‘by popular demand’ when the time is right. Whether the right time will be when the global economy has recovered, or when the market is ready for Buell is unknown, but with Erik Buell Racing keeping the 1125R on the track, he's got a nice little R&D operation going on, and the resurrection of the brand could hang on the success or failure of that enterprise. And in the meantime, of course, Harley will honour all warranties on even those Buells sold so cheaply at the death – protecting the reputation of a dead brand, and doing a nice bit of R&D at the same time.

I only hope that Erik will have some time on his hands to put into place the other part of the jigsaw that was emerging. And what could that be? A range of entry-level motorcycles wearing a bar and shield but under a sub-brand: XR. A range of motorcycles to engage a younger generation, and with the best will in the world, that's not going to be the iron – or at least not over here, it won't be. It's to big, too heavy, too expensive ... and too old. An XR, however, would be a very different thing, because it would be an XR440, XR500 and XR600 single using the Blast's crankcases but with an exciting body style rather than the userfriendly but ultimately unsexy Blast. It would get yet another lease of life out of XL engineering investment and there's shedloads of tuning potential from big bores and strokers to a supercharger where the rear pot would ordinarily live. It could tap into the Japanese big singles market, where the likes of SR500s are highly prized: light, manageable and fun; and the sooner that spreads beyond Japan's borders the better. They're doing what we were with our old Brit twins when technology left them behind, just with different hardware. And then, the icing on the cake, an XR academy. Scout MotoX and BMX tracks looking for promising riders, and stick them onto XR singles at short-track and speedway circuits. Involve them, Involve their friends. Erik is the man to pull it off. Erik Buell Racing could be the ideal vehicle. Harley is the brand to use for the dirt, and XR would be the hook – XRated fun – and, if it takes off, a Blast road racer? Something like this needs to happen because unless someone bites the bullet and does something to draw a younger generation into motorcycling, we’re all going to grow old together, which was a recurring theme of the financial pundits reacting to the Buell and MV news, linking Harley's fortunes with the baby boomers, and asserting that it's all downhill from here. And that's possibly true, but it's not fair to point that finger solely at Harley-Davidson: every manufacturer should be building bikes that make teenagers want to taste the freedom of two wheels: the current stuff is dull dull dull! We need 250 and 500cc versions of the Sachs Mad Ass, and have some fun with it. It's still about getting people young and enthusiastic, but they are out there, and they've got a taste for freedom, running round in moped gangs on knackered Peugeot scooters. When you're that age, something like an Iron is unattainable, but a knackered 250 or 500 single or twin is brilliant: cheap and horrible but affordable, modifiable, tunable and repairable for very little money. Better still, it makes a statement. It gave us an identity and set us up for the life we're living. Want to be radical? Sell Blast cases to privateers, give them to schools and youth clubs to build a bike as part of the academy: to campaign in grass roots racing, learning engineering skills on a simple engine. And I don't think I'd be alone is wanting a set of Blast cases as the foundation of a simple street scrambler out of: there must be thousands of used Sportster top ends kicking around, and it's a quick and easy way of Harley XR singles into the food chain to replace Jap singles as the spares dry up. All we'd need is a lightweight frame: Hey Erik! You busy? It could produce a new generation of builders, building, breaking, riding and repairing them, they wouldn't necessarily be pretty, but they'd be cool, and it wouldn't be the first time that Harley had been given a helping hand from a subculture it disapproved of. Potentially the next generation of Harley fundamentalists, ready for the move up to a twin Might even provide a market for a resurrected Buell Andy

American-V.co.uk

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American-V: Contents 38

www.american-v.co.uk

Issue Thirty Eight

6: NEWS & NEW PRODUCTS 10: REVIEWS

Weise Waterproof Harness Boots. S&S Present The Worlds Top Custom Bike Builders; Custom Motorcycles: Choppers Bobbers Baggers; Panhead Restoration; Leanings

2010 Harley-Davidson Preview 16: FXDWG WIDE GLIDE

A rejuventated Wide Glide establishes the Dyna range as Harley’s home for their FXs.

50: QUICKSPIN: ZERO HOUR

Actually, an hour on the Zero Samurai Type 5... well, very close; but then who’s to know? Ah.

56: REBECCA’S MODEL-G

Have you guessed what that is yet. It’s that stunning undressed Servicar that has won everywhere this year.

62: STURGIS 2009 PART 2

Steve Kelly concludes his pilgrimage to the Badlands

20: FLHTK ULTRA LIMITED

66: XR1200 TROPHY RACER

24: FLSTFB FAT BOY SPECIAL

72: BOB’S PANHEAD CHOP

28: XR1200X

78: NEC BIKE SHOW

Limited in name only, the 103-inch motor adds new grunt to Harley’s flagship tourer. The world’s favourite heavyweight custom dons a dark, sharp suit, but is it dark custom or retro-chic? New suspension, modified brakes and new paint: will it be enough to get the attention it deserves?

32: SATYA KRAUS’ HYBRID DYNA Major master builder tries his hand at modifying a stocker, and surprises his friends, and himself ... and then the guys at Bonneville

38: RIDE TO THE WALL 2009 Lest we forget.

43: STUDDY’S KNUCKLE

The custom motorcycle in its purest form, and the mechanical equivalent of a 62 year old bloke in jeans

Editor: andy.hornsby@american-v.co.uk Features Editor: rich.king@american-v.co.uk Contributors this issue: Steve Kelly, Amanda Wright, Graham Gabriel, Hazel Jackson, Horst Roesler. Proofing: Dyslexics demanding an easier spelt condition. Design: Mini Ha-Ha and Erika McAston All editorial enquiries to: editorial@american-v.co.uk Advertising Manager: Emma Howl EmmaHowl@warnersgroup.co.uk 01778 392443 Advertising Sales: Andy Fraser 01778 392054

Oxford Harley-Davidson take the covers off their race bike, but why do Harley want to go racing? There’s often a hell of a lot that goes into a simple bike, and Bob’s electric Pan is good example of that. Wonder if he’s got a mate called Chop who rides a bobber? Harley might not have been there, but Victory more than made up for it, choosing 2009 to really come of age.

82: STREET BOB OF THE ISSUE

This time it’s the bike that CCE built, to show how broad their range of bits for the Dyna now is.

84: ROADTEST: BUELL 1125R

Last chance to see ... for the time being, at least. White elphant or an evolved sportbike now? Too little? Too late?

98: RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS

There goes any chance of making friends within the dealer network ... the bros go parts shopping

Trade Sales: Natalie Cole: 01778 392404 nataliec@warnersgroup.co.uk Subscriptions: 01778 392484 Annual Subscriptions UK: £24.75 EU: £36.75 RoW Zone 1: £38.55 RoW Zone 2: £42.75 (all include postage) Published by American-V, PO Box 336, Crewe, Cheshire, CW2 7WY. Tel: 0207 993 8002 Printed in the UK by Warners (Midlands) PLC, Bourne. Distribution by: Warners Group Publications Plc West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH Tel: 01778 391135

Advertising Production: Natalie Reynolds: 01778 391130 Copyright 2009 American-V. natalier@warnersgroup.co.uk This issue was brought to you with Left Lane Cruiser blasting away ... sorry, what did you say? I can’t hear you ...

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American-V American-V # ONE

News & Products

Buell: Pegasus STURGIS 2010 VIP or Phoenix? STYLE? A hell of a lot happens in two months. It’s hardly worth referencing Harley’s decision to close Buell, because it was so long ago, and because it is referenced many times elsewhere, but we were still reeling from the shock of Buell production being ‘ceased’ when we heard from The Buell Motor Company again. Erik is leaving the Harley group and is setting up as an independent race team as Erik Buell Racing, with a view to supporting the teams out there who are campaigning the Helicon-engined bikes. He will be building race-use-only Helicon engines under license from Harley-Davidson, as well as supporting existing teams using any Buell engine, at all levels with spares and technical support, which only begs the question ‘what racing?’ It’s a fair question because we don’t see any of it over here, but starting with the Daytona 200, that takes place during bike week, six Buell 1125Rs lined up on the grid in the AMA Pro Racing Daytona Sportbike class. And guess what? Danny Eslick (right, leading), riding for Richie Morris Racing, sponsored by Bruce Rossmeyer’s Daytona Racing, won the series! Obviously some in the racing world have decided that it was only because of dispensations made for Buell that allowed them to compete, and it is worth looking at the field before getting too excited. The other eligible bikes are: CBR600RR, Kawasaki ZX-6R, Yamaha R6, Suzuki GSX-R600, Aprilia RSVR1000R, Ducati 848 and Triumph’s 675 Daytona. It’s AMA’s most diverse field, pitching the quick-handling 600s against big bore twins, with a weight handicap system based on engine size and number of cylinders meaning that the Buell needs a minimum post-race weight of 385lbs, while others can be as light as 365lbs. There is no doubt that it has got a definite power advantage – 130hp compared to a 106hp average for the Supersport 600s – but the handicap system is there to hopefully average out the advantages of each type of bike, but in any event, that is saying that an 1125R outhandles an R6 and a CBR600RR, so they must be doing something right! Well, obviously they are, because people are wingeing, It will be more interesting to see how he fares in the American Superbike, up against R1s and CBR1000RRs, with the 1125RR (below) launched in July. We wish Erik the very best of luck in continuing his covert R&D on the Helicon engine, and look forward to him proving its capabilities to a cynical sportbike market. It will stand Buell in good stead for when Harley restart production on Buell consumer models using all that expensive Helicon tooling they’ve just spent a fortune on: you surely can’t think it was only to churn out racebikes in the interim?

www.erikbuellracing.com

Celebrate Sturgis’ 70th birthday with unique VIP privileges, laid on by an award-winning motorcycle adventure company. Through their highly respected status as a tour organiser, and extensive industry contacts, UK-based Global Enduro are able to offer a unique ‘back stage pass’ to Sturgis’ 70th birthday extravaganza. I apologise if this sounds like an advert, but it is something rather special, and if you read Part 1 of Steve Kelly’s excellent, inspiring Sturgis report in AmV37, you’ll know what a difference it can make to be in the right place at the right time, and will appreciate the opportunity to join Global on this prestige road trip, and enjoy a private insider’s view of the greatest motorcycle event in the world. And no other tour operator is able to offer a trip like this. The package includes a VIP tour of Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, before riding from Harley-Davidson’s home in Milwaukee on a late model Heritage or Electra Glide motorcycle – a round trip of over 2,500 miles to the mother of all bike rallies in Sturgis South Dakota. You will join just 250 special people on the annual ‘Legends Ride’, rubbing shoulders with infamous bike builders and celebrities as you ride from Deadwood to the legendary Buffalo Chip Campground for a private supper and concert. There are exclusive invites to the launch party of the 7th AMD World Championship Custom bike show, and an invitation to the Sturgis Hall of Fame induction breakfast in Rapid City. There are VIP invites to the annual Jack Pine Gypsies hill climb, started in 1938, and a VIP tour of Sturgis Motorcycle Museum. Want more time in the saddle? There are special organised ride-out’s to Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse memorial , Custer state park, The Needles highway, Badlands National Park and The Devils Tower: this some of the most beautiful and stunning riding to be had in the US. You don’t need to be an expert to know that this package is very special: coupled with the 70th Anniversary, you hear it said a lot, but this is a genuine ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’. If I can work my ticket, we’ll be there, featuring it as the ultimate road trip. For full details, contact Richie Finney at Global Enduro on 01225 333300

American-V.co.uk

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30/11/09 23:46:26

Rocket Bob’s Bobbed Rocker

VICTORY KEEP ENTRY-LEVEL 8-BALL VEGAS BELOW £9K

Victory have announced their 2010 prices at the recent NEC Bike show, and while the impact of standardising the model range round the 106-inch, 6-speed gearbox has been felt in the pricing of the 8-Ball Kingpin, under advice from their dealer network, they have held the price of the massively uprated black-on-black Vegas at a credit-crunching £8,995. In reality, it’s hardly a base model in the normal scheme of things but something had to be the cheapest: ‘least expensive’ is probably more accurate. Assuming the differences in trim between the Vegas and Kingpin 8-Ball models are the same as last year, it should be closer to £9,995, so it’s a major bargain. The full price list at the time of going to press are, by category: 8-Ball

Vegas Kingpin Hammer NEW Vision NEW

£8,995 £10,495 £11,495 £13,995

Muscle

Hammer Hammer S

£12,495 £13,695

* limited edition model

Custom Vegas Vegas Jackpot Cory Ness Jackpot*

£10,695 £13,995 £15,995

Touring

£11,995 £17,495 TBC

Kingpin Vision Tour (ABS) Cross Roads/Country

You know that feeling you get, when someone stops doing something just when you understand what it’s there for? There’s probably a scientific term for it, or a clever acronym, but ‘bugger!’ usually covers it. We didn’t like the Rocker with its textured grey in all the wrong places. It was ... well, dull, frankly, and left us wondering what on earth were Harley thinking of? And then we got some pictures through the email that looked interesting, and then I almost tripped over the bike at Oxford Harley-Davidson when I went to shoot their XR racer for this issue, and WOW! Commissioned by Oxford H-D and built by Pete Pearson at Rocket Bob, it is everything the Rocker should have been: in fact, everything the Night Train should have been ... actually, judging by what Harley have managed to do with the Wide Glide, anyone for a 2011 Night Train? Pete has binned the silly mudguard and sillier seat, replacing them with a Rocket Bobs mini bolt-on fender, colour-matched to the original paint and fitted with his own mini indicators, and a hand-stitched leather seat; he’s triple coated the stock cast aluminium oil tank to build up the paint before machining the fins back and polishing them; he’s dropped the back end by an inch which works wonders for the line of the tank, and painted the swing-arm because it always should have been, and it looks stunning with those raked-out forks. Thankfully he has lost most of the textured black where it was in the wrong places, replacing it with a satin black that completely transforms the bike. Just about everything black has been powder-coated except the Big Radius exhausts, but including the barrels to create an older look, but then they are a powder-coating company too. A remarkably quick fix to a skin deep problem that made me mourn the passing of the Rocker, if only as a donor bike. Food for thought if you snapped up a plain Rocker at a bargain price.

www.rocketbobs.biz

www.victorymotorcycles.co.uk

American-V.co.uk

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American-V

QUICK SWITCH

Tired of reaching down to the steering head when you want to switch on your Street Bob? Or maybe just want to recreate a classic look – maybe switched from a Fat Boy and can’t spare the time for the factory-backed retraining programme? Help is here: everything you need to relocate your switch from Street Bob to Fat Boy – except the switch itself – so you can get back into the habit of switching off and walking away, trusting in the alarm’s proximity sensor to protect your bike while you’re queuing to pay for fuel. W&W 04-012 Ignition Switch relocation kit

www.wwag.com

ALUMINIUM NEW BDL BELT FOR FL GRILLS FOR VR-MODELS Baggers are the new Softail, or so it would seem: whether that’s because there’s much more custom stuff available for the big Tourers these days, or a sign we’re heading for Geezer Glide heaven. This is a prime example of the first case: it’s a semi-open 2-inch belt for popular FLHT models and comes in two forms – 1990-2006 and 2007-on – and is a complete kit which includes BDL’s ball-bearing lock-up clutch and a modified primary gearing to ‘improve overall RPM management’. All importantly, they allow replacement of the footboards without interference. Belt Drives Ltd: 001 714 685 3333 www.beltdrives.com

Twin City Motorcycles: 0191 430 0060

www.twincitymotorcycles.com

PAUGHCO PUMP PIPES We’re never short of news of pipes and these are Paughco’s latest in their designer series. I could wax on about performance and stuff, but let’s face it, you’ll either like them or you won’t. Heatshields are available and they come with or without O2 sensors for Softail and RSD bikes. Paughco: 001 775 246 5738

www.paughco.com

Original Bagger Style If you like you luggage old school, there’s not a lot that will suit you better than these ... except perhaps an original pair, saggy with age and beaten up by endless road miles. A reproduction of the bags fitted to Army WLA models, they mount via a permanently attached pin-strip, and will fit without modification to an original or replica rack dress in your browser and are made from heavy, top quality brown leather. Size: W: 36cm, H: 33cm, D: 13cm

W&W 95-028 Brown leather saddlebags for WL/WLA/WLC (oem 11786-43)

FRENCH

LESSONS*

Have you ever wanted to speak a different language? No, not French: Tech. Le Rock is offering a three hour evening, or an eight hour all-day course, where proprietor and factory-trained technician, Kev French, takes you through all aspects of the machine, introducing you to the world of mechanical understanding: everything you wanted to know about your Harley but were afraid to ask. The 3 hour course gives an invaluable insight into all aspects of your motorcycle, while the full day is much more in-depth looking much deeper to gain a proper understanding of how it all works, from servicing and customising to tuning. An excellent Christmas present, the three hours courses are held on a Tuesday evening and cost £60, while the full day course runs on a Monday. Places are strictly limited to 6 per session, so book early to avoid disappointment. For more information and a booking form please telephone 01623 632266 or email info@le-rock-ltd.co.uk

www.wwag.com

www.le-rock-ltd.co.uk

* Sorry Kev: it was just too easy

Protect your radiator/oil cooler from road debris. At £100 inc vat + next day delivery, a stylish and inexpensive way to ensure your V-Rod’s expensive radiator/ oil cooler doesn’t get damaged. They’re available in black or chrome, or flamed by special order, and come with full complete fitting instructions. Exclusively available from Twin City Motorcycles now.

88American-V.co.uk American-V.co.uk

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30/11/09 23:46:38

SLIP-SLIDIN’ AWAY If all the recent talk of racing Harley-Davidsons, and particularly hurtling sideways round dirt ovals at impossible speeds, has got you hungry to know more, you might be interested in a very specialist magazine. Sideburn is a high quality, A5 magazine, containing gratuitous images of people in the throes of passion ... racing, that is. It has more than its share of XR750s but it’s broader than that, mixing classic and current, racing and the subculture it has spawned. It might even be ‘down with the kids’, if I knew what that meant: I hope so, because we need new blood and flat-track / short track / speedway – and, hell, even just fun on simple motorcycles might just be the way to make bikes cool again to the X-Box generation. Available direct or through the Magazine Man (www.themagazineman.co.uk). www.sideburnmagazine.com

Pintail Seat for Late Dynas

Rocket Bobs Pintail Seat Unit is a radical new design made from glass fibre over a steel skeleton, that takes its inspiration from a mix of surfing culture and the old school Bobber look. It is available with a matt or gloss black paint finish and comes with a handstitched leather seat pad, complete with gel inserts for extra comfort. To fit the seat, the original Dyna rear fender struts need to be removed behind the top shock mount – which they can do for you or detailed instructions can be provided after which it’s a simple procedure to bolt on the Pintail seat unit. Optional extra’s include rear hugger fenders, Kellermann stop/tail/turn lights and their own special edition baseball stitched leather seats (as shown). www.rocketbobs.biz

NEW UNIVERSAL LOW TUNNEL TANKS

Paughco’s latest, custom fuel tanks are perfect for a wide variety of machines from choppers to open-road cruisers. With three sizes – 3.4, 3.8 and 4.8 US Gallon – they’re a sleek teardrop shape designed for use on stretched toptubes. Each tank has the stock screw-in filler and vent, and a standard 22mm petcock fitting for use with left-side mounted fuel taps. The tunnel depth is just 3.5-inches, and they measure 21-inches, mount to mount, for the smaller one, and 22inches for the two bigger models: all of which have a MSRP of $314.95. Paughco: 001 775 246 5738 www.paughco.com

FASTRATCH WRENCHES These are either barking mad or genius and I’m erring towards the latter purely because of their source: Germany, where they take their engineering seriously. Their only limitation would seem to be space for the fully enclosing head. It’s basically a spring-loaded ratchet where turning one way locks the jaws onto a bolt head and then turning it back releases it, spring-loaded on its internal ratchet, and thenyou can tighten again: a quick way to release a long, tight bolt, and we’ve all had them. If you want to refasten said bolt, flip the tool over and the ratchet works the other way: simple. Because it isn’t a perfect mechanical fit, each wrench fits one metric size and its nearest equivalent imperial, and they are long – presumably because of the need for strength in the tool – from a 12cm long 5 ⁄16-inch / 8mm, working up to a 24cm ¾-inch / 19mm. We’ve no pricing information, or first hand knowledge of the Stahlwille brand, but can tell you they are only available individually, which suggests expensive, but high quality. in. mm ⁄16 8 W&W 97-616 3⁄ 8 10 W&W 97-617 7⁄ 16 11 W&W 97-618 15 ⁄ 32 12 W&W 97-619 1⁄ 2 13 W&W 97-634 5

in. mm ⁄16 14 5 ⁄ 16 8 21 ⁄ 17 32 11 ⁄ 18 16 3 ⁄ 19 4 9

W&W 97-635 W&W 97-636 W&W 97-637 W&W 97-638 W&W 97-639

www.wwag.com

Bikers’ group applauds B’ham bus lane decision The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) applauded the decision by Birmingham City Council to open its bus lanes to motorcycles, after completing a test that allowed motorcycles to use them, which confirmed the experience of other towns and cities, that it was beneficial to motorcyclists, with no disadvantages to other road users. It’s a policy that allows motorcyclists to see and be seen in congested traffic. MAG in Birmingham and nation-wide has been campaigning on this issue for years, first winning access to bus lanes throughout Bristol in 1996, and London opened all of its major route bus lanes to motorcycles recently. MAG President Ian Mutch said ‘There seems to be an outbreak of sanity among local authorities all over the country, this is great news and shows how MAG’s campaigning is helping to produce real results for riders.

www.mag-uk.org American-V.co.uk

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American-V American-V

ZODIAC BEACH CRUISER

Every year Zodiac try to build at least one demo-bike to show what can be done with their parts, and this year that demo-bike is the Beach Cruiser. How does it work, look and perform and is everything working the way it should be? A low-seat chopper running a still-tight 1700cc S&S motor, Big Twin Magazine’s chopper specialist, Grizzley, got to sample its delights first hand as part roadtest, part shake-down run. Grizzley reports that it rides very well for a low seat bike, which can be an uncompromising ride, especially with an ‘old and retired back’ sitting low with arms and legs stretched out ahead of you, and it’s something that even hi-tech suspension struggles to help with, but he reckons the frame builders did a good job with the Beach Cruiser, especially in terms of dealing with the complications of relocating the oil and battery – and after a 400km day through Dutch drizzle, that’s the time you’re going to notice. He reports no stiff limbs or a sore back, and thoroughly enjoyed himself squeezed in between the tank and rear mudguard - especially with that amount of power on-tap. The steering geometry – with an extra three degrees of rake in the yokes to provide the perfect trail – was set up well for all road conditions, which included some narrow winding roads, and even the 300-section rear tyre failed to unsettle things. He reports that the low mileage engine was a little lumpy at low speeds in traffic, but once on the highway it settled into its stride nicely,

and was particularly happy in the 100130km/h bracket with plenty of roll-on power to catapult it forward at will, and thankfully a triple disk set up could pull it up sharp without drama. Despite the weather, he stayed relatively dry, thanks in part to the classy-looking West-Coast-style wrap-round front mudguard, sitting close to the 21-inch tyre, that contributed to the classic, clean lines of the bike, and he liked the look – and the sound – of the slightly upswept pipes which he reckoned provided the Cruiser with a racy sportbike look. He also appreciated the Fat Bubba front end and the nicely curved fuel tank with its fancy paint. The only niggles were a speedo that tried to escape from its bracket on the

pullback handlebars, and a side-mount that was designed to fold out of the way in the event of an impact, but which struggled to hold its own against the wind ... but which meant he wouldn’t have been getting a speeding ticket that day. www.zodiac.nl

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8 BAKER STREET BIRMINGHAM B11 4SF TELEPHONE 0121 766 8111

www.thunderroad.com enquiries@thunderroad.com

WHERE YOUR DREAMS TURN TO REALITY WHERE FRIENDSHIPS ARE FORGED ON THE ROAD WHERE YOUR BIKE IS AS PRECIOUS TO US AS IT IS TO YOU WHERE EXPERIENCE REALLY DOES COUNT WE ARE THUNDER ROAD

BUYING; SELLING; BUILDING; SERVICING; HOT-RODDING; CUSTOMISING; PAINTING; RESTORING LIVING & BREATHING AMERICAN V-TWINS FOR OVER 20 YEARS. AV.indd 6

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Reviews S&S Cycle Presents:

Today’s Top Custom Bike Builders

Howard Kelly Photographs by Michael Lichter ISBN 978-0-7603-3603-8 RRP £24.00 http://www.motorbooks.com Those who have been living in a cave for the last few years might not have noticed that S&S Cycle – the premier aftermarket specialists in the HarleyDavidson sector – celebrated 50 years of Proven Performance in 2008, and that as part of their anniversary party they invited the world’s top 50 builders to build a bike based round one of their motors, in a special limited edition form. With a foreword by none other than Jay Leno, and preceded by a brief history of S&S, this is the record of those bikes and, as suggested by the title, their builders. Former S&S PR man and journalist, Howard Kelly, provides a brief background to each build and builder, teaming up with world-renowned photographer, Michael Lichter who provides his usual stunning images – including a formally-posed portrait of the builders with their bikes. This is a stunning book to grace any coffee table, with the photographs reproduced flawlessly on a very high grade of gloss art paper within a robust, embossed binding. Every shot is a calendar shot, each painstakingly picked out from its original studio background to show these masterpieces in glorious isolation, and if you don’t come away with a desire to build something yourself, and a massive amount of respect for those who have put these together, you’re probably reading the wrong magazine. Don’t expect to like every bike: these are fifty of the world’s most creative engineers, and they have very different, original ideas, each triggering a reaction, challenging your sensibilities. A moment superbly captured in time, that will be as interesting when S&S celebrate their 100th as today. American-V deal: £22.00 inc P&P Contact GBS on 01206 255777 and quote “S&S Presents”

Custom Motorcycles Choppers • Bobbers • Baggers

Howard Kelly Photographs by Michael Lichter ISBN 978-0-7603-3607-6 £14.99 http://www.motorbooks.com An “Idea Book” and sister publication to “Today’s Top Custom Builders”, Howard Kelly sifts through the detail pics of Michael Lichters image library from the S&S 50th Anniversary bikes and beyond, breaking down the elements of high-end custom bikes to their basic components so that interested readers can see what’s what, and feed their creative senses. Pick a subject – say wheels – and there’s a chapter that picks out just about every type

of wheel, in glorious isolation without the rest of the bike to distract you. Now that could be dangerous, if it weren’t for the side-on library shots at the front of the book under “Bike Styles” which show most of the complete bikes so that you can cross-reference each component to its original application, because every bike is more than just the sum of its parts and how those parts work together is the biggest factor in the master builder’s art. They missed a trick in not crossreferencing each detail shot by a common ID number to the full image (ie all images marked 32 link to the bike numbered 32 at the front of the book), but once you’ve familiarised yourself with the bikes, you’ll pick that up anyway. Indeed, it’s a quick and easy way to learn who’s building what, and by the time you get to the end, you should be able to recognise the bike and the builder by its style alone without referring to the lighthearted captions.

American-V.co.uk

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If you’re easily irritated and you know your stuff, give the captions a miss: they’re often more for entertainment than edification, with a little bit of steering here and there, but it’s not hard to pick holes which detracts from the value of the book, and could turn you into a plausible facsimile of your great aunt shouting at the TV when the Saturday wrestling was on ... well, mine did. For someone interested in building their own bike, or even modifying an existing bike, this is an invaluable reference and saves hours of trawling through back issue looking for that elusive front end that was fitted to that blue XL photographed outside a cement factory ... but never was. I would have liked a little more technical information – relative weights of wheel designs, as an example, and the implications of some of the choices on offer – but this is more a visual examination, which it carries off nicely. American-V deal: £12.99 inc P&P Contact GBS on 01206 255777 and quote “Custom Motorcycles”

Harley-Davidson Panhead Restoration

Wolfgang Publishing Motorcycle Restoration

Rick Shunk and C Hannaway ISBN 978-1-929133-81-9 £16.99 http://www.wolfpub.com The joy of getting a book like this, is it gives me a good excuse to go out, buy a Panhead and restore it ... except, of course, it doesn’t work like that. What it does do, though, is to provide loads of reference material, and masses of stripped engine/gearbox/chassis photographs, taken mainly by the author, which ensures that each picture illustrates the point as needed. There’s plenty of other useful stuff, like the special tools that

make life easier and how to fabricate said tools if you haven’t got them to hand, as well as simple checks for frame alignment, spotting component wear, and lots and lots of measuring, which can be reconciled to Appendix A, where all the important information has been picked out for quick reference. That’s obviously all well and good if you’ve got a genuine Panhead – which is going to limit its market somewhat over here – but it does have an appeal to general classic petrol heads in that you can read it as a book in its own right and get some insight into how Harley engines are put together. Some sections will have direct relevance to Shovelhead and Evo owners, but even those running Twin Cams will get something out of it: much of the technology might have moved on, but the concepts are the same and are at the heart of understanding your bike. The biggest reassurance in terms of American-V’s riding ethos, is that this is not about how to do a concours restoration but a sympathetic one, and there is an underlying sense that the restored bike will be ridden rather than tucked away for posterity. Consequently it concentrates more on measuring for tolerance rather than getting bogged down in a frenzy of rivet-counting, and in doing so it outlines the mechanical evolution (sic) of the model that spanned Harley’s progress from the last year of the Springer forks, through Hydra Glide, into Duo Glides and into the first year of the Electra Glide. An interesting book with a broader appeal than its title suggests. American-V deal: £14.99 inc P&P Contact GBS on 01206 255777 and quote “Panhead”

American-V.co.uk

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American-V American-V

Reviews Weise Cowboy Boot £89.99

weise-clothing.co.uk

If you are commuting this winter by bike, then you will know just how important it is to have the right kit to keep you warm and dry. I had been wearing a very well known brand of bike boot which I’d smothered in dubbin for that added waterproofing, and yet time and time again they let me down in even the mildest of showers, and so the hunt for a winter-time-commuting solution began. I wanted style, comfort, dryness and warmth but could I get a pair of boots to meets all my requirements in one? A casual enquiry led to the discovery that Weise do a pair of Harness boots that have a cruiser-friendly styling and are waterproof, thanks to their use of Hydroguard® waterproof and breathable lining. And of course, it hasn’t rained since they arrived! I did test them under the shower-head for quite a while though, making sure that plenty of water went into the stitched leather seams which would be the obvious weak spot, and my feet stayed perfectly dry, which is promising. It also showed how well the water repellent coating worked, the boots not even looking wet, even after a prolonged soaking. Water is only half the battle though, and warmth is essential to your comfort during winter and I have found these boots have kept my wee tootsies warm so far, thanks to the waterproof/breathable lining aided by a pair of Oxford’s excellent thermal socks.

Leanings

The best of Peter Egan from Cycle World Magazine Peter Egan ISBN 978-0-7603-3657-1 £12.99 An entry from left field, because it’s far from being a book extolling the virtues of American motorcycles, but is a compendium of assorted ramblings from the pen of an established columnist on Cycle World magazine, and for the sheer joy of Anglophile, Peter Egan’s passion for motorcycling, it’s well worth a punt. Through a series of features and columns, you grow to feel you know the author by mid-way through the book, thanks partly to a simple writing style that lacks for nothing in its ability to describe a situation, location or time, but also for the breadth of his experience. It doesn’t matter whether he’s recounting his youth, reliving his pilgrimage to the Isle of Man TT Races, justifying keeping his old helmets, or getting excited about one of the many motorcycles that are special to him, he writes in an easy style with an obvious love of language, without being too showy about it, which makes for very easy reading, and the inevitable Americanisms forgivable. It’s a book that invites you to dip in at random,

They are a bit slack, which is due to the styling of the boot, but this does allow for thick socks to be worn: a buckle across the front would have been nice for a more secure fit but that would have started looking like an engineer boot. The Western origin comes through in the rest of the design, with a reinforced toe and heel – which is great – but lighter leather on the rest of the foot which I could feel the gear change on the Buell through, but that’s the styling compromise. There’s no such compromise on the sole, which is robust with a good, confident grip, and they’re very comfortable to walk in too! And the styling for me is spot-on, making for a very handsome looking boot, and not one you’d normally associate with waterproofing: I’m almost looking forward to doing more tests in real rain – what am I saying? – and will report on that in the next issue of the magazine in a broader four-season clothing feature. This style of boot isn’t the sort of thing that can carry a brand name comfortably without detracting from the look, but Weise have stamped their name so subtly that you wouldn’t know it was there unless you looked for it, which I really liked. In the brief time that I’ve had these boots I have become extremely fond of them and am very hopeful at this early stage that I will only look cool this winter: I will actually be snug and dry. And all this for just £89.99! Amanda

picking out a short story or a shorter column according to time available, and one of them will strike chord that will ensure you finish the book. For me it was a search for a lost highway, Route 66, now almost entirely replaced by a series of Interstates, but which have left large stretches of America’s most famous road intact – often following the natural contours of the land – while the modern blacktop soars overhead taking the short-cut, leaving the ghosts of towns and communities to their bypassed tranquillity. Now there’s a road trip: motoring west, dodging wildlife that has grown accustomed to the lack of traffic, and trees that have grown up in the gaps between the sectional concrete that comprised much of the old road. But that’s one of many engaging tales Highly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in motorcycling of any kind. American-V deal: £10.00 inc P&P Contact GBS on 01206 255777 and quote “Leanings”

American-V.co.uk

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2010 FXDW DYNA WIDE GLIDE

REINVENTING THE PAST NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD 16

American-V.co.uk

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Harley-Davidson 2010:FXDWG FXDWGDyna DynaWide Wide Glide Glide Harley-Davidson 2010:

DWG

Just twelve months since it was dropped from the model range, the FXDWG returns with a new style. American-V.co.uk

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Harley-Davidson 2010: FXDWG Dyna Wide Glide

It’s not so much a revamp of the Apes and Flames of the original, as an evolution of the Street Bob into the proto-chopper that historically followed the bobber style. Mechanically, it’s a parts bin special that borrows liberally from the Fat Bob and the Street Bob, but as ever with the models that you can see becoming icons in the future, it’s much more than the sum of its parts – especially in its flame-painted form. You could point out that it’s a Street Bob back end with a Fat Bob’s power-train and exhausts, but it is the way that those 49mm forks kick out, giving it a silhouette that Harley are increasingly comfortable with, that will establish its place in the model range. It has got some work to do. The Wide Glide doesn’t have to compete against a regular Softail of a similar specification, but it will inevitably be compared to the Rocker C for its radical geometry, and it carries the expectations of the traditional custom market on its shoulders. It’ll need to be good to step into the tyre tracks of the Night Train, but it feels right and I reckon it might just carry it off. It’s got the right triggers: with a 36-degree fork angle, made up of a 34-degree headstock with an additional 2-degrees of trail adjustment in the yokes, it’s a couple of degrees short of the most radical Harley of all time – the original V-Rod – and one degree down on the 2010 Rocker C but it speaks a different language to either of them: an older, coarser blue-collar language from the tap room, more than the lounge bar. Give it the Dark Custom treatment and there could be a Dyna Night Train next year. The only strange affectation is a cosmetic sissy bar that appears to serve little purpose, other than to differentiate between its back end from that of the solo-saddled Street Bob. In its firm, broad saddle, with the engine turning over, you get to understand why the FX Softail’s card was marked by the evolving Dyna range. In spite of the marginally taller seat height, this feels more like an old-school Harley in a way that the balanced

88 and 96-inch Twin Cams just can’t, and if you like your V-twin to let you know you’ve got more than a litre and a half being displaced by two massive pistons between your legs, you won’t be disappointed. Even the ever-popular Street Bob’s got a serious fight on its hands, and my money’s on the newcomer. Even those who covet the single, simple line from headstock to wheel spindle, recreated in the Softail, will willingly surrender it for the cosseting vibration of a low revving big-inch motor cradled in its isoplanar mounts, rocking backwards and forwards. And I suppose, twenty-five years on from the arrival of the Softail, a whole generation of riders have grown-up with the lines of the twin-shock FX frame as their predecessors did with the hard-tail, it’s only right that the range should continue to evolve. Thanks to Preston Harley-Davidson for the use of their 2010 Wide Glide demonstrator.

Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

American-V.co.uk

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Warr's Ad_American V_Dec09/Jan10_Warr's Ad_American V_Dec09/Jan10 23/11/2009 16:42 Page 1

Warr’s Silver ‘Tracker’ – Customised Harley-Davidson Street Bob

Europe’s most successful Harley-Davidson Dealership www.warrs.com

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2010 FLHT ELECTRA GLIDE ULTRA LIMITED A CVO ON THE CHEAP OR A SUBTLE SPECIAL?

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Harley-Davidson 2010: FLHTK Electra Glide Ultra Limited

Ultra Limited perhaps isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the best choice of names for this most flexible of Electra Glides. Ultra? Certainly. Limited? Hardly!

American-V.co.uk

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Harley-Davidson 2010: FLHTK Electra Glide Ultra Limited

Three-point-one millimetres separates this from the Ultra Classic Electra Glide, and if you want to know if it’s worth it, you need to do little more than put it on the road and let the clutch out. Of course another 3.2mm will take you to the next stage of development in the form of the CVO model’s Screamin’ Eagle motor, but that comes with many more trinkets. I am, of course, referring to the bore of each cylinder, and by sticking 98.4mm barrels and pistons onto the 96-inch Electra Glide’s bottom end you get the 103-inch / 1690cc Limited, and if there’s any common sense in the world Harley will build ‘Limited’ versions of a number of other bikes next year, slipping neatly between their regular range and the top-of-the-shop 110-inch CVO models. You can, of course, stick the big bore kit onto your existing 96ci Twin Cam – and your dealer will be delighted to undertake that upgrade for you – in which case you’re likely to end up with a free-breathing filter and mufflers and maybe a pair of cams to let a few more of those rampant horses out, but for a fully legal, off the shelf motor in a subtly repackaged bike, the Limited really works. The 103-inch motor is one of those configurations that just feels dead right. It feels in balance, just as it did when it was the serious big bore conversion for the old 88-inch motor using the hand-built Screamin’ Eagle stroker crank, but I was still surprised it was still on the books when the 110 was just another big bore kit away. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it: it conjures up an extra 11% torque, and you can feel it within the first hundred yards, although that’s not a good reason to take it back because you need a few more miles to truly appreciate what that additional roll-on power means in the real world. The bike that is built around it is a redressed Ultra that raises the Electra Glide’s game a little further. More self-effacing than its CVO sibling, it still comes with its own very special paint scheme, revised instrument dials (that are readable in all lighting

conditions!), heated grips, chrome accented versions of the current generation cast wheels, the Tour Pak’s luggage rack, a 12v/15A power outlet and the upgrade option bag liners in the luggage. In fact, what Harley have done is note what the popular Electra upgrades are and fitted them as standard, and then picked it out as special with a liberal dosing of ‘Limited’ badges and a unique paint scheme that you need to see it in natural light to fully appreciate. We picked this one up from Oxford Harley-Davidson, where they’ve been adding a few extra bits and pieces to it for good measure, which accounts for the aerodynamically-shaped screen, cruising pegs attached to the crash-bars and a change of grips to match them. The Limited opens up a can of worms that Harley must have accounted for: can you think of any other bikes in the big twin ranges that a 103 Limited edition might suit? Me too.

Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

American-V.co.uk

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Harley-Davidson 2010: FLSTFB Fat Boy Special

2010 FLSTF

FAT BOY SPECIAL WHO SAYS THAT BLACK IS A SLIMMING COLOUR?

Denim black and satin chrome mark this Fat Boy out as Special, but the Motor Company stopped short of making it Low. American-V.co.uk

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Harley-Davidson 2010: FLSTFB Fat Boy Special

Known in the US market as the Fat Boy Low, we get the renamed FLSTFB Fat Boy Special for one very good reason: the Americans have slammed the Fat Boy’s suspension down as low as they dare, and we haven’t – something to do with roundabouts and follows a principle established with the 883R and Nightster. When I say slammed, don’t get too excited: it equates to a 3mm reduction in ground clearance, 10mm in unladen seat height and barely a couple of degrees less cornering clearance, but the base bike is already compromised and a further reduction might attract the attention of H&S. In essence, what we’ve got is a return to the iconography of the original pseudo-USAF tank badges, a double-dose of any colour as long as it’s black – vivid or denim – with satin chrome highlights that extends to the engine covers as well as the dash, headlamp rim, handlebar clamps and even the tank badge – which is a proper badge rather than a decal: the only place you’ll see your reflection is in the mirrors … and the handlebars, knuckle-style clamps and the filler caps, which are still inexplicably shiny Harley have resisted the temptation to make more of a feature of the satin finish, which could easily have extended to the fork tins and headlamp shell, as well as the air-filter, rear mudguard rails, indicators and the heat-shields on the headers, but they rendered them black, along with the centres of the new generation Fat Boy wheels, set-off by brushed aluminium rims. Harley-Davidson have taken the denim black theme further on the Special than on any bike previously, extending the finish to the frame and swing-arm, which gets a big thumbs up from here, blending better with a flat black tank and mudguards, and looking more natural with high gloss Vivid Black bodywork than matt bodywork with a gloss frame ever could. Thames Valley Harley-Davidson have then taken the black on their demo model to overdose level, blacking the normally aluminium forks sliders as well as the matt lower fork tins, which

surprisingly weren’t in the same gloss black of the headlamp itself. They are now. It will undoubtedly be pitched as being a dark custom, but this style is evolving into less of a gothic and more of a retro style: a finished statement without the need of a stacked skulls motif to underpin its mass-market appeal. The retro argument is fuelled further by the use of the restyled Heritage Softail’s half-round footboards, while the quite traditional, internally-wired stainlesssteel handlebars that are described as ‘mini beach’ for reasons that escape me, introduce another influence that gains momentum quickly once the idea is planted: could this be Harley’s stab at an Exile bike? Whatever it might be, it is a Fat Boy in a posh suit that manages to justify its own model designation: a neat trick that should keep the world’s favourite Softail’s star in the ascendant.

Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

American-V.co.uk

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Harley-Davidson 2010: XR1200X

FINE-TUNING THE XR1200 Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re already on the record as big fans of the XR1200, both as a means of bringing new blood into the Harley family and as an excellent modern American motorcycle, so we were interested to see how The Motor Company have improved it for 2010.

0 XR1200X American-V.co.uk

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Harley-Davidson 2010: XR1200X

Cosmetically, it has been dipped in a bucket of night, losing all of the satin chrome of its sibling, and stripped of the heritage racing graphics that allude to decades of track success in a race series that has little currency in Europe: that has been replaced by a smooth denim black scheme with a chequered flag motif which apparently qualifies as Europeanising it. The hell with that: it makes a goodlooking bike look stunning – especially with the blacked-out powertrain, exhausts and swing-arm. Mechanically too, it has had a good dose of looking-at, notably in the department that manufacturers typically get wrong: the suspension. The standard model’s running gear wasn’t too shabby, with inverted forks and a pair of reasonably well-damped rear shocks, but the X gets completely new fully adjustable forks and piggy-back shocks at the back which will make it much easier to tailor to a specific rider and riding style – and it is to be hoped that the sort of rider attracted by the XR1200X will be one who takes the time to set it up properly or else it will be no more useful than when they tried it before with the XL1200S and the Super Glide Sport. They’re still Showa units rather than an exotic performance brand, but you’ve got to give a prospective owner something to do. The already stunning twin Brembo 4-pot front brakes have been treated to a set of floating rotors, which will help to give it greater credibility within its target market, which will be exposed to the Harley brand more next year through the XR1200 race series in British Superbikes. That’s when we’ll discover whether that incoming generation will be wooed by the black-on-black style that sits so well alongside Harley’s wider range, which can’t be safely assumed. Still, but the opportunity to build a hybrid with the XR1200X’s powertrain and the regular XR’s orange bodywork together with stainless headers, carbon heatshields and cans isn’t too far beneath the surface: all Harley have got to do is make sure that the XR carrot is dangled tantalisingly close. For the rest of us, who have already bought into the bar and shield mindset, the XR is closer than ever to being a classic HarleyDavidson and a worthy claimant to the Sportster tag, and for those of us who were passionate about the air-cooled Buells, it’s as close

to a Lightning Long as the Motor Company have produced to date. It’s not quite in Buell rapier country, but it’s less of a broadsword than a stock XL1200S ever was and does serve to give the more ambitious sportier riders an edge, without wasting trick suspension on the rest of us. If you know why you should set up spring pre-load for your weight, and compression and rebound damping to suit your riding style, this is a very important addition to the range and hints at Harley’s hopes for the XR platform’s future. If you don’t have the first idea why – or indeed how – you should, you’re perhaps better off with the XR1200 … unless you like black, in which case, talk nicely to your dealer and have them set the bike up for you before you leave: it’ll be worth it. Thanks to Chester Harley-Davidson for making their showroom bike available at short notice.

Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

American-V.co.uk

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Plymouth Harley-Davidson

Preston Harley-Davidson

8 3

1 6

11 14 15

599 Princess Way, Cheltenham GL51 7PA Tel: 01242 240570 www.bladegroup.co.uk

Guildford Harley-Davidson

Lincoln Harley-Davidson

Portsmouth Road, Peasmarsh, Guildford, GU3 1NA Tel: 0845 388 9643 www.guildfordharleydavidson.co.uk

8 Tritton Road, Lincoln LN6 7QY Tel: 01522 850098 Fax: 01522 850088 www.lincolnharleydavidson.co.uk

Newcastle Harley-Davidson

3 Dinsdale Place, Warwick Street, Sandyford, Newcastle NE2 1BD Tel: 0191 2327174 www.newcastleharley-davidson.com

Ber Street, Norwich, NR1 3ES Tel: 0845 224 0419 www.norwichharleydavidson.co.uk

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Norwich Harley-Davidson

Oxford Harley-Davidson

Corner House Garage, Whitecross, Wootton, Oxfordshire OX13 6BS Tel: 01865 735121 www.bladegroup.co.uk

West Strand Park, Strand Road, Preston,Lancashire PR1 8UY. Tel: 01772 551800 www.harleydavidson-preston.com

Silverstone Harley-Davidson

Stratstone Harley-Davidson

170 Watling Street East, Towcester,Northamptonshire NN12 6DB Tel: 01327 353444 www.silverstoneharley-davidson.co.uk

Waterlinks Motor Village, Lichﬁeld Road Aston, Birmingham Tel: 0121 335 70 43 www.stratstone.com/harley-davidson-bikes.html

Cheltenham Harley-Davidson

Langage Business Park, Eagle Road, Plympton, Plymouth, Devon PL7 5JY Tel: 01752 332 775 www.plymouthharleydavidson.co.uk

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Stratstone Harley-Davidson

2 Loxam Road Chingford London E4 8SE Tel: 0208 5319026 www.stratstone.com/harley-davidson-bikes.html

Stratstone Harley-Davidson 37-43 Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton WV3 0UF Tel: 01902 371 600 www.stratstone.com/harley-davidson-bikes.html

Sycamore

Warr’s Harley-Davidson

Waterford Harley-Davidson

North Street, Uppingham, Rutland LE15 9RN Tel: 01572 823296 www.sycamorehd.co.uk.co.uk

611 Kings Road, London, SW6 2EL Tel: 0207 736934 www.warrs.com

16 – 20 Mottingham Road, London SE9 4QW Tel: 0208 8579198 www.warrs.com

Ozier Park, Waterford City, Ireland Tel: +353 51 844200 Fax: +353 51 857206 www.waterfordhd.com

30/11/09 15:40:49

KRAUS/DYN HYBRID

Satya Kraus has very strong thoughts about Harley’s idea of motorcycle styling, basically, he sums it up in one word, and it’s not a complimentary one! 32 American-V.co.uk

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Street: Satya Kraus’ Hydrid Dyna

NA He is happy to rant on further, should you press him on the subject, he will probably start by telling you something like, how the Milwaukee engineers and designers just keep piling on the junk until the bike needs a larger engine just to get it moving ... but he has ideas about this too, thinking it is maybe Harley’s strategy to sell more engine upgrade parts. He concludes that perhaps he is not the greatest business man, but hand on heart, he can honestly say that all of his own custom motorcycles look good and go damn fast too.

I was therefore surprised to learn that Satya now believes that not everything is bad about all current model stock Harleys, and that he could – and indeed has – used one for the basis of a hybrid custom/stock project. He told me, for example, that the frame and swingarm setup of the FXD make for a solid chassis that handles the road nicely. Wow! Praise indeed from the man who had told me in the past that if it isn’t a completely one off, unique hand-made custom, he’s not interested! That’s paraphrasing what he actually said, but I’m sure you get the drift.

American-V.co.uk

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Street: Kraus’ Xl1200C Satya Vs Dyna LowHydrid RiderDyna

Unquestionably, the stock Harley-Davidson Twin Cam is overall a good, clean engine, but if you add a Wiseco 95” kit, some hot cams, a Mikuni carburettor, and port the heads it has some real guts. Of course, it always helps to drop some of the weight, so Satya lost 10lbs immediately by losing the passenger peg mounts – honestly, that is what they weigh in at – and harvested some of the electrical mounting parts to trim the weight further still. What he is left with is a pretty much stock electrical system but it now fits into that nice spot under the seat – where he says Harley should have put it in the first place – enclosed by aluminium side panels. He then cut off about half of the rear fender mounting horns to shorten the look of the rear end and hand-formed that sweetlooking aluminium tail section around them, to keep things looking clean; and to use the empty space within it, he mounted the battery inside. Satya found a nice adjustable inverted front end, through a friend, which came with the Dual Tokico 4 piston callipers, and lightweight triple trees and all he had to do to make it fit was to make up a new headstock stem that would fit the bearings in the Dyna neck and a set of axle spacers for the forks so that he could run a ¾-inch axle, and after sourcing a set of 40-spoke aluminium hubs and rims from Black Bike Wheels, he snagged some ZX6 front rotors and nearly had the front end finished. At the back, he’s running Ohlins Piggyback shocks simply because they perform wonderfully, and the rear brake is another 4piston Tokico caliper, again mated to a ZX6 front rotor. You could say, this bike has a lot of brakes! Next he bent up some dirt bike style handlebars and fitted one of his own Twist Brake hand controls, designed and manufactured by Kraus Motor Company. It is good to have friends in high places, and one such runs MX1West.com: the US distributor for Acerbis aftermarket products. He hooked Satya up with an LED Vision HP headlight setup, some fork covers and a few other goodies, while another, Obie Beaver, sorted him out with the oh-so-stylish, handtooled seat. With the simple addition of some stickers on the sides of the raw aluminium tank, Satya was ready to head off on a rather long shakedown road trip: Northern California to Sturgis South Dakota.

On the way out of California, through the Sierra Mountains, Satya was able to find out how well this hybrid Kraus/Dyna really handles, and discovered that it pushes through the corners nicely with none of the washed-out feeling you often feel with a stock Milwaukee offering when pushing it hard. He also soon found himself hitting some of the tighter hairpin corners at well over safe road speeds, but the suspension felt smooth, the brakes were strong and the bike didn’t have any heavy feeling to it. By the time he pulled into Sturgis, however, there were a few gremlins in the bike to work out, but they were easily sorted with a trip to Timmy’s used bike emporium for some replacement parts, and he was up and running again in no time. Anyone who has ever made the trip to Sturgis knows that the roads throughout the Black Hills area are incredible to ride, but Satya was getting seriously frustrated by finding that everywhere he went he was faced with rows of big fat slow baggers taking up the whole lane. He has no idea how many of them he must have pissed off by blasting past anyway he could – over the double yellow lanes, on the right, in between, and anyway possible to get by those ‘bloated overweight hogs’ – but he finally started to realise that he should perhaps slow down a little bit after being chased up Spearfish Canyon by the law. Luckily they didn’t catch him, as fines are steep in that neck of the woods.

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Street: Satya Kraus’ Hydrid Dyna

After partying until all hours – and terrorizing the baggers – for several days, he headed back to California one happy man, but that is not where the road trip story ends. On the way through Utah he decided to stop off at the Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week, just to take a little look. He had been planning to go to the BUB’s event later in the month, so seeing all the cars and bikes on the salt was a good motivator to get home and work on his and his friends’ Land Speed projects. Dirty Dave’s 1450cc Sportster was the number one mission for this year, so he got to work finishing that build first, and for his own salt racer, he’d considered pulling together a CBR1000 based racer, having had a big Honda engine sitting around for a long time. But then he’d had so much fun with the Dyna over the previous couple of weeks that he decided that he’d run that. By this time, he had broken the final drive belt doing rolling burnouts on a film shoot, so had switched it over to chain, and had fabricated some clip-on handlebars and mounted a set of Brembo Radial controls. Thinking about what the bike would be like to haul ass on, on the salt, he wisely made up a front fender to keep the salt out of his eyes. The last item to be changed was a new exhaust pipe with less restriction for more power, and with these relatively few modifications to the bike you see here, he loaded up the truck and trailer and headed east.

When he got to Bonneville it all started feeling pretty exciting. He got the bike and paperwork together and headed to tech inspection to get the Kraus/Dyna checked out. After easily passing tech he was ready to run, and set out to the track – waiting in the hot sun for three and a half hours before it was time for him to finally roll the Dyna to the starting position. Adrenalin pumping, he set out through the first mile, quickly passing 100mph. The speedometer stopped working at 107mph, which gave him one less thing to think about, so he just opened the Dyna up, calling on in his dirt-racing to look after him on the hard salt. The bike felt great, sturdy and smooth, and before he knew it, he was in the timed mile and holding it wide open: the Dyna screaming at around 7,000rpm. Four-miles goes by real fast at this speed! And then it was over. He headed back to the pits and heard his time come across the radio: 131mph. “That felt great, lets do it again!” he quipped, and he did. With a quick change of rear sprocket to a smaller diameter, to give the Dyna a little more top end speed, and he went out for another run, this time hitting 139.5 mph. It felt good, but he could only get the bike to 4,900rpm: he had hit the force of air and it wouldn’t let him by. He had also realised that the AMA land speed record stood just a few points away at 142.5mph, and all of a sudden it changed from ‘just for shits and giggles fun’. From here on out it started getting serious. After a few more runs dialling in his ignition advance curve he had the bike screaming across the salt at its maximum of 140mph. It’s a strange feeling taking a machine to its max – and something that few ever really do – and he realised that going any faster was up to him and how he was performing as a rider. He had to dig deeper in himself, and on the last day at Bonneville it all came together: when he saw the revs continue to climb he knew that he was doing the right thing, and he ended up breaking the land speed record in the 1650cc MPF class at 143.7 mph, and then again with a backup run at 146.57! And guess what, it might have started life as a stocker from Milwaukee, but yes, Satya is enjoying the Dyna! Words and Pictures: Steve Kelly

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XR1200 and Buell XB specialists Leaders in aftermarket parts for the XR1200 and complete Buell range

For full details of XR1200 parts visit www.adrenalinmoto.co.uk And for Buell parts visit www.trojan-horse.co.uk Or call free on 0800 4580677 Adrenalin-Moto Ltd, Unit 2, Banks House, Banks Road, Darlington DL1 1YB

ADD THAT FINAL TOUCH TO YOUR BIKE WITH OUR BEAUTIFULLY MACHINED PUSHROD TUBES

01794 390888

Available in aluminium & brass in a range of ﬁnishes and Chrome (Please ring for details) Prices start at £190 Direct replacements for & XL & XR Sportsters ‘91 to present and all Buells

Including XB’s! All credit card payments processed with Paypal.

gasolinejacks@aol.com Vogue Precision Engineering, White House Farm, Pound Hill, Lyndhurst Road, Landford, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP5 2AA

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30/11/09 11:06:07

RIDE TO THE “TO REMEMBER THOSE THAT CAN NO LONGER RIDE BY OUR SIDE”

Some things are more important than straightforward brand-loyalty, and while the Ride to the Wall was founded by Martin Dickinson, a director of Nene Valley HOG, RTTW opened up to the wider biking community for 2009, to remember the fallen ... and they came.

American-V.co.uk

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Event: Ride to the Wall 2009

WALL

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Event: Ride to the Wall 2009

I’m going to keep this short out of respect: think of it as a minute’s silence. For full details of the event, and committee see www.RTTW.org Pictures: Amanda Wright

American-V.co.uk

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1/12/09 00:48:19

Quasar Products +44 0 1827 61754 Specialists in motorcycle lifts and stands LIFETIME GUARANTEES FOR ALL PRODUCTS

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Lift any make and model in complete safety! America: www.lifts-and-stands.com Tel: 404 550 5123 Australia: www.oneup.com.au Tel: 417 320 742

www.on-bike.com p41_avdec09.indd 1

30/11/09 09:40:25

the best in custom bikes, trikes and accessories 01359 253600

All parts are custom fabricated in our fully equipped workshop and painted in-house. Whether a full on custom build or minor modiﬁcation we will be glad to help.

Baker Garage, Bury Road, Stanton, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk IP31 2BZ

www.solowchoppers.co.uk

Matt’s Machine Shop Specialist Motorcycle Machine Shop mattsmachineshop@btopenworld.com

PRO TUNING CENTRE

SIDEWINDER CENTRE

VFI TUNING CENTRE

U.K’s Oldest Established S&S Dealer • U.K’s First Pro Tune Centre

• Warranty standard servicing using only genuine parts. • Suppliers of all leading manufacturers parts and accessories.

317-319 Hartlebury Trading Estate, Hartlebury, Worcestershire, DY10 4JB. Tel: 01299 251111

We supply the whole s&s range from carb kits, through spo slipon mufﬂers for touring models to the entire range of engines. We deal direct with S&S so no lengthy order times, trade enquiries welcome. We have a fully equipped machine shop and the experience to build and repair all S&S and HD motors and transmissions from vintage to modern. We run a dynojet 250i dyno to set up fuel injected and carbureted bikes • 883-1200 conversions • Twincam 1550 Conversions • Twincam 96 to 103”Conversions • Serdi Head Overhauls • Crank Rebuilds & Balancing • Vapour Blasting • Case Boring • Thread Repairs

Tel/Fax +44(0)1443 742791 18a William St.Abercynon, Mid Glamorgan South Wales, U.K. CF45 4RW VAT Reg. GB791 0597 0-8

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30/11/09 11:03:48

Classic/Custom: Knuckle Duster

KNUCKLE DUSTER It’s one thing to note that Shovels, and increasingly Panheads outnumber Evos in these pages, giving us chance to remark on the absence of The Motor Company’s most important engine of the modern age ... but we’re overrun by Knuckles too! What’s going on?

It seems odd that the engine that re-established Harley-Davidson at the time of the buyback, the launch of the Softail frame and just in time to inspire a new generation of riders ready to invest their mid-life crisis bucks into an iconic brand, has gone to ground, and I’ve seen more Panheads than genuine Evolutions in the last few years. The only thing that was less visible was always that rarest of big twins: the Knucklehead. Another landmark engine, the Knuck introduced OHV technology, a recirculating oil system and it has been the basis of every Harley-Davidson big twin built since 1936, until its single-cam design was finally revised to create the Twin Cam in 1999/2000. Their rarity is rather more understandable though: there weren’t that many Knuckleheads built in the eleven years between 1936 and 1947, remembering that for four of those years production was focussed on churning out army 45s. In fact it’s reckoned there were fewer than 41,000, which will have been less than the annual production of Evos for each of their sixteen years between 1984 and 2000. Fewer still, as a percentage, will have crossed the Atlantic to these shores where they would have been serious exotica, so I’ve no idea where they’re coming from, but who’s complaining? This particular one is perhaps the best known Knuck Custom in the UK, having been built nearly ten years ago and shown frequently since, but its familiarity is no reason to let it slip through the net, because it’s a damn good-looking bike.

American-V.co.uk

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Classic/Custom: Knuckle Duster Xl1200C Vs Dyna Low Rider

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Classic/Custom: Knuckle Dusted

In a garage attic somewhere there must be a Dorian Gray-like picture of a 1947 FL that is slowly dropping to bits, because this one looks like it’s in its prime. It’s a neat trick when you think that if it were human, it’d be a couple of years off retirement, and here it is chasing around in tight-fitting jeans and a timeless T-shirt, making bikes half it’s age look tired and dated ... but then it has enjoyed quality healthcare. Having left the factory in 1947, and the USA some time afterwards with a US Serviceman, it came into the possession of one Steve Studd as a basket case when its owner returned home at the end of his tour of duty. Incomplete, and with Knucklehead parts thin on the ground back in those pre-broadband days, it was a slow build that took shape over several years as and when the right bits appeared, finally coming together at the end of the nineties and into 2000, very much as you see it here. It was never going to be a half-cocked build, because Steve was the original front man at Krazy Horse in Bury St Edmunds, and reputations are made by doing things properly. And, frankly, because it mattered to him that it was done right. And to be right meant a lot of remedial work to a bike that would have looked more like the attic picture than the machine you see before you. The engine build was left in the safe hands of John Gibson, who refitted the Harley crank and rods into a pair of STD cases that were stamped with the original engine number – the only source of a Harley’s identity pre-1970, before frame numbers and VIN were required. The engine number marks it out as the smaller 1000cc EL model, but the bits in the boxes included Harley’s bigger bore barrels and pistons, and the longer stroke crank of the 1200 FL – an eighth of an inch further across the piston and seven-sixteenths more stroke – which are now crowned by a new pair of cast iron Flathead Power cylinder heads, beneath the original the rocker covers that gave the engine its epithet.

American-V.co.uk

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Classic/Custom: Knuckle Duster Xl1200C Vs Dyna Low Rider

Solid lifters are the order of the day – not that the modern S&S oil pump wouldn’t be capable of keeping hydraulics pumped-up, but because they weren’t introduced until the Panhead – and fuel is supplied through a late seventies butterfly-type Keihin carb, which looks the part, tucked behind a simple round filter, while exhaust gases are taken care of by a pair of shotgun drags. The rest of the motor is just assembled properly, which is the secret of longevity with older Harleys, and runs a remote oil filter – an

option from 1948 right through into the sixties – which is just common sense. The motor and 4-speed hand-shift transmission are connected by a narrow belt-drive primary and stock clutch concealed beneath standard tins and vented courtesy of a stylised, slotted derby cover. The Knuck gives its age away for want of aluminium cylinder heads, as much as the presence its hand shift / foot clutch combination, but don’t mistake that for crude engineering often associated with ‘classic’ motorcycles. It was a highly thought-of engine and the resistance to its replacement by the Panhead in 1948 was no less than that felt by arrival of the Shovelhead, the Evo or the Twin Cam by successive generations: the difference being that the Knuck is often held up as being the last of the truly flexible engines before Harley started to be tune them for specialist applications – although that, too, is an accusation that has been levelled at every generation since – as ever-higher cruising speeds were sought, requiring more finely tuned engines to develop the required power. In standard trim, the Knucklehead is said to be good for a maximum cruising speed of sixty miles per hour, which needs to be set in the context of a national road network that was in its infancy, when 60mph was going-some. The engine has been slotted into a Panhead frame, which rivet counters might be able to date according to the odd bracket here or there, but in the absence of a frame number such things are largely irrelevant. What matters is that it’s that most popular of Harley’s rigid frames: the ‘Wishbone’. Introduced in 1948, it ran through to 1953, a couple of years before the Duo Glide swingarm came in, but will forever be revered as the frame used in two of the world’s most iconic custom bikes: Wyatt’s and Billy’s bikes in ‘Easy Rider’. And it’s about the best looking frame that HarleyDavidson made as well, which doesn’t hurt its reputation. Into this unmolested frame are fitted a pair of standard Harley Springers that would be contemporary with the engine,

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and possibly the frame if it’s from 1948, which are remarkably standard as well, but for a chromed front leg and dog-bone risers, gripping what would originally have been the stubs of the original handlebars, supporting a distinctly unoriginal pair of apehangers. Beneath, a 21-inch wheel laced to a Harley drum brake hub has replaced the then-standard 16-inch wheel. It would have looked silly beneath the deeply valanced mudguard, but as nobody back then had satisfactorily worked out how to attractively mount a skinny mudguard to Springers, it is left open to the elements. On an original bike, the interchangeable QD hubs would have made it easier to balance the wear between the front and rear tyres, which has been lost with the front rim change, but it does mean the rear wheel has a very clean-looking, single-sided hub, with both chain and brake on the drive side and leaving the timing side uncluttered, and inspirational to custom designers decades later. I suspect I know what you’re thinking: is there anything significant that didn’t come out of Milwaukee on this bike? Well, no ... almost, but then that has traditionally been the beauty of Harley-Davidson. So much of it was beautifully designed in the first place, and a simple mixing and matching of the parts could create a whole new bike ... and what couldn’t be picked from a parts bin, could be fabricated from the stock items which were always made from the very highest quality metals. I don’t suppose it crossed anyone’s mind that if they made it cheaper people would have to buy a new one to replace it: it had to be right. They were still pioneering days, and over-engineering was always better than something breaking, and form was deemed at least as important as function. More than a hint of that still exists today, but commercial reality has moved a few goalposts. About the only steel that wasn’t rolled in a unionised mill in North America in the forties or fifties are the seat base, fuel tanks and rear mudguard. The flamed, Pageant-painted, fuel tanks are a pair of Zodiac’s hand-change items, which have been sectioned and narrowed, ending up with a panel fit that would make a German car builder blush. They lead to a minimal in-house seat pan upholstered in leather by GB Upholstery, and on to a rear mudguard that was something of a trademark for Steve at the time: a modified fat bob with rolled edges and integral struts. The rest is detail, and a level of detail that has been Krazy Horse’s watchword since they first opened the doors. I feel almost guilty for skimming over it, but you’ve got eyes too and I’d hate to rob you of the pleasure of picking things out for the first time. And that would ordinarily be the end of the story, except that for reasons that escape me, this Knuckle found itself abandoned on these shores for a second time when Steve went to Zambia, where he now hurtles round the countryside in a Mack truck doing good deeds. Still, at least he left it in good hands rather than stripping it back down and distributing it between boxes, and has since sold it to his former business partner, Paul Beamish, who’s going to make sure it gets to see a lot more of the road than it has done in the last twenty years. Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

SPECIFICATIONS: STUDDY’S KNUCKLE Model: Builder: Construction Time: Motor: Rebuilder: Modiﬁcations: Carburettor: Air ﬁlter: Exhaust: Transmission: Starter: Primary Drive: Final Drive: Frame: Rake: Tank: Oil Tank: Mudguards: Forks: Wheels: Front Rear: Tyres: Front: Rear: Handlebars: Risers: Foot controls: Footrests: Seat: Headlamp: Taillight: Wiring: Paint: Moulding: Polishing / Plating:

1947 EL Knuckle, running as an FL Krazy Horse Several years 1947 Air-cooled, 45º 74-inch/1200cc OHV ‘Knucklehead’ V-Twin John Gibson STD cases, FL crank and rods, Flathead Power heads Keihin Round Shotgun drags 1947 4-speed rebuilt by John Gibson Kick, kick and kick again Narrow belt, in original tins, vented derby cover Chain Harley-Davidson ‘Wishbone’ rigid stock Sectioned and narrowed Zodiac hand-shift tank Stock, chrome Fatbob with beaded edge and integral struts Stock Springers 21-inch laced, Harley-Davidson QD hub 16-inch laced, Harley-Davidson QD hub 90/90x21 Avon Roadrunner 140/90x16 Avon Roadrunner Apehangers with internal throttle Dogbone oem, footclutch Cheap rubber Krazy Horse in brown leather by GB Upholstery 6-inch Vincent replica stop/tail in bicycle headlamp shell Krazy Horse, 12v Black by Steve Studd, ﬂames by Pageant Minimal, by Krazy Horse WD Wyatt, Thetford

American-V.co.uk

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Quick Spin: Zero Engineering Samurai Chopper Type Xl1200C Vs Dyna Low Rider

American-V.co.uk

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30/11/09 22:27:51

Classic/Custom: Knuckle Duster

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30/11/09 22:28:03

Quick Spin: Zero Engineering Samurai Chopper Type 5

SAMURAI TYPE 5

Japanese factory chopper, anyone? No, not the Honda Fury: someone else got there before the industrial giant, albeit on a different scale ... 50

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Just when you think you’ve got the Japanese psychology nailed, they throw a curve ball, and that’s as true of their motorcycle production as anything else. It’s the easiest thing in the world to see the output of Japanese industry, bristling with technology, manufactured with a clinical efficiency, produced by men and women in clean, pressed uniforms, who live in company houses and start their working day with the company song, as soulless goods produced by automatons. But just when you start to believe that, you catch a glimpse of the other side of Japan. Teenagers in aged jeans and faded T-shirts successfully mixing and matching English and American cultures from previous decades and setting it to the beat of western rock music with a backing track supplied by American or British twincylinder engines, either exquisitely-engineered or else thrown together with a naïve simplicity that somehow manages to look far better than our own youthful fumblings. It doesn’t compute. It’s at odds with the ordered society that we now expect from that other massively successful island race, but then you remember Godzilla, Manga, Hello Kitty, uncooked fish and karaoke, and all’s well with the world. They’re as barking mad as we are – it’s maybe something to do with living on an over-populated island – and just as Rockers were building Café Racers while the British Motorcycle industry were knocking out worthy motorcycles by the thousand to meet world demand, so modern-day Japanese grass-roots motorcyclists are creating their own kinds of bikes that contrast markedly from the manufacturing giants. And with a massive wealth of inspiring images from across the modern world, it is the Japanese who are pushing the boundaries. And it is potentially Japan that will lead the way in reestablishing motorcycles within global youth cultures – if you doubt that, look no further than Bratstyle and their ilk. Better still, show Bratstyle’s website to a teenager or an early twenty-something: fun, cool things to do with anything from inexpensive big singles to Sportsters and older big twins. Inspirational – indeed, Japan is inspiring some of our builders already and is winning friends in the US. Then you start to realise why some of the most imaginative custom bikes in recent years have come out of Japan.

The longest-established name synonymous with the Japanese custom industry and a distinct Japanese style is Zero Engineering. They introduced a whole new way of looking at things linked to a new engineering style, and it was only a matter of time before it hit the mass market in some form, but I don’t suppose many thought it would be in this form: a full-blown limited production bike based round an American-made engine. Actually, more than that: a range of them. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Zero Engineering: Original Samurai Choppers. More specifically, their Type 5. They have actually been running a similar operation in Japan for fours years, and the US for a little over a year, but this is their first foray in the UK as part of a push into Europe. And they’re doing it properly, with fully type-approved motorcycles demonstrating just how this market is opening up. All of a sudden it’s cool rather than pragmatic to run a Jap factory custom Let’s just clear one thing up though, before we go any further. An American-V? Yes, undeniably, and more so than many custom bikes that claim that tag, because at the heart of this Type 5 – indeed all production Type 5s destined for the EU – is an Evo engine. And not just an Evo engine but an 80-inch Harley-Davidson Evolution

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Quick Spin: Zero Engineering Samurai Chopper Type 5

engine straight from Harley-Davidson’s “Smart Start” engine programme, in either silver or black and chrome. Incidentally, the US models come with an S&S 96-inch V-series, but we get a version much closer to Japanese market model, where the HarleyDavidson brand is stronger. Solid-mounted without a counter balancer in sight, the Evo is hooked up to a matching Harley-Davidson 5-speed gearbox using an oem primary, which gives it a true American heart – it’s even got a Harley CV carb, but it breathes more freely than a factory Evo ever did with a less restrictive filter and the heads breathing into a neat catch tank. Beyond the engine though, the influence of Zero’s founder, Shinya Kimura, takes a hold. It’s easy to underestimate Kimura’s impact on the custom bike scene, but it’s unlikely that Japanese custom engineering would be where it is on the world stage without his creative vision and attention to detail. Neither the Americans or the Brits were lining up to find something radical coming out of Japan, but the sheer beauty of his creations were quite unlike anything else at the time – and a breath of fresh air compared to some of the over-the-top flights of fancy on the show circuit: simple, clean, compact and exquisitely detailed. Some of that engineering can be better understood in the context of racing, and Zero have campaigned a number of bikes in special classes in Japan, which goes some way to explaining the combination of functionality and minimalism. Much deeper rooted, though, is the unique form which is steeped in the Japanese culture with its embedded sense of the aesthetic,

and which creates an original finished bike that the engineering traditions of no other country could have produced. That’s specifically true of the masterpieces that established Zero as a name on the world stage, and it’s something that works through the Road Hopper project – in collaboration with Plot Inc, a major player in the Japanese motorcycle market – that has since become known as the Samurai. They’re every bit as ambitious as the one-offs, not least because they have to meet the different disciplines of production engineering, before wrestling their way through national legislation: DOT and EPA legislation in the US a year ago, and now Euro 3 and EUWVTA over here, because Krazy Horse and Red Dog Motorcycles will be selling them as production bikes from April 2010. There’s no mistaking the heritage of the Type 5 in its silhouette: the short forks, big tyres and ultra low profile of Japanese custom bikes are all there, and the legal niceties of a full lighting rig, a speedo and a legal muffler blend in with little compromise, retaining the purity of concept that is only possible in small-scale production environments. This feature wasn’t initially intended to be a continuation of the shop-built production customs, but that’s precisely what it is. It’s perhaps a more advanced operation, having been established for a few years now, and with an international footprint. The growing number of small-scale production operations shows where the custom bike market has been heading since the EPA tightened-up its rules relating to one-offs, demanding that bikes are produced with VIN numbers and full compliance, and you can’t help but wonder if they realised what that would lead to? Not that they’ve got any reason to complain: the resulting bikes are cleaner and produced to a higher standard, while there’s still the opportunity to make a personal statement with your choice of bike – and there’s still an opportunity for the home builder to create a non-compliant bike for their own use. So the floodgates are opening: Japanese/American V-twins, Anglo/American V-twins, Franco/American, German/American and the rest will undoubtedly follow, each imprinting their national characteristics on the last of the traditional motorcycle engines – not that there isn’t a hint of each already, remembering that most Americans can tell you where in the old world their families originated from, even if they couldn’t necessarily point at it on a map. And the Japanese national characteristic? Small, but perfectly formed; exquisitely engineered to the highest standard using the best materials, at this level: this isn’t a world where minute production economies save a company millions, but where false economies cost a hard-won reputation. The quality, as a consequence, is stunning: building or having things built specifically for the bike gives them direct control over the quality of key elements like their original gooseneck frame, which is hand-made to Zero’s specification from specially selected, high-grade thick-walled mild steel, chosen for its flexibility and fatigue resistance – important for a rigid frame – and has a unique S-shaped central downtube, rather than the more typical straight tube that previously held the seat post, which makes it less harsh. Nothing is left to chance: the replica 74-inch Springer forks are designed to work with a disc brake – in this case a single pot oem Harley caliper – and feature their own brass friction bushes to offer some damping – identified, as is the frame, by Zero’s pictogram logo, worn as a guarantee of the quality. Even something as simple as the Sportster-style peanut tank, which

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could so easily be an off-the shelf mild steel part is in hand-crafted aluminium, and their 2-into-1 exhaust is so beautifully simple that you question the blind adherence of so many – including Harley themselves – to dual shorty mufflers. The more you look, the more you see and it invites closer scrutiny, but the biggest measure of its worth is to swing a leg across its remarkably low saddle and thumb the starter. Just settling into the saddle, it was obvious that it was built for a smaller framed rider than myself – it was hard to believe that it’s based on a big twin, having seldom ridden smaller Sportsters – but while small it didn’t feel as cramped as I’d expected, which had been my underlying concern since first seeing one. The sense of the bike is overwhelmingly traditional, lacking the huge modern switchgear housings or flashy instruments that we’ve come to accept these days: all the switches are there, but in neat underslung housings with micro-switches, their functions engraved into the brass face plates, while a simple mini speedo takes care of the legal niceties. It takes a little getting used to their size and position, but there’s nothing missing ... well, unless you count the mirrors that would ordinarily stick up from the levers, which they’re also slung beneath the ’bars, keeping the overall profile low and doing a surprisingly good job of seeing backwards, past your knees. Ahead of the classically proportioned headlamp, easily visible, is a very traditional 5.00x16 Avon SM, it’s unguarded, eccentric tread pattern initially unsettling as the ribs wander from side to side, as though the wheel were buckled, but it’s all part of the charm. All part of demystifying what has started to become incredibly complicated technologies: a reminder that a 1340cc motorcycle might well be capable of taking you from one side of the country or continent with ease, but in its component form it’s only a bicycle with an engine bolted with the pedal crank should be.

Don’t relax too much, though. It might be a stunningly-realised, beautifully-engineered, quintessential motorized bicycle but there’s some weight in it, and you’re reminded of that at the first major corner – usually a roundabout in this country. That’s when the narrow bars and big front tyre need to be shown who’s boss. It’s not a good idea to go in too quick, still mesmerised by the swaying tread pattern, because it will naturally understeer, and heading for the kerb rather than your exit is the wrong time to discover how heavy the front-end is. It will shrug off speed well-enough, though, because it’s very light for a big twin, pulling up hard on the rear brake more than the Harley single-pot caliper up front. Your reaction to the understeer will be programmed into your brain by the sixth or seventh roundabout – or after a session of taking moving shots, practicing feet-up U-turns between each of half a dozen passes – and it becomes just a part of the way it rides, which is excellent for a hardtail and exceptional for a classic Springer-forked, sprung saddled, super-low pseudo Sportster on ancient treads, but gratifyingly modern compounds.

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Quick Spin: Zero Engineering Samurai Chopper Type 5

SPECIFICATIONS: ZERO ENGINEERING SAMURAI TYPE 5 Model: Length Width: Height: Wheelbase: Ground Clearance: Seat Height: Kerb Weight: Motor: Type: Capacity: Transmission: Primary: Starter: Ignition: Primary Drive: Final Drive: Frame: Forks: Wheels: Front Rear: Tyres: Front: Rear: Brakes: Front: Rear: Tank: Oil Tank: Handlebars: Risers: Colours: Price: Bike Supplied by:

Given time, I’m sure you’d be able to unsettle a few friends, ducking underneath them into the bends – certainly on righthanders where the high pipe means you’ve got a lot more ground clearance than most – torturing the squared shoulders of the Avon SMs, grateful that Zero know a thing or two about putting a race bike together. But at the end of the day, this is a bar hopper. It’d make a stunning city bike for the committed custom rider: narrow enough to sneak through the narrowest gaps once you’re completely comfortable with the heavy handling, but as cool as anything else you’re likely to find parked outside the coffee shop. The small tank – less than two gallons – restricts its range somewhat, especially with the scarcity of fuel stations these days, but Evo engines are pretty frugal when they’re dragging conventional production bikes around, and you should be able to get 100 miles out of the Road Hopper without dawdling. As with the other small-scale production bikes we’ve featured, this bike represents a specification, but by no means the only one. The advantage of basing the Type 5 on the Evo rather than a current generation Harley motor is that any pre-Twin Cam motor will slot in, although that does get messy with Type Approval for our European friends, because EUWVTA doesn’t cater for detail changes at that level without re-certification: just because the Evo-engined model that will be Type Approved but that won’t cover a Shovelhead-powered derivative – even if that motor has it’s own Euro 3 certification. We’re obviously okay, here in the UK, because we’ve always got SVA to fall back on, and it’s worth noting that Type 5s are available now, via Single Vehicle Approval, if you’re in a hurry – and at the same price as a Type Approved model next year, which is currently coming out at £20,700. But it’s not just about engines: there are a myriad of detail touches you can make, as Paul has with this one, exercising his preference for brass over rubber in a few places: it’s almost heresy to suggest that something as complete as this could be a starting point for your own aspirations, but that’s custom motorcycles for you. For those who fancy something more radical, of course, there will be frame and rolling chassis options available early in 2010 which will set you back less than the finished Type 5.

2009 Samurai Roadhopper Type 5 2300mm 710mm 920mm 1600mm 100mm 680mm 230kg Harley-Davidson 80-inch / 1340cc Evolution Air-cooled 4-stroke 45º V-twin 1337cc Harley-Davidson 5-speed Harley-Davidson Electric Semi-transistor Duplex chain Chain Zero Original Rigid Goose Neck 74 Springer 16-inch laced, single-ﬂange hub 16-inch laced 5.00x16 Avon SM MkII 5.00x16 Avon SM MkII Single disc Single disc 8-litre hand-crafted aluminium by Zero Zero Dragbars Zero Smokey Blue/Black, Bright Yellow/Black, Real Black £20,700 OTR (SVA 2009 / EUWVTA 2010) Krazy Horse Motorcycles, Looms Lane, Bury St Edmunds

Incidentally, having alluded to a broader range earlier, the Type 7 and 8 models – redeveloped versions of the original Type 1 and 2 bikes – are expected to get Type Approval shortly after April and will feel bigger than the ‘5’, courtesy of taller bars and more of a chopper style, which is ironic because they’re based round one of Harley’s Evolution 5-speed Sportster engines in a revised frame. The differences between them are that the ‘7’ gets 39mm telescopic front forks ahead of its alloy XL-style tank, demonstrating that they’re not betting the ranch on a single simple formula, while the ‘8’ has Springers mated to a narrowed alloy Mustang-style tank. Talking to Koichi Kojima, of Plot Inc’s International Business Division, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, he was very positive about Samurai’s prospects moving forwards, particularly citing quality and the unique design as the primary reasons why they had been well-received in the US, and is proving to be important in building the UK and European dealer network that has been developing since they showed the bikes at EICMA 2008. He told us that there are new models on the way, as distinctive as those we’ve already seen, most especially the Type 9 – the Shogun – which will top the range in 2011 with a clever and unique 4-link rear suspension system which, coupled with Samurai’s unique style, will is expected to make a significant impact: progress indeed. Words: Hornsby-san Pictures: Hornsby-san and Beamish-san

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Classic/Custom: Rebeccaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Servicar

SERVICAR

WITH A SMILE For a great many people, owning a Harley-Davidson is more than just a dream, and for those people itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just any Harley-Davidson that is the object of their aspiration but a specific model.

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Classic/Custom: Servicar Xl1200C Vs Dyna LowRebecca’s Rider

It’s that ‘Electra Glide in Blue’ moment – if you’ve seen that film – and I wonder how many reading this have got their oncecoveted motorcycle tucked away in their shed? It could be an iron XL, a Pan Shovel or an original Wide Glide with the flamed paint, but whatever it is, it will typically be the last bike they’d consider selling ... assuming it lived up to expectations. For Rebecca, it was always that most elusive of Harleys: a Servicar. Blessed with the stature that would normally consign her to the ignominy of 535cc Virago, Rebecca found a way to ride something with a bit more class and her early riding days in Norfolk were spent on a trike built out of a Honda 500/4. Already impressed by the Servicar, that first trike’s biggest feature was something that endeared her to all her friends: a massive wooden box on the back, which could have served the same purpose as the Harley’s trunk, if she’d been a traffic cop or car mechanic, but ended up being full of everyone’s camping gear and beer at rallies. She explains often that she was young as she flicks through the photographs of a tidy one-off custom trike, almost embarrassed by the panelling that enclosed the rear sub-frame, and the massive rear bench seat behind her simpler perch, but they were different times, it has been pointed out that a lot of the lines, even so heavily disguised, bear a remarkable similarity to the Servicar’s. That was all over twenty years ago, though, and as often happens circumstances change, people move on, and she stopped moving in biking circles. But while she wasn’t riding or going to rallies any more, and the Honda had gone, the Servicar was still there, sitting on its pedestal: an unrealised ambition, but one that never lost its appeal. Fast-forward twenty years. A new life, a new partner, a new county and a return to motorcycling, knocking around with Kendo and their mate Radders on the Harley and broader

rally circuit, the Servicar dream often came up in late-night conversation, as these things tend to do. It’s a safe ambition to have – like owning an Indian Chief, or a Model JD – as there are so few around that your bluff is unlikely to be called. You can go into all the sort of detail as to what you’d do with it – realising that her tastes had changed since the Honda, and mentally removing the trunk – and generally speculating wildly about the chance of finding one that hadn’t been lovingly restored to original condition. Except in Rebecca’s case, she got a call from Kendo one day, telling her to go onto eBay and check out a specific reference number. Obviously, looking at the pics hereabouts, we know that it was a Servicar, but out of the blue it could have been anything so it was with more curiosity than enthusiasm that she typed in the number she’d been given. When the Servicar appeared, though, the soulsearching began. This was her chance to own the bike she’d always wanted: a very limited opportunity. Better than that, it wasn’t a nut and bolt restoration: it was a runner, but it was stripped to its bare essential ... which inevitably started to raise questions as to whether trunks and other original parts would still be available. It wasn’t especially cheap, but its wasn’t expensive either for what it was, or to make matters worse, she had the money in her emergency fund, squirreled away. Servicar or emergency fund? Security or indulgence? Tough call, but put into context talking to little Kev who asked her whether she’d get more pleasure from the money sitting in the bank or from riding the bike she’d always wanted? The first barrier down, the next trick would be to look at it: to make sure she wasn’t biting off more than she could chew. The seller had put his contact phone number on the details, so she

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rang him to arrange to see it, and to confirm it was a runner ... and to see if he’d be prepared to do a deal and take it down before the end of the auction? And so the gang of three hit the road heading for Glasgow, a four figure cash deposit burning a hole in Rebecca’s pocket, meeting the seller at a fuel station, and following him through unknown streets before ending up at a sports ground in front of a shed where his brother – as a groundkeeper – kept the lawnmowers, which was a sobering place to be, even with a couple of good sized, handylooking friends. Thankfully the door swung open not to reveal a gang of Glaswegian heavies but a couple of lawnmowers and a tired, well-used but thankfully complete Servicar, as described with one minor exception. It might have been a runner when it was listed, and even when they chatted on the phone, but it wasn’t now. The guy explained that he’d left the ignition on, and had burned the coil out. It wasn’t the end of the world because he’d sourced another coil but his expertise was in importing American cars and he hadn’t attempted to fit it. Kendo and Radders sprang into action – sorry if they’re starting to sound like a tag wrestling team – and while Rebecca worked out the basis of the deal, subject to it being a runner, they fitted the new coil, checked a few other bits and pieces over and the sound of the side-valve 45-inch motor resonated through the shed. Would Rebecca like to ride it? Damn right ... but could she? That’s not a reflection on her abilities, but a recognition of the way the bike had been set up. Previously owned by a Vietnam Vet who’d been very badly injured, few of the controls were where they should have been, and the normally-gated hand-change gears – three forward and one reverse – running on a jockey shift was just the icing on the cake, but she’d waited a long long time for this, and wasn’t going to let something so trivial rob her of her opportunity. By the time she released the clutch, it was hers – mentally if not yet financially – and with a promise to take it off sale as soon as he got home, and with a blank refusal to take her deposit, they headed back to Staffordshire: Rebecca beaming, and Kendo and Radders planning the returning to Glasgow to pick it up. When it finally rested in her shed at home, arriving at an odd angle because the gate was half an inch narrower than the rear axle, the reality hit home. It wasn’t ready for the road, there was a colossal spring beneath the seat that just had to go – as did the modified controls – and there were masses of potential lurking just below the thick hand-painted black surface. Thankfully it was November, which isn’t the ideal time to restart a motorcycling career, and with Rebecca’s vision and Kendo and Radders’ enthusiasm and technical know-how, the Servicar embarked upon the next part of its chequered life.

Servicars aren’t terribly common on these shores, so it was perhaps inevitable that Rebecca should see what would be involved in putting it back to its former glory, but that was cured by a discovery about the parts prices for bodywork, more than anything else. It was further justified by the discovery that it was a long way from being a matching numbers bike, but then as far as anyone can tell, one of the last trips it made, Stateside, was from its Alaskan home state to Nevada, where it seems to have had a front end collision of some sort. It’s basically a 1948 Model G but the axle is a lot earlier, dating back to 1940, and identified by the mechanical rather than the hydraulic rear brakes – that massive bar running the full width of the axle is effectively a brake transfer arm – but more than that, the frame had already been raked by 3-degrees and the stock Springers lengthened by two-inches in the time-honoured way, using Ford radius arms, and the style of the bike was very much that of a working roadbike. The split cups on top of the axle, incidentally, are the weight-bearing mounts for the trunk. The paintwork had done its job of making the bike easy to clean, and protecting the metal beneath, and while Kendo was uncertain as to what he might find inside the engine and gearbox, he was pleasantly surprised to find that whoever had been in there last had done an really good job – which was lucky because Rebecca’s really wanted it to be a bike she could ride every day. Knowing therefore that it had to be right, the tag team set about stripping it down and rebuilding it for daily use, leaving no bolt unturned (and checked, cleaned and replaced or refitted), with the perfect complimentary skills of the fastidious attention to detail of Kendo making sure every detail was checked and Radders’ enthusiastic broad brush, free thinking approach moving it along: the three of them being the only ones to venture into the shed to see

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Classic/Custom: Rebecca’s Servicar

it taking shape. And it was a shed that Rebecca reports sometimes sounded like a kid’s den, standing outside the door, unannounced, listening to the boys’ excitedly working out the odd bits and pieces, before she’d enter to remind them whose bike it was. Mechanically, it’s much the same engine as when it arrived, with the only major modification being the fitting of an ATU beneath the original distributor cover rather than messing round with a second twistgrip to manually advance the ignition, and a 34mm Mikuni carb behind a Bug-Eye airfilter to make sure it is breathing properly. Visually ... well, that’s another matter. It takes a while before you remember that a Servicar ordinarily has a 16-inch wheel gripped in it’s Springer forks, beneath an FL front mudguard, which is a testament to how right it looks in its modified state. A lot of the fabrication work was handled by local race engineer, Andy Lloyd, who expertly straightened the extended forks –against his better judgement – and made the spacers to fit the new 19-inch 21-inch front wheel, which is laced to a BSA quarter-width drum brake hub. He also made sure the headstock hadn’t been damaged in the accident, fabricated the seat rail and its mounts, a new regulator mount and made a new gearshift knob. Having made the decision that it wasn’t going to be a classic bodied Servicar, there was a decision to be made about what the

overall style would be, and having played around with a variety of fuel tanks, and liking the shape created by a Sportster tank, Rebecca settled on a narrow, minimal look with high bars, which is precisely what she got. It couldn’t just be any Sportster tank, because there’s a world of difference between the 45’s front frame loop and that of the XL, so it was retunnelled, and stretched into the bargain by Gary Proffit and then handed over to Adam Bailey to work his magic with filler and his incredible eye for detail, then to make it feel at home it was joined by a chromed, old-style XLCH oil tank – remembering that once you’ve lost the stock 45’s Fat Bobs you need somewhere to stick the oil. Radders sorted out a pair of risers to fix on top of the Springers, adding a pair of 10-inch Apehangers, modified by Andy Lloyd to incorporate a Speedline internal throttle, which are clean except for a front brake lever and simple Panhead switchgear. The chrome of the bars and risers sets off the headlamp, front wheel and the stripped and rechromed springs of the forks on this predominantly satin black bike, with little more than the control levers, oil tank and the seat springs of the Ultima solo saddle further back conspiring with the aluminium castings and whitewall tyres to provide accents, and the balance is about right. It makes it a practical everyday motorcycle, and Rebecca is holding up well to pressure to strip and chrome the rear wheels when she deals with them over this winter or the next – a lot of that will depend on how long the tyres last: there was far too much good tread on them to throw them away, and there was nothing wrong with the original wheels either: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. They will be done, though, eventually – powder-coated to match the frame and forks – as will the blacked exhaust pipe, which will be heading to Exhaust Coatings some time shortly for a dose of ceramic coating: Rebecca’s not too precious over the finish of the

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bike – which was designed to be practical – but she’s embarrassed by the header as the only place where rust has proved impossible to keep at bay. The work took six months all-told, emerging, butterfly-like in time for the Shires Custom show in nearby Market Drayton on the very day that the registration details came through, which had Radders scratching around trying to find the right letters for its number plate, and a trailer standing-by in case there was any delay. In the event, with all the chasing around and stress, she wimpedout and took the trailer that first time but the experience has left Rebecca feeling scarred and dirty: you won’t see it on a trailer again, unless it’s an emergency, but then she is now fully familiar with the way the old girl runs. And how does she run? How practical, really, is a sixty-year old trike in 21st century Britain? It’s a question that she gets all the time – she got it endlessly before it was finished, but she couldn’t possibly have answered it then. It’s everything she could have hoped for, and more. The old girl will cruise all day in the mid-fifties and has been known to top 65mph on the motorway, passing a couple of slow-moving trucks on the way to this year’s Bulldog Bash – where she won one of the many trophies that now grace the kitchen shelf – and Rebecca reckons that’s plenty quick enough. She’s happy setting her own pace, meets her mates at the destination rather than the point of departure, usually travelling with Kendo who’s happy to run his Springer Softail at Servicar speed. Rebecca reports that the leather bag – donated by a friend, Jayne – keeps the water from the front wheel at bay, while the twin rear

wheels don’t really affect her, harmlessly generating Catherine Wheels of water to her left and right rather than up her back. And then, of course, there’s the small matter of the jockey shift: entertaining enough with a 4-speed box, but a whole new ballgame with reverse gear, little more than an inch behind first. Not a problem, apparently, which she puts down to twenty years out of the saddle and no preconceived ideas as to why it should be any different. And is this one of those coveted bikes that will never be sold? The answer was forthcoming before the question was fully formed: the two of them are inseparable. Words and Pictures: Mr McHenry SPECIFICATIONS: REBECCA’S HARLEY-DAVIDSON GA SERVICAR Builders: Construction Time: Motor: Modiﬁcations: Carburettor: Air ﬁlter: Exhaust: Transmission: Frame: Rebuilder: Rake: Fuel Tank: Oil Tank: Mudguards: Forks: Fuel Tank: Wheels: Front Rear: Tyres: Front: Rear: Handlebars: Risers: Switches: Foot controls: Footrests: Seat: Headlamp: Taillight: Wiring: Battery: Paint: Polishing: Plating: Powder coating: Parts:

Kendo and Radders 6 Months 1948 Air-cooled, 45º, 45-inch/750cc side-valve (L-head) V-Twin Auto advance timing unit 34mm Mikuni Bug Eye Flame Duck muffler on original header 3-speed with reverse / jockey shift, gearshift knob by Andy Lloyd 1948 Model G Servicar, with 1940 axle, rebuilt by Kendo Kendo +3-degrees Seat rail, mounts, regulator mount by Andy Lloyd XLCH Sportster n/a 2-inch over Springers Sportster, retunnelled by Gary Profit, moulded by Adam Bailey 21-inch laced, BSA hub, spacers and axle by Andy Lloyd 2 x 16-inch laced, oem hubs, mechanical brake 3.00 x 21 Avon Speedmaster MkII 2 x Harley-Davidson / Dunlop MT90x16 Whitewalls 10-inch Apes, Speedline internal throttle by Andy Lloyd Radders Panhead suicide clutch, locking foot brake Harley isolated footboards Ultima solo spring saddle Bates 2 x Vincent replica stop/tail Kendo and Radders In Ammo box Satin black by Lee at Pale Riders Kendo and Radders Chrome Restoration, Stafford John Wilkinson, Crewe SHD, Riverside, Dragonfly and THB, Tank shell supplied by Little Kev, Tool roll from Jayne

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STURGIS 09 PART 2

We left Steve last issue in Sturgis, after the Legends Ride heading for a party ... tell you what, dig out the issue and recap it yourself: this is sounding too much like a reality TV show continuity announcement for my liking! AMD Winner: Cook Customs’ “Rambler” Photo: Horst Rosler

AMD 2nd place: Kris Krome Customs “Re-flex-tion” Photo: Horst Rosler

AMD 3rd place: Krugger Speedshop Photo: Horst Rosler

I’m not entirely sure when, but I know I visited the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building. This four day event drew eightythree top custom bikes from around the world, and this year’s stunners included a fresh bike from Krugger Motorcycles called Overmile, a 103-inch raceinspired ride that was a hybrid of ideas that encompassed a mix of Ducati and H-D XR750 styling. Other bikes that caught my attention included Satya Kraus’ radical Shovelhead called ‘Snatch,’ and Roth Engineering’s Indian XXL. I guess some of the judges agreed with me, as Satya’s ‘Snatch’ took fifth place and

Photo: Frank Sander

the Krugger entry placed third. Fourth place was awarded to SE Services’ ‘Harrier’, second place went to Kris Krome Customs Inc, and top honours went to Dave Cook, for the winning bike, built around a 550cc International engine: the first American to win the AMD since the show’s inception in 2004. But an International engine? A very clever piece of engineering putting a CB550 top end onto new cases and an in-line transmission. A thunderstorm blows in out of nowhere, one minute it’s blue sky and sunshine; the next, it’s all flashes, and deep booms that are loud enough to drown out tens of thousands of Harleys. For a while the heavy rain shakes-up the little farming town: bikers run for cover, the outdoor vendors hang onto their tents, and the already jam-packed bars try to make room for yet more, but just as quickly as it arrives the storm passes over. Suddenly there isn’t a hint of humidity in the air, the storm has refreshed and renewed, the clean smell of the pine on the breeze has me craving the open road once more. AMD 5th place: Kraus Motor Co “Snatch” Photo: Frank Sander

AMD 4th place: SE Service “Harrier” Photo: Horst Rosler

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Event: Sturgis ’09 Part 2

Before the rally’s end, we were treated to more thunderstorms, tennis ball size hail, and more rain than I’ve ever experienced in the Black Hills, but it is just part of the experience of the great outdoors! Later in the week I take a ride to see Jerry and Kathleen Covington at their booth, which is set up at the massive Harley dealership in Rapid City. As soon as I pull into the parking lot I can understand why they have chosen this location to show off their beautiful but extremely expensive, hand-crafted choppers. It seems that everyone is carrying a black plastic carrier bag emblazoned with an orange bar and shield. All these boutique style bags suddenly remind me of Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and a world gone mad. The dealership is doing land-rush business: so much for the credit crunch! I have a problem with mass consumerism at the best of times, but it baffles me that bikers could fall for such tactics: why would anyone want a Harley-Davidson toilet cover, bar stool, or a T-shirt design that will be worn by hundreds of thousands of others? While I’m in Rapid, I call into the civic centre to get a first glimpse of the 2010 Harley line up. Harley-Davidson have laid off 1,400 staff this year and plan to dump a further 1,000 positions in the next few weeks as they reel from a 35% revenue drop, so I’m not surprised to find that they have scaled back their display at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Centre. They have moved their whole operation outdoors into tents, which I see as a good thing as it makes their dog and pony show feel more

like it is a part of the rally. I discover there are nine new models for 2010, and some are rather nice, I particularly like the 6speed, blacked-out American market Fat Boy Lo and the V-Rod Night Rod Special still looks good. The days are flying past way, way too fast. It’s Wednesday already and time to head off to Wyoming: it is time for Hulett’s ‘No Panties’ day. You have to make the seventymile ride early: arrive any later than 9am and you can spend hours trying to get a parking spot. That is no problem for me as I like to get up early, plus the ride is pretty spectacular so I’m as keen as mustard to be off, and I know that after a day of partying in the street with at least 100,000 other bikers and many of Hulett’s 408 residents I will be having my most peaceful night’s sleep of the rally. I’ve used the tiny, off the beaten track, back to nature, Cook Lake Campground about a dozen times over the years; there are less than forty pitches, half scattered around the lake, the remainder deep in the woods. It costs peanuts to camp ($6), and after a week of madcap antics in Sturgis I’m ready to recharge my batteries. It’s twelve miles off the blacktop, but the gravel road is well maintained. That night I barbecue the buffalo steak I bought in Hulett’s single convenience store – opened in 1903 – drink a few warm beers among the Douglas firs and the pines before falling into a deep sleep, and you know what? I couldn’t be happier. Hulett is set right upon the Belle Fourche River, near the red-rimmed

rocks of Bear Lodge Mountains, and is located on highway 24, nine miles north of Devils Tower. Their one-day event has actually got two names: the town prefers it to be known as Ham N’ Jam rather than No Panties Day. The little town with three motels, two restaurants and two bars gets totally overrun, but the cops are laid-back, it is legal to drink in the

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Event: Sturgis ’09 Part 2 Rider Xl1200C Vs Dyna Low

street and there is more than a smattering of nudity. Bands play in the town’s tiny park, but most bikers come to enjoy the madness and mayhem (and misbehaviour) that ensues once the alcohol starts to flow. Captain Ron’s Rodeo Bar sponsors the free pork lunch for thousands of bikers,

at what must be Wyoming’s biggest backyard barbecue. In an effort not to be overshadowed, it is believed that the name ‘No Panties Day’ was dreamt up by rival bar, The Ponderosa. Whatever, it has become part of the Sturgis rally legend. I loop back to Sturgis via a different route so that I can flash past Devil’s Tower – a solitary stump of granite that can be seen for miles – which is kind-of on the way, and how often do you get the chance to see America’s first National monument? President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the striking 1,267-foot tall geological formation – known to the northern plains tribes as Bears Lodge – a national treasure in 1906. Just remember to keep an eye on the road too! The Jackpine Gypsies MC started the Sturgis rally in 1938, and while the club is still around today, the ‘City’ hi-jacked the rally from them when they saw the commercial opportunities it presented. The Gypsies are still a great presence though, with a large, comfortable clubhouse just off Interstate-90, replete with a short track for racing within their grounds. This year they held Moto-X races, a pro and amateur Hill Climb event, and the annual Gypsy Tour

of the Badlands. They also took over the City Fairgrounds to host half-mile races. I couldn’t care less about bikes going round and round, but the hill climb is something to behold.

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Concerts have become a large part of this event, but Aerosmith’s concert at the Buffalo Chip was being billed as the largest act ever to have played during the Sturgis Rally, so it was no surprise that their concert was a complete sell out. Other large draws included psychedelic cult heroes Cheech & Chong, who brought their counter-culture ‘Light-Up America’ tour to the Chip, and Buckcherry, George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Saving Able, Tesla, Hinda who also played at the Chip, making it undoubtedly the most popular location to party this year. Renowned motorcycle photographer Michael Lichter hosted his 9th Art Exhibition, entitled “Rebel Rousers: Motorcycle Icons that Inspired Us To Ride”, at the Chip, moving across the street from his previous

location at Thunder Road. This free to the public event explored iconic influences spanning film, song and print, along with 20 incredible bikes and a selection of threedimensional art. I think Michael nailed it with this show, his best by far to date! Whether you go to Sturgis for the ride or to party, I guarantee you will not be disappointed, it is the biggest and the wildest Harley-Davidson rally on the planet, where bikers from around the globe slip away from their work-driven lives. Why not join them next year to celebrate the 70th? You can rent a Harley from www.blackhillshd.com who have four locations in the area, but I suspect you’ll need to book early.

Thanks to again to my assistant John Tackett for the loan bike, Ken Conte of Rise Above Consulting for media credentials, and Arlin Fatland for the endless beer and friendship.

Words and Pictures: Steve Kelly

See the news pages for details of a trip of a lifetime opportunity to go to Sturgis’ 70th.

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XR1200s ARE GO! It comes as something as of a culture shock to us Brits, because we don’t associate Harley-Davidson with sport. Well, there’s drag racing, obviously, but that’s about where it begins and ends in our experience. Not so in America, where orange liveried bikes have been thrilling the crowds for generations, typically in Flat Track series, where the XR750 still reigns supreme. The factory run a team and actively support three other dealer-owned teams who continue to enjoy great success in the AMA Grand National Twins Series under the collective banner of the Wrecking Crew – a reference to pioneering racers who dominated flat-track racing on HarleyDavidsons back when God’s dog was a puppy. Cynics will argue that Harleys win because they mainly race against other Harleys, but the Brits and the Japanese have ranged an array of bikes against them over the decades, and they’ve just not been able to compete – and it’s not gentle racing: 130mph sideways round a dirt oval with no brakes. Harley used to race XRs and its predecessor, the side-valve KR, in road racing competitions too, but withdrew in 1973 due to financial difficulties, but not before Harley’s finest hour on this side of the Atlantic in 1972 when factory rider, Cal Rayborn, won three of the six Transatlantic Match Races in the UK that pitched the best American riders against the best of the Brits, on tracks he’d never seen before. Ironically he wasn’t on the new alloyengined XR750 factory bike, because Harley hadn’t sanctioned him racing in the series, arriving with the much maligned Ironhead and his tuner, Walt Faulk. Reader and fellow Thundersprint competitor, Frank Jones, told me of an encounter with Rayborn as a young privateer racing Ducati singles, riding round Oulton Park in a practice session. Oulton was Frank’s home circuit, and he’d heard that there was a hot shot American on-site – and he was already a legend having won the Daytona 200 in 1968 and 1969, lapping the whole field to take that first victory on a side-valve KR – but he doubted that he’d see him: it was drizzling and everyone knew the Americans didn’t like racing in the rain ... and then in an explosion of orange noise, Rayborn passed him on the inside round a bend – apparently on his first lap of the circuit – and disappeared leaving an indelible impression in his memory, and ultimately a heavily reworked 883R in his garage. The UK saw a very different side to HarleyDavidson in the spring of 1972, and it must surely be in the minds of Harley-Davidson UK to try and recapture some of that glory.

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Sport: Blade Group’s XR1200 Trophy Racer

We’re just a matter of months from the flag dropping at the first competitive race in the XR1200 Trophy race, if all goes to plan, with Harley-Davidsons hurtling round Britain’s race tracks at British Superbike meetings in their own one-make series.

So why start roundy-roundy racing again now? It’s simple really: they’ve got a bike that is worth pushing into this sector, and a massive percentage of British motorcyclists are still very much in love with motorcycle racing. If the XR1200 Trophy puts Harley-Davidson in front of a crowd who are falling out of love with the ergonomics of extreme sportbikes, that can only be a good thing ... ideally before they all go out and buy a BMW GS, as the only other route proffered that has some kudos, courtesy of Charlie and Ewan and many hours of the sort of TV promotion that money just can’t buy.

And quite apart from that, there are a few people in the Harley network who really – and I mean really – want to race. One such is Gavin Cupit at Oxford Harley-Davidson, who has coerced his bosses into putting a bike up between the Blade Group’s two Harley dealerships, and is on the verge of realising a lifelong ambition. Not as a rider – they’ve lined up Darren Neal who has competed at a number of levels over the last nine years – but as a race mechanic / manager, with his colleague, Chris Archer. It helps, of course, that the Blade Group have a racing history with Darren Neal.

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Sport: Group’s Xl1200CBlade Vs Dyna LowXR1200 Rider Trophy Racer

To give you an idea of how much Gavin is into Harley racing, that’s his XR750 in the background of the shots: road legal now, with a front brake fitted, it’s as original as possible which extends to the rear brake and gear lever both being fitted to the righthand-side of the bike, as per the competition bikes. Sounds hairy, but as four-times AMA Grand National Champion, Scott Parker explained to me at the XR’s launch, neither are used during the race: once the 4-speed gearbox is in top it stays there for the duration, and the rear brake is only used getting to and from the track ... and anyway, your left foot is usually on the floor. Gavin was disappointed when the series was cancelled last season, when dealer concerns regarding the economic downturn

Over to Hazel at the Sports Desk ... ... for everything you wanted to know about XR1200 racing but were afraid to admit.

and short lead times to prepare a team combined with impossible deadlines for Harris to produce a finished race kit, so it’s no surprise that Blade is among the first to have their bike ready for the off. There has since been a full twelve months to prepare, with some promotional appearances through the year to whet appetites for the series, and the race kit is fully sorted – and Gavin has nothing but praise for the support he’s had from Harris in preparing the bike. Still bearing the scars of its recent outing at Silverstone – tortured tyres in a worse state than anything I’ve seen on a Harley before – I took the opportunity to have a look round it, to see just how much had been changed from the base bike.

Will Harley Davidson join the extremely popular British Superbike circus in 2010? Dealers with prospective teams are certainly keeping their fingers crossed! This time last year, after its announcement at the NEC Bike Show, excitement was building at the thought of a race at each of the British Superbike 2009 rounds for a one make series – the Henderson XR1200 Trophy. A few teams were quickly put together by racing-enthusiast dealers with the aim of demonstrating the bike’s potential to a whole new audience: a one-make series like this lets dealers and manufacturers showcase the looks, handling and performance of their bike and the public get to see exactly what they are capable of. The pressure is certainly on and at American-V we are keen to see more teams materialise this winter.

With the tasty prospect of seeing a swarm of XRs tearing around the unique British tracks, race organisers, dealers and fans alike are keen to see the series take place; and with an initial estimated outlay of just £13,000 per bike, Harley are clearly planning on making the racing as accessible as possible to club racers as well as dealers – some of who have already put teams together. British Superbikes is widely acknowledged to be the best national series in the world, but the supporting events regularly outclass these headline races for sheer excitement and entertainment – often because the restrictions on the machines ensure that it’s hard to get a performance advantage. The rules for the XR1200 Trophy are a prime example, placing tight limitations on technical

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As a one-make series, it’s a very tightly controlled specification designed to keep the racing close – relying on the abilities of the riders, and their ability to adapt their riding style to a torquier, lower-revving and heavier bike than they would ordinarily be used to: this is going to be real racing. There’s a Termignoni titanium exhaust system, much lighter than the original item and held up as the best replacement system, but at a price. Still running a closed loop injection system, the jury is out currently as to whether it will be controlled by a Screamin’ Eagle Super Race Tuner, relying on an ECU integrator or something in between, but current expectation is that it will be running a standard airbox and filter. No other engine tuning is permitted other than painstaking assembly of the original parts in clinical conditions and fitting Screamin’ Eagle sparkplugs, and an engine can be dyno’d at any time to make sure it doesn’t exceed technical regulation power limits, ensuring that no-one has given themselves an edge. A pair of lightweight Dymag wheels – seventeen-inch at both ends because it’s more important that race tyres are available than it looking more like a classic Harley, which was the reason given for the road bike’s 18-inch front fitment. They’ll also quicken the steering, which isn’t too shabby for road use, but will be useful for the track, tamed by an Ohlins steering damper, which is just sensible in the circumstances. There’s a pair of taller Ohlins rear shocks with remote reservoirs, which are matched up to an Ohlins cartridge kit, including longer springers, for the original front forks, which also get a pair of Harris’ adjustable fork yokes, with handlebar clamps. A new, lower front mudguard and a simpler seat/tail unit, both in fibreglass, are joined by a belly pan: the original fuel tank and cover are retained, but fuel tank foam is added to prevent fuel from surging and unsettling the handling. An oil cooler relocation kit moves it from the side of the frame above the primary drive to a less vulnerable position behind the slotted fibreglass racing plate, where the headlamp would ordinarily go. modifications, so technical set-up and race craft will count more than budget. The result? Fair racing on evenly matched bikes where those with tight purse strings won’t automatically be relegated to the back of the grid - ensuring that the XR1200 Trophy will provide the close, hard racing we are used to seeing at BSB. “The rules mean a [standardised] bike , which will be weighed and dyno’d in every gear as part of the scrutineering at each race” said Gavin Cupit of the Blade Group, who signed up for last year’s series and are champing at the bit to get racing. John Warr, whose London based dealership is campaigning three bikes in the series says “It’ll make for very competitive racing ... we’ll need supreme preparation, good racers ... and luck!”

And then it’s the all important details: minimal switchgear on Pro-Taper FAT handlebars with race levers, quick action throttle, race grips and a Brembo radial master cylinder; Brembo floating rotors up front and a race rear rotor at the back – all gripped by race compound pads; solid race footpegs; braided hoses all round. And that’s about it: it amounts to a weight-saving of around 40kg, is taller in the saddle with more ground clearance in the bends, but the underlying bike is still very visible, which is part of the appeal. The other part of the appeal is cost – greatly reduced from the original idea from last year as the specification has been finalised. The base bike is heavily discounted, down to £5,718 which with £4,949’s worth of performance pack, £250 set-up fees and £1,800 race entry fees bring it up to a modest £12,717, all figures plus vat. Oh, and plus tyres, which it’s reckoned will cost no more than £2,397 net for the season – but much less if you get results, with tyres being part of the prize fund for the top four placed riders, and ‘Man of the Meeting’. I’m assuming some controls must be in place to stop people buying the bike, the kit and going through the motions of entry, including paying the race entry fees up front, and then getting disqualified on a technicality – like not declaring the bike as a race

Manufacturers like KTM and Yamaha, who have supported a one-make series in the recent past, all claim success. Certainly, if it is well done it’s a great opportunity to raise a bike’s profile and aid technical development. There are sceptical race fans out there at the moment who can’t see the point of racing Harleys – too heavy, too slow etc etc – but I think they’re gonna be in for a real shock once the lights go out on race one! Talk to people like Gavin and John though, and their enthusiasm shines through loud and clear: “The bike looks – and sounds – fabulous” says John Warr. “It’s impressive.” adds Gavin. “When we put in an appearance at the Silverstone BSB meet in September, the bike’s looks and performance attracted a lot of attention”

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Sport: Blade Group’s XR1200 Trophy Racer

bike on Harley’s database – because you’d never build one for this price any other way. But then if you’d gone to those lengths to build a bike like this, you’d be mad not to put it round the track – even if it’s just the once, to say that you have and to realise the bike’s full potential. Then you’d be faced with the prospect of whether you could do better next time ... racing is addictive, but then you’ll already know that as you’ll already be holding at least an ACU Clubman license to be able to compete in the first place. Could you win? If you’re committed and you’re good, and if you can attend and finish every meeting in the points you’re in with a chance, but there will be some very serious, very competitive people out there. You stand more chance than you would in the BSB event itself, but Warr’s are definitely in it to win – John Warr being a seasoned campaigner himself and having sponsored successful teams over many years – and Gavin’s Blade Group team want to beat Warr’s. West Coast Harley-Davidson have stated their intention to join in, and I suspect that Thames Valley – having put everything in place for last year before it was cancelled – will show their hand as the numbers of declared entries increase: it could be too tempting. And then, of course, there are the privateers whose love of close racing and limited budgets will override any concerns regarding the unlikely arrival of Harley-Davidson on the circuit racing scene, and maybe a few independents dealers? I’d love to see Adrenalin Moto fielding a team, even though they have been shut out by the relationship between Harley-Davidson and Harris: they have a significant race heritage, and it would give Matt Purdy the opportunity to explain how much more weight they could have saved with his carbon bodywork, as well as place their logo centre stage in front of a potential new audience. I don’t think it’s overstating the case to suggest that this is Harley’s “Long Way Round” moment. It’s an opportunity to raise Harley’s profile outside their established market sector, and to promote dealers to a market that won’t be familiar with them. It has got the potential to establish Harley’s racing credentials and the XR1200 model as a serious motorcycle for the 21st Century sporting rider who wants a proper motorcycle that won’t cripple them, but is still engaging to throw around on challenging roads. And if it can generate a following among the Harley faithful, dragging them to a race circuit now and again, to bridge the cultural divide between ‘them’ and ‘us’, so much the better. To that end, we’re going to follow it and have tasked BSB fan and Harley enthusiast, Hazel Jackson, to make me – as someone who has attended three race meetings in my thirty-plus years in the saddle – want to forego a weekend under canvas in a field with a bar and my friends in order to attend a race meeting to cheer on the Orange and Black. If you’re feeling brave, email XR1200trophy@rpbinternational. com for full entry details. Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby These guys have been waiting for an opportunity to race Harleys for an age and can’t wait to prove to the public that their bikes are more than just roadworthy, but raceworthy too. And the public will get to see them! British Eurosport monopolise the TV coverage – in a good way – with live commentary by the hugely entertaining Jack Burnicle, along with Harley owner and former racer James Whitham, the broadcasts are professional, fun and comprehensive. But there’s nothing like being trackside and seeing and hearing the full spectacle first hand. The sound of one Harley engine is enough to make most people look up from what they’re doing. The sound of two of them together stops traffic. The sound of dozens of XR1200s being thrashed round a British racetrack? Off the scale!

And let’s not forget the teams’ main aim – to win! The rivalry is definitely already hotting up! “We want to be competitive” claims John Warr “there’s no point taking part unless you’re Team Blade: going to win!” Chris Archer And Gavin is clearly equally keen to beat Warrs! If the expected number of teams comes forward and the series goes ahead as planned in April, do get down to your nearest race track and cheer on your local dealer – you are in for a treat! And if distance is no object, I think the Brands Hatch and Oulton Park events should be top of your list – they

(left) and Gavin Cupit (right) attract big crowds and lay on a great atmosphere as well as breathtaking racing. We’ll be talking to Harris and Dunlop to get their take on things in the next issue – and interrogating any new teams as they come forward. Stay tuned ...

Words: Hazel Jackson

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Classic/Custom: Bob’s ’55 Panhead Stroker

BOB’S CHOP 93-INCHES OF PANHEAD POWER

The most exciting thing about a typical Harley-Davidson custom motorcycle is that it is anything but typical. Take Bob Gribbon’s Panhead, for example: at first sight a typical high-neck Seventiesstyle chop, except it isn’t. And as is the way with these things, the more you look, the more you see.

» American-V.co.uk

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Classic/Custom: Bob’s ’55 Panhead Stroker Xl1200C Vs Dyna Low Rider

What you think you see is a very traditional chopper, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. It doesn’t help that Bob has had it for five years and still considers it to be a work in progress, but that’s not so much a weakness as a strength, because the best trick he’s managed to pull off is that it doesn’t look like something that is in a state of flux. Everything ties in together beautifully: it’s as though it was meant to look that way – which of course it is – but it’s hard to marry multiple styles together and keep that synergy. Of course it didn’t always look like this. It was in a pretty sorry state when Bob picked it up from Riverside Motorcycles in London, but there’s no better way to get a classic for the right money, and when you know what you’re doing, it’s well worth the effort, and when you’re Bob, even if it had had a compete engine rebuild, you would still probably tear it down again, just to make sure it was right. Needless to say, it wasn’t. Whoever had built it had made some strange decisions in its creation but there’s nothing on these motors that can’t be put right, it’s just a matter of working out what you’ve got to work with, and then making the right decisions yourself. At the heart of this high-neck chopper beat a 1955 FL Panhead with twin-plug STD heads, a 4-speed gearbox and the original primary with a pair of tin cases, which was respectable enough at face value, but there were unseen treats in store, not least that the STD heads were for a 35⁄8 big bore set-up and didn’t sit happily on the 37⁄16 barrels. For the sake of those who didn’t go to school in America, or in a pre-decimal UK, 5⁄8 is the same as 10⁄16-inch. That makes the combustion chamber 3⁄16 bigger than the barrels, which doesn’t sound much; or nearly quarter of an inch, which does. Younger readers are free to scoff at the simplicity of the metric system at

American-V.co.uk

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this point, but to be fair, quarter of an inch is easier to visualise than 6.35mm (although a lot harder to typeset properly). By far the easiest and most sensible way round that is to rebore the barrels to match the heads, but the Panhead feeds oil to the heads through internal oil galleries and people don’t mess around with them too much. On the other hand, however, 35⁄8 is the common big-bore size for the closely-related Shovel’s cast iron barrels to get an 88-inch motor. Bob’s of the opinion, though, there’s no substitute for cubic capacity and that size really does matter, and when the big bore is combined with the 4½-inch stroke flywheels of the S&S SideWinder stroker kit, it makes 93-inches, which is nice. It also makes it between 75 and 200-thou taller depending on the barrels used, but in a high-neck chop who’s going to notice? Which is obviously why everyone is doing it ... except they’re not, because there’s a hitch: early Pan top ends are supplied with oil through a passage in each barrel while Shovels – and indeed later Panheads – use external oil-lines. It’s enough to put off most people, but not Bob. The precision-cast STD heads are like the ’63-’65 Panheads with their external oil feed, but the lack of an oil-feed on the ’55 timing cover created more of a challenge to Bob than a barrier. Apparently the timing cover can be drilled, if you’re very brave, but there’s an oil pump not far away – in this case a 1968-on version from S&S – which is bristling with opportunities. Bob spliced the feed to the pressure switch and ran a line in copper to a T-piece beneath the carburettor, and from there to the oil gallery in the head, and then he just had to take care of the drain back into the cases, which required judicious drilling at the base of the barrels to allow the oil to return to the sump, because the Shovel and Panhead differ in that detail too. Seeing as Harley hadn’t got round to fitting an oil filter as standard by 1955, Bob took the liberty of finishing off his revised oil system with an aluminium Filter/Cooler that lives down behind the battery box. One of the primary reasons for the evolution from Knucklehead to Panhead was to improve top end oiling, but Harley-Davidson were over-ambitious for their low-pressure system and created the other major bugbear of the Panhead motor: the very clever but problematic early hydraulic valve adjustment. They’re trouble-free these days, but the initial system of a solid lifter with a hydraulic pushrod didn’t get any better by the time they replaced it with a hydraulic lifter and a solid pushrod, and is responsible for an aversion to hydraulics among traditionalists that persists to this day. Did Bob sort this out? Of course not: you can take things too far you know and this Panhead, like a great many others, doesn’t rely on oil-pressure to keep the cold tappet rattle at bay: he’s got a set of JIMS solids tracking the lobes of an Andrews B-grind cam, and is happy to get the spanners out now and again to adjust them. Sparks are supplied by a Morris MM74E Magneto, which isn’t exactly the perfect accompaniment to the kickstart as apparently

it isn’t as easy as it looks to kick a big engine over fast enough to create the spark needed. Oddly, I never thought it actually looked very easy in the first place. Still, batteries? Who needs ’em? Okay, so Bob does, as it happens, but we’ll get to that in a moment. It takes a while before you realise that the two leads from the magneto must be coming down from beneath the fuel tank as four – two per pot to get a cleaner, more complete, and consequently more powerful bang from the hemi motor – and they do, thanks to a pair of in-line, polarizing, solid-state adapters that convert the magneto to single-fire. Known as MSF units, these little fellas allow dual plug heads to run from a single mag, still operating as a single fire configuration. The fuel mix is supplied by a Rivera SU carburettor, looking astonishingly compact with its manifold buried deep between the cylinders, while a pair of home-made headers, bolted to the STD heads’ bolt-up flanges, take the exhaust gases away, muffled by a pair of Zodiac silencers. The much-modified motor is now hooked to the same 4-speed gearbox shell, now containing a RevTech 4-speed close-ratio cluster, by an open 3-inch Primo belt drive using a standard clutch, but as good as that looks, and as unusual it is to see a hydraulic clutch on a bike of this style and heritage, it’s what has been added to the Primo’s clutch basket that will make you look harder. It was instrumental in the need to fit a hydraulic clutch, because he had nowhere to mount the 4-speed’s clutch arm. You remember I said that Bob needed a battery? Well, this is why. An upside of running a 93-inch ’55 Pan is the sheer pleasure of kicking it into life. The downside is that a 93-inch stroker takes a terrible toll out of your leg joints and, for a time, Bob was taking it easy in the leg department after breaking an ankle in a very

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Classic/Custom: Bob’s ’55 Panhead Stroker

close encounter with the kickstart of an iron-head Sportster with a fixed-timing mag. A lesser mortal would take the hint and get a Twin Cam ... or a Shovel ... or at least a 1965 Panhead and life insurance in case the paramilitary wing of a Harley-Davidson Rivet-Counters Club discovered him chopping it. Not Bob. He did the opposite of what people have been doing to later Electra Glides for generations, and fitted an electric leg: a Tech Starter Conversion, which is as unobtrusive as the Odyssey battery required to crank the motor. How unobtrusive? Look at the pictures? I was all lined-up, ready to get a shot or two of him cranking it into life, but after a couple of half-hearted prods to release any overnight gum, he reached down, pressed a button and the motor burst into life. Cheat! Yes ... and, your point is? It doesn’t detract from the finished bike: it couldn’t, you don’t know it’s there. Brilliant! And the finished bike? Okay, so I got carried away with the motor. What do you want to know? The frame? Not much detail, really – it’s the original one that came with the bike, of unknown manufacture, and is reckoned to be stretched two inches, both up and out, with a 34-degree rake, and a pair of 6-inch over telescopic forks in a pair of Wide Glide yokes stop it from dragging on the ground. It really couldn’t run anything else but a 21-inch wheel in a front end like that, and a set of 10-inch Apehangers are spot-on to complete the classic chopper look. At the back, it came with a 15-inch rear wheel that Bob couldn’t get rid of quickly enough, replacing it with a 150-section Avon Super Venom on a 16x4.25inch stainless rim – laced, of course. As you’d expect on a bike with this sort of weight distribution, the rear brake does most of the work so Bob has fitted a Brembo

racing caliper, leaving a single-sided single-pot Harley caliper on the front to comply with the letter of the law. History doesn’t record what the original fuel tank was – okay, so I didn’t ask – but the coal-black tank is a King Sportster, mounted Frisco-style on the frame’s top tube, with relocated filler cap and tap to get the most of its limited range. It turns out that this was very useful as, with just two-hundred road miles on the rebuilt motor, Bob ran it in cross-country through England, Spain and across to St Tropez: this is a bike built for riding, and if you build ’em right, you can do the distance. “It’s true what they say;” says Bob, “Be a Man, Ride a Pan!”. The cut-down Bellwether rear mudguard, with its integral brace, sits snugly above the rear tyre, perfectly matching its radius, all the better for the lack of a tail-light and license plate, and tying in nicely with the oil tank that has been extended back to accommodate the ignition switch and simple starter button. I could go on ... actually, no I couldn’t, short of name-checking every single component and how Bob modified it. I’ll let the spec sheet and pictures do the rest for this winning combination of ancient and modern, which can be typified by the contrast between the traditional Bates headlamp up-front and the superefficient LED tail-light at the back. Nice one Bob!

Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

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NEC

’09

Despite being shunned by Harley-Davidson and Honda ... there was enough to keep me occupied at the NEC for the whole of press day, when I should really have been finishing off the magazine ... but I couldn’t miss Victory’s 2010 press launch.

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News: Carole Nash Motorcycle Show, NEC 2009

It was my reason for going and unfortunately they couldn’t get a morning slot, but it was worth the wait. If you haven’t been keeping up, Victory are launching into Europe properly this year with full EUWVTA, enabling them to sell in all EU countries ... or at least the Vegas platform machines have: the Vision will follow close behind. The upshot of this is rather than homologating the 100/5 and the 100/6 and the 106/6 Freedom engines, Victory have standardised using their most powerful, offering, the 106/6, motor across the range – even in the entry level Vegas, which starts the 8-Ball rolling at a ridiculously low £8,995. That makes it the bargain of the American motorcycle world right now, and in black-on-black, it’s also one of the best looking bikes in this market, and well-placed to capitalise on the loss of Harley’s Night Train in 2010. It also now gets the standard Victory headlamp, common to the rest of the street range in place of the cheap-looking round unit that didn’t do last year’s model any favours, and comes in black with black highlights rather than the flash of chrome or colour-matched treatment of other models, but it looks good for it. Victory are playing the long game, and while the company won’t get rich on sales of the entry-level 8-Ball, it will bring a lot of people into Victory ownership, and part of Polaris Britain’s boss, Ross Clifford’s briefing was in establishing the Victory’s parent company’s financial strength. The Vegas is joined by a more complete family of 8-Balls this year, which still includes the Kingpin which is now £1,500 more than the Vegas, but still £1,500 cheaper than its dressed-up sibling. The custom/performance sector isn’t forgotten with an 8-Ball Hammer, which loses a front disc and its tacho but gains a whole new attitude in head-to-toe black, but that’s nothing compared to the effect of the 8-Ball treatment on the Vision. Touring model of the year for both 2008 and 2009 in its normal guise, which now gets ABS as standard for its linked brakes, the Starship Enterprise’s earthbound cousin looks completely different without its aluminium panel details, and turns into a horny, ornery, bad-ass Limo. Stripped of a lot of its electrical goodies – all of which can be retrofitted – the ridiculously low and very supportive seat, full-length floorboards and sweeping lines make for an extraordinary motorcycle that is in severe danger of redefining custom baggers. The rest of Victory’s fleet has been given a new confidence too, from the two-tone monochromatic Hammer-S in a finish that they call Suede – matt to you and me, or Denim to HarleyDavidson – the

blue ice flames of the regular Hammer, and a more sane approach to the paint of the flagship Jackpot, tied in to a black frame, opening the door to easier opportunities for further modification. There are subtle changes, too, and I was astounded by just how much difference the odd pinstripe detail makes to a familiar form, accenting, lifting and reinforcing a line here and there, to give a simple face-lift. But the big news – yes, I’m surprised it got this far to get to it too – was much more than a face-lift when the sheets came off the Cross-series models: the Cross Roads and the Cross Country. We’ve seen photos, but someone had been on a Photoshop course and they were heavily stylised, which usually makes me suspicious: why did they need to attract attention? Because there was something to hide? No, because someone was being artistic. If any bike exceeded the high expectations of it, it was this ... were these. It’s impossible to quickly run through their detail without referencing the models of another manufacturer, so I’m not going to try. Victory have introduced rivals for Harley’s Road King and the Street Glide models, and they’ve got it right. Good-looking bikes with comfortable seats, big panniers, full length floorboards, clear instrumentation and a big enough difference between the two models to justify there being two. The Cross-Roads’ plain windshield and simple speedo with its embedded warning lights, contrasts with the Cross Country’s streamlined modern interpretation of a batwing fairing and the instruments from the Vision, but they both stand out, and the bags are the icing on the cake. Cavernous, they hinge outward, are waterproof and quickly detachable – though more for servicing and cleaning than because the bike will look good without them. And there’s a cherry on that icing. Since the LED tail-light of the first Vegas, Victory have been ahead of the game in terms of lighting, and the Cross-series takes that to new heights: stunning! All we’ve got to do now is wait for its official launch in Summer 2010, when it will have full EU type approval. Yes, I know that the Vision will be available with SVA until its paperwork is complete, and so do Victory. They really would rather you got a homologated bike, but they’d prefer to supply an SVA’d early arrival through their dealer network than support a privately imported example. It was almost enough to eclipse the first UK public unveiling of the Core concept bike that was the source of much technology in the Cross-series, but it never hurts to see what lengths a company goes to in pushing boundaries, and so radical a concept from a major manufacturer is very promising for the future: a possible hint at a production custom model? Would be interesting. You could be forgiven for thinking that nothing else went on, and with the absence of anything representing Harley-Davidson’s current output,

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News: Carole Nash Motorcycle Show, NEC 2009

it was always a possibility, but even the staunchest American motorcycle fan could fail to have been drawn to the two stands at the foot of the stairs dividing the two halls: Triumph and Norton. Of course we all know that Triumph have never really gone away, and indeed are going from strength to strength, but it was great to see Norton – spotted briefly at Goodwood – showing a range of brand new 961cc Commandos, and they did look very good. Still unapologetically an air/oil-cooled pushrod-operated OHV motor, it looks more like a well-fettled Commando with state of the art suspension and classic lines, but there is much more to it than that, being a full Euro-3 compliant motor – apparently some of the development work was undertaken in the US before the project came home to Britain: is that a strong enough link to qualify as an American bike? Okay, so it’s not a V-twin, but ... What certainly is an American V-twin is the Can-Am Spyder Roadster, and while it’s a long way from being a conventional American motorcycle as we know it – or even a trike – it looks like loads lot of fun. Do I want to ride one? Are bears catholic? Produced by BRP-Rotax – a couple of names that crop up in the 1125R roadtest in this very issue – it’s powered by a 990cc liquid-cooled 4-stroke V-twin running through a CVT gearbox with five preset gears selectable either by manual foot change or a semi-automatic system and a flappy-paddle* gear stick – oh, and a reverse that is via the gearbox, not an electric motor. It’s loaded with electronics for ABS, traction control, dynamic power steering and two stability systems, one to prevent it from tipping over. For some reason, I only photographed the yellow RS model, that’s fitted with the optional luggage, screen, comfort seat and a few extra bits and pieces, and I really should have shot the matt black one, which was menacingly sitting opposite, brooding. Between them was the new RT which is the full-on touring model, and will give Gold Wing riders palpitations: masses of integrated luggage in a full touring package, the second front wheel is hardly an inconvenience – it’s probably as capable of lane splitting as a

fully-dressed Wing. In fact, between the Spyder and the Vision, the Gold Wing got it’s work cut out. Wonder if that’s why Honda didn’t show. Pity, I was looking forward to seeing the factory chopper, the Fury, or their recently announced Shadow bobber. But they were a no-show, leaving the cruiser sector in the hands of Yamaha, who are still building Art Deco streamliners; Suzuki, with their strangely uniform powercruiser flagships and generic base cruisers; and Kawasaki who are in statis with the exception of a neat bobber version of their baby VN, which might have given the Shadow a run for its money. Oddly underwhelming, but that might be because I’m slightly biased. There were one or two things of interest in the custom extreme section, notably the Macbeth bike and Destiny’s trike, while the depleted classic section was buoyed-up by three of Hogbitz’ cafe racers, with another on Carole Nash’s feature, in the company of Krazy Horse’s cafe racer and a barking V10 Viper-engined solo. But apart from that, if there wasn’t the social element, I’d struggle to commend it: something needs to be done with it as a show, a format and a spectacle, but it certainly needs the full range of manufacturers to turn it back into the show that the motorcycle industry needs, in order to promote itself. In the meantime, it’s an excellent opportunity to try on a very broad range of gear, sit on a large percentage of the saddles available in the UK and seek out those end-of-season bargains, but I’m not sure that’s enough? Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

American-V.co.uk

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AmVwhoneeds:Layout 1 01/10/2009 17:52 Page 1

Who needs 1600cc? who needs turbo chargers? Who needs chrome? Who needs custom paint? Who needs billet? Who needs to ride all day for the hell of it? Who needs the wind in their hair? Who needs freedom of choice?

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BOLT-ON EURO BOB CATALOGUE SHOPPING FXDB-STYLE The ultimate bolt-on Street Bob, Custom Chrome Europe had a good long trawl through their goodies bags to see how they could best dress-up Harleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bargain Dyna.

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Street: Bolt-On Street Bob

What they arrived at wasn’t so much a development of the Bobber, but capitalised on the FXDB as the entry-level big twin: what we used to call a blank canvas back when we had the Softail Standard and the FXD Super Glide to play with. And if you think about it, that’s pretty much what the Street Bob is, with the added benefit of being a good looking bike in its own right, which sometimes worked against the excellent but featureless Plain-Jane Super Glides. As a blank canvas, it is a potential clotheshorse for all the aftermarket bits and pieces that have been made for Dynas since 1991, but it’s massively important to recognise two things. Firstly, all Harleys evolve at a quicker pace than their model designations would suggest, and while the Street Bob arrived with the current generation EFI and the Mk2 Dyna frame, there are a lot of Dyna parts that won’t fit on it: anything pre-2006 should be cross-referenced and double-checked. Seats, tanks and mudguards were modified for the new chassis, and the pre-’06 models used normal Sportster-style forks rather than the current V-Rod derived items. Talk to your dealer and note the models that parts are designed to fit, and if the part that you really want isn’t compatible, it doesn’t mean that it won’t, just that you’ll have to make it fit – which will usually invalidate any warranty claims. Secondly, there isn’t a competition to see who can replace the most standard parts with aftermarket accessories: that way leads to accusations of riding a tart’s handbag, and with some justification. Less is frequently more, and that is certainly the case when it comes to mixing styles: just because the professional builders on the telly have managed to make an art deco detail look stunning on a billet barge, doesn’t means mere mortals can. And the same is true of metals: chrome, stainless and aluminium are all silver metals, but they’re different shades of silver. With such cautionary notes in your head, the world’s your lobster. It’s your bike, your tastes and your money and the only thing you need to lose any sleep over is future resale value, but that’s some way in the future. You almost certainly won’t get what you put into it back unless you’ve got exquisite taste, because the next owner will probably ebay all the stuff you put on, and replace it with their own. Taste is a funny thing, but remember the old adage: halitosis is better than no breath at all. If it’s bolt-on, it’s also bolt-off: keep the original bits you took off and save them for when you sell the bike, and you’ll be part way to dressing your new ride, or creating your own ebay shop. Custom Chrome have pulled off that rare trick of loading a basic bike with a van full of bling and created a bike that looks right ... but then it will have been Thomas and Gunnar stamping their national identity on the bike, and the result is a clean, efficient custom, but one that thankfully has an American heart beating at its centre ... and one with a RevTech DSO chatting to the ECU, liberating a few extra horses. You want a list of everything that has been bolted on? Seriously? Tough. All you need is some imagination, and to know that anything that isn’t part of the base FXDB is available through Custom Chrome. Words: Andy Hornsby Pictures: Motographer.de

Next issue’s Street Bob is a very different prospect: not so much bolton as sawn-off. Keep ’em coming in.

American-V.co.uk

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THOSE BUELL REMEMBERED THRILLS ... 84 American-V.co.uk

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Roadtest: Buell 1125R

It was a strange day, was the 15th October: the anticipated Buell 1125CR turned out to be an ‘R’ when it landed, but by the time I’d discovered what had gone wrong it was all rather arbitrary. A press release had arrived: Harley-Davidson was closing the Buell Motorcycle Company. American-V.co.uk

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Roadtest: Buell Low 1125R Xl1200C Vs Dyna Rider

It was a very sad day for those among us who felt we understood what Buell was about, but it’s not without precedent. There is a bitter irony in that Erik Buell is one of a select few who can step out of the shadows cast by a pair of inspired motorcycle designers from the past – Phil Vincent and Phil Irving – and I’m only grateful to have had the opportunity to experience, first-hand, the modern equivalent of the machines that fed my own enthusiasm for motorcycles. The parallels continue. Vincent’s production costs ultimately proved untenable in the sales slump of the mid-1950s, twentyseven years after starting trading as Vincent HRD. Engineering graduate, Phil Vincent’s genius was in his frame designs, registering a patent for a cantilever rear suspension design, and introducing a number of firsts in his drive to build the best motorcycles he could – the company even produced a single cylinder version of their V-twin by removing the rear pot, although in Vincent’s case the single came first and the V-twin came about, according to legend, by the accidental overlaying of two engine drawings – and at the end of the day, the decision to close was made in the face of commercial pragmatism. The bikes had never been stronger, the engineering had never been finer and the loss of Vincent is still mourned over fifty years later, and there’s plenty of speculation as to how it could have been so different. Will the same be true of Buell? I reckon it will, and not just because of the radically-framed, traditionally-powered air-cooled XB models, but because the Helicon engine was just starting to live up to its promise after a shaky start. There will be even more speculation, however, about what Harley-Davidson might have done to save Buell, ranging from the naïve to the seditious, which will keep the twittering classes tweeting for years to come, but the unpalatable truth is that Buell has gone and the 1125R is pre-destined to become the Vincent Black Shadow of the twenty-first century. The big difference between 1955 and today is that Buell’s parent company is a motorcycle manufacturer too, and they still have the ability to build Buell motorcycles: indeed they could pull off the ultimate marketing coup, reinstating the brand by popular demand, built within one of Harley-Davidson’s facilities once the

economic climate is more stable and Buell has reached cult status. But, so much for the obituary: is the 1125R a worthy pretender to the Black Shadow’s pedestal? Twelve months ago, I would have said no, but that was when Buell were still struggling with teething troubles with the new motor, commonly attributed to a breakdown in communication between metric design engineers in Canada and Austria and imperial production Engineers in Wisconsin. Those early generation bikes had a two-stroke-like power-band that they hit mid-way through the rev range when all hell broke loose, making it a challenging high performance ride on proper roads with hedges and corners. On top of that, it drove a coach and horses through any argument in favour of water cooling to reduce engine noise, sounding like a bag of spanners rolling down a cobbled hill, but what a difference a year makes. I got a sense of that improvement on the 1125CR that we borrowed from Manchester Harley-Davidson to chase round Mallory Park at an IAM skills day, but in hindsight I was pleased that it would be the R that would give us our last chance to put an 1125 through its paces, if only because it was the R that had previously, err ... disappointed? No, I’ll settle for frustrated. Being very careful not to get all rose-tinted about it, it was time to see how the changes affected the bike that I’d previously considered to be a Buell too far, which meant

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riding the wheels off it – the only true measure of a bike like this – or at least as hard as I could, which I’d discovered at a few Buell Experience Days meant barely scratching the surface of its capability. There truly is nothing else like a Buell, which proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Play “Top Trumps” with the great and the good of the mainstream sportbikes and it’s astonishing to reel off its specifications, only really failing to score in headline power figures, the vast majority of which are irrelevant outside pub talk. Yes, 180bhp will always trump 146bhp, but most people on state-of-the-art Super Sports models will use less than half that power when their blood’s up, and in normal daily use, perhaps a quarter, because that 180bhp is peak power which will separate you from your license in anything other than first or second gear. On anything but a circuit or an empty multi-lane highway, performance is less about how much power and more about how useable that power is. Sadly, you can’t tell most performance-oriented riders that. Received wisdom is that an in-line 4 is the only game in town, to the point that even the immensely successful Ducati Vtwins, steeped in Italian racing heritage, are seen as quirky by many. What chance did Buell have, especially when they

SECOND OPINION: When Andy phoned me about the revised 2009 Buell 1125R he’d sounded very, very excited: “Graham, I want you to experience 10,000rpm on a Buell 1125 – that’s about 65mph in first gear!” This was slightly worrying ... “Look Andy; I’m tired, it’s going to rain and it’s got 145hp” “It’ll be fine – it’s nearer 140 at the wheel” “Well clearly that’s alright then ...” I had previously come across the 1125R when Andy had brought one of the early 2008 models round for us to have a look at – the black one with the blue frame (Am-V 31) – when a number of things quickly became apparent. The most obvious was that the frame got very warm. No, that’s a lie: it got stupidly warm and frankly I wondered how Buell

were demonstrating new technologies that flew in the face of established practice? For those who were willing to try something new, however, a remarkably capable motorcycle awaited. In terms of its engine, it had more in common with an Aprilia V-twin than a HarleyDavidson, but in terms of its chassis, it built on the solid foundation developed on the XB-series Buells, taking the concept to new levels. If you’ve come off anything but a Firebolt, the first major corner catches you by surprise as the 1125R falls into it with a precision that is distinctly un-American. You can get a sense of that precision in the adjustability of the control levers to fit you, its rider. This isn’t like a Harley where you can stomp leisurely on the rear brake pedal to bring it to a halt. To work at its best, a sportbike needs to fit you like a glove because valuable fractions of seconds can be saved by them being precisely to hand – or foot – so the pegs on the foot controls and the throw of the handlebar levers can be set to suit.

got away with it. Well, the answer was that they didn’t and I’m delighted to say that the later 2009 version – which we were about to test – was to boast much improved cooling or at least I assume it did as, while the frame did get warm, it wasn’t a problem – just quite pleasant, ahem. Anyway, rewind back to that first version ...an extremely brief ride demonstrated excellent balance, that the suspension didn’t mind cobbles and – oh yes – that tweaking the throttle caused the bike to leap forward in a really promising manner. The bike had felt great and I’d wanted more ...

But when Andy had tested it, the irregular power delivery had proved a mixed blessing and had given him a couple of very nasty surprises! Now this wayward behaviour was definitely going to put me slightly outside my comfort zone, but sometimes this is a good thing – actually that’s

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Roadtest: Buell 1125R

There’s a strange sense that the steering head isn’t where you thought it was, which extends to the front tyre’s contact patch on the road. That is when you remember that the front of the fairing is well forward of the wheel spindle ... and indeed that the spindle isn’t much further forward than your hands on the bike’s dropped bars, and that they are beneath you rather than ahead too. Then the penny drops: your weight is almost entirely over the front wheel, and it’s little surprise that this diminutive sport bike is reacting to that. It all happens in a split second, and you intuitively know to power through it, the fat rear tyre gripping the tarmac lifting the bike back upright, relying on you to get the right balance of throttle and counter-steer to negotiate the corner like you know what you’re doing. This is one of those occasions when braking is not the best option, and if you’re of a nervous disposition, inclined to brake as a first reaction, exercise caution. An alien world? Damn right! Amanda’s first hundred yards took her a minute and a half and I was convinced the second hundred yards would be retracing her steps back to the garage. But newly converted to Buells, she persisted and reaped the rewards. Thankfully, physically bigger than the tiny XB12R Firebolt that preceded it, the 1125R wasn’t too cramped for my six-foot-two frame, and while I’m sure a better rider would be able to pick out the differences between the super-tight original concept and the bigger-boned bike that it grew into, it was as sure-footed as any Buell I’ve ridden on the street. And with the rider’s weight further forward than the streetfightin’ Lightning or the 1125CR would encourage, it makes a better open-country scratcher than anything but a Firebolt. wrong – it’s always good, for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is that you might actually enjoy yourself. This was going to be one of those occasions and it was with a positive frame of mind that we got the 2009 bike out of Andy’s garage. There have been a number of upgrades since that first 2008 bike. What’s new? Well, it’s now got a gear indicator, which I actually found really useful, although it’s a bit hard to see at speed and irritatingly, rather than showing a 0 or N when in neutral, it reverts to the conventional green light in the warning light array. Whatever, the bike now has a tinted screen, higher output alternator, and a slider bobbin – for a track stand – and comes in red, white or black. In addition, I suspect they’ve done something to help with the cooling – as I’ve already mentioned – and they’ve definitely revised the ECU program to improve the function of the engine.

Much of that could easily be taken for granted, though, because while the frame from which the Helicon is suspended is different to the XB-series, the concept is the same: a fuel-bearing aluminium spar frame that wraps round the rear cylinder head, and a swing-arm that pivots on the back of the gearbox: light, rigid, proven. There’s a fundamental difference in that the dry-sump Helicon doesn’t store its oil in the swing-arm but within a chamber inside the engine’s cases, but the style and stance is pure Buell. If you’ve been on another planet over the last couple of years, the new Buell liquid-cooled motor was developed with BRP-Rotax, once Buell got permission to source a new motor outside the Harley-Davidson family. It’s widely known that the Aprilia Mille engine is from the same stable, but don’t fall into the elephant trap of believing the engines are the same: they’re scarcely blood relatives. It has been suggested that the core of the motor was pre-existing with the final development done with Buell to incorporate a number of his ideas and new concepts, but another version of the story is that it bears very close resemblance to a sketch by Erik Buell dating back to 1986, and we know from Buell’s taming of the square-four, two-stroke Barton that powered the RW750, that Erik is as comfortable with engine development as chassis – Phil Irving and Phil Vincent rolled into one. The story for public consumption at the time was that Buell contracted Rotax to build a bike with some preset parameters – notably power output and weight – and Rotax designed the motor to meet those goals. Buell’s engineers stipulated that it had to be a narrow angle V-twin to let them position it in the frame to best effect, but wide enough for a straight line inlet from the massive dual downdraft 61mm injector bodies into the combustion chamber. I’m not brave or stupid enough to proffer chapter and verse assertions, but what we do know is that the end result is a 72degree, liquid-cooled, dry-sump OHC V-twin with the sort of revolutionary ideas we’ve come to expect from Buell: simple things like a compact DOHC engine courtesy of driving only one cam by chain, and taking the second camshaft off that using a gear drive – which is an obvious candidate for the source of the mechanical noise – and the use of finger followers to switch the sliding action of the cams’ lobes on the valves’ shims to a rocker motion, substantially reducing maintenance costs and complexity: a useful trick when abandoning the hydraulic tappets of the Thunderstorm engine. More visibly he tucked the radiators either side of the engine allowing him to keep an ultra short wheelbase, and mounted on leaf-springs behind smooth, impact-absorbing shells The new engine was a very different proposition to the Thunderstorm: a 4-valve high compression short-stroke, it produced power in a very different way, with enough torque to

It is spectacularly well equipped – it even comes with a slipper clutch. What’s a slipper...? Glad you asked: it’s designed to let you change down smartly through the gears without locking the back wheel. It’s really trick; and I just wish I’d read about it before doing the test as I’d have been more enthusiastic cogging down the box coming up to the multitude of roundabouts we found. I’ve always liked the look of the 1125R: from the original in black with a blue frame to the current, more adventurous colours. This one was red with a black frame and it looked the business. It looked angry and with good reason in light of what has happened to the company. The loss of Buell has hit us hard at American-V, and there have been tears. Before so much as turning a key, I should perhaps point out a few other first impressions. Now I know that opinions about its looks differ

dramatically, but I actually liked the R in red even more than the black. I thought it looked superb. It’s bold, aggressive, simple and functional. It’s definitely ‘doing it on purpose’. Would I be proud to own one? You betcha! The switchgear was standard Buell, which in my book is a very good thing and, intriguingly, it came with a blank where a handlebar heater control would be situated on the Ulysses’ right-hand grip; I later found out that it comes pre-wired for this accessory – on a full-on sportsbike, no less: full marks. The side-stand was easy to flick up, subsequently find and flick down again. The gear peg was a little too near for my size-tens, but was adjustable and this was typical of the attention to detail I found in the bike. Turn the ignition on and an 1125 will introduce itself in an effort to engage you in conversation...

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“I am a Buell 1125 from Wisconsin USA...” Being a polite sort of chap, I explained that I was a Londoner from Finchley “I am cold” said the R “Don’t worry, I’ll let you warm up” and with that, I started the bike with the typically Buell metallic clatter. You’re no longer advised to wait until ‘cold’ disappears from the LCD dash, but it never hurts to make sure there’s oil circulating, and once there was some heat in the motor we were off and a few things quickly became apparent. Firstly, it was amazingly comfortable and fitted my skinny, five-foot-eleven perfectly: I could wedge my knees into the cutouts in the ‘tank’ to take the weight off my wrists, leaving me feeling totally balanced and in control. Secondly, the power delivery was linear – totally unlike the 2008 version. And thirdly, the traffic was unusually heavy.

Now, I was actually very pleased at this as, if an out-and-out sports bike can behave well – and be comfortable – at low speed – as well as doing the business at high speed then, in my book, it’s been well thought through and well-engineered: the 1125 got a total thumbs up. Having said that, I do have one small criticism, which was that it tended to flop into slow corners. Now my Dyna did this once and a little more air in the front tyre completely cured it. I would have loved to have tried this with the R and would be happy to give it the benefit of the doubt in this respect. To be fair I hadn’t checked the tyre pressure so have only myself to blame. The vacuum-assisted clutch wasn’t heavy but it had a long reach, as I found out when I tried to cancel the indicator with my thumb, whilst slipping the clutch to ease forward, I stalled. The lesson being that if the levers are adjustable, adjust

them! Talking of slipping the clutch, you do need to – particularly around town. It’s only required from between about 1,500rpm to about 2750 and was no hardship as the idle speed is quite high anyway, and because it fits perfectly with the sporty character of the bike. Perhaps I should explain myself; if I’m riding a bike on its torque, I find any kind of jerky behavior at low speed extremely irritating – whether from transmission lash or from incorrect fuelling – as it destroys the sensation of smooth, stress-free acceleration. On the other hand, when power is the primary motive force – as is the case in the revvy 1125R – then part of the fun is having to rev the bike, frankly, and a moderate amount of transmission lash is of little consequence: I didn’t find it irritating, it was part of the bike’s character and was easy to live with.

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Roadtest: Buell Low 1125R Xl1200C Vs Dyna Rider

make it engaging below 5,000rpm, but then abundant power coming through from there up to 146bhp at its 10,500rpm redline. My initial problem with the bike was in the way it switched from Jeckyll to Hyde, which was ferocious on the early example I rode, but that’s been sorted out and very much for the better. It actually feels quicker, but more importantly there’s now a smooth transition from XB-like torque to the howling banshee that is the Helicon engine. Sixty miles per hour is easily attainable in first and I daresay you could crack the ton in second if your blood was up, but while it manages this feat remarkably easily, it’s not without a sense of underlying effort. You crank it open and it goes. Boy does it go. And if you’re winding it beyond 5k the way the needle sweeps round the oversized tacho’s dial is quite remarkable. It signals a return to high-speed performance that Buell mysteriously abandoned with the demise of the tube frame models, whether intentionally or otherwise. Don’t ask me why, but the XBs didn’t seem to want to explore three figure territories as readily as their predecessors did with ease on their tall UK gearing, hitting 50, 80 and the ton in the first three gears without appearing to break sweat. Sure, the 1125R is quicker, and how, but it seems to make more work of it. For the record, in controlled circumstances and relying on the accuracy of the speedo, the first three gears were good for 60mph, 90mph and at least 113mph before I shifted into fourth with revs to spare, because it was all rather arbitrary after that. Don’t get me wrong however: it’s not that the 1125R isn’t torquey, but it’s no Dyna in that respect. It will, in fact pull quite satisfactorily from 2,500rpm through 3,000 at which point the character changes – as does the exhaust note, which sounds pretty damn good – and the R surges forward. The linear power delivery meant that it was equally as easy to put power down as it was to ride at a constant 30 or 40mph in camera-infested areas. In fact, this is truly a flexible bike. It could even be trickled through heavy traffic, slipping the clutch, keeping the revs above 3,000rpm, and dabbing the back brake to steady the bike. When the traffic cleared it was time to up the pace a little. At higher speeds there was plenty of room to tuck in behind the fairing – out of the windblast, push my knees into the tank cutouts, bend my arms slightly and slip my feet back on

But for all the improvements in the switch from torque to power, if you want to get the best from the motor you need to keep it spinning at 5k-plus, although that’s is a lot easier than it sounds. This isn’t a motor that rewards short-shifting: hold it in first gear off the line, making the most of the fact that the red line corresponds to peak power, until you sense it’s about to bounce off the rev-limiter and then shift to second, which puts you right in the thick of the power for the next gear. If you’re out for a spirited ride on challenging roads, you’ll have little need to explore beyond third gear if you want abundant power on tap – second and third are the flexible gears if you’re working within posted speed limits – rendering half of the sixspeed gearbox redundant, but there’s more to this Buell than pure performance. Buells have always been about real world power, and there is enough torque within the short stroke’s capability to canter along in fourth or fifth, below the main powerband but

the rear-set footrests and enjoy the upper reaches of the rev range. It was pretty quiet – all things considered – and there was minimal turbulence: Buell ‘Quiet Zone’ technology at work. At high speed, the bike was very stable, precise, very controllable and confidence-inspiring. Unfortunately, I did touch down a few times ... only kidding, of course I didn’t: the ground clearance was excellent! You are aware that this is a fast bike – it certainly feels it – but the performance was definitely useable, even to mortals such as myself. Unlike other bikes I could mention, there was no illusion of going slower than you actually were – which can be disconcerting – instead the 1125 gave accurate

feedback. I soon sussed that it had so much depth and so much ability that I would only be able to scratch the surface here. The bike is pretty high-geared and I frequently found myself staying in a lower gear than I expected, then using the revs to find power rather than changing up early and using the bike’s torque, as you might on a Harley, but that was absolutely no hardship as playing with the rev range proved very addictive.

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with plenty to spare for most regular circumstances. It’s hardly a sport tourer – there’s no luggage or sensible provision to fit any – but it’s a good lazy-day mile-eater if you fancy something less than a gallop. Averaging 38 mpg, according to the on-board computer, and with its 4.6 gallon fuel capacity (5.6 US), it’ll take you a good distance without having to stop, either for fuel or to stretch your legs. I didn’t get to find out whether the sport and average mpg read-outs were calibrated in imperial or American gallons, but it’s safe to assume US and be pleasantly surprised to find they’re not. The 1125R’s riding position is radical for those used to cruisers. You carry your upper body weight on your wrists in slow-moving traffic, with your arms locked straight, and the prone riding position means your head is tilted well-back – in my case by about as far as it will go – both of which are due to the intended weight distribution and to keep your body tucked-up out of the air stream at high speed. It’s not as extreme as a pure sport bikes, but I wouldn’t consider something so obviously set up for open road high speeds if I were a city dweller. I’d also be quite particular in my choice of helmet, because a regular flip is next to useless with its chin-piece raised because it obscures your vision: you need as much upward visibility as possible through the opening, just to see the road in front. Once you’re moving, though, you can relax your posture, bending your arms for better control, your chest riding on what cushion of air has managed to sneak into ‘the quiet zone’ behind the fairing: that’s when the 1125R makes the most sense, providing you’re on the right sort of roads ... and that was the dilemma last time. That early example was excellent on motorways and high speed A-roads, where even 146hp just isn’t enough to cut it with the big boys, but those sorts of roads are a waste of a decent chassis so I determined to find out if the revisions had brought it back into its natural element. Taking the bike north to Rich in a hurry I learned very little, other than that the bike was still quick, but then the journey was blighted by the nastiest section of the M6 and Manchester’s ringroad offered little respite. The road back, however, at my own pace was anything I fancied making it, with various routes across the Pennines or the Peaks and only the failing light and falling temperatures of late Autumn tempering my enthusiasm. There was only one sensible one for me on the 1125R: East over Saddleworth to Holmfirth and back via Holme Moss, crossing the Woodhead Road heading

Fast A-roads generally found me in 3rd or possibly 4th. Using 5th meant that you were going pretty, well, very quickly and 6th was a useful overdrive for cruising at motorway speeds with 5,000rpm equating to about 80mph. Now this might sound a bit silly for a large capacity v-twin but it

into Glossop and back to Manchester’s ring road: an excellent combination of quick A-roads with good visibility followed by a tortuous winding path up to one of my favourite vantage points, with a sizable chunk of Yorkshire laid out before you. I’d only end up four miles from where I started, forty of my favourite miles earlier, but would have enough adrenalin pumping to carry me through the dull return leg without the energy for complaint. It isn’t a road that you can ride with your throttle to the stop, but rewards intelligent use of power – and indeed you need predictable power to truly appreciate. This is where the Firebolt would have been perfectly at home, where a Lightning would be that little bit too upright unless you throw yourself down over the bars, and it was here that the 1125R would succeed or fail for me. It was mid-day, mid-week and dry, and I just about had the roads to myself as they’re not used by heavy traffic. I cursed myself for not having brought a video – or indeed worked out yet how to mount one that would give a good rider’s eye view of the road and the controls – but that didn’t last long: I had better things to think about, notably trying to stay alive and make mental notes about how the bike was behaving. The mental notes were the next thing to go, as soon as I worked out that I didn’t have the capacity to process them, but not before observing that any trace of the brutal power surge was gone. This was going to be my last chance to ride an 1125R without buying one, and you don’t pass-up the opportunity for a fair weather blast in October, knowing it could be the last decent day of the year: the gods were smiling on me, and even a lack of fuel stations and an ominously persistent low fuel light on the faster first leg couldn’t spoil it. With a replenished tank, grateful that my regular fuel station in Holmfirth was still trading, I struck out for the slow but more demanding trek back West. I paused briefly to consider the irony of riding though Summer Wine country on a bike that wouldn’t

doesn’t feel busy – and there’s plenty of revs to go until the red line. Overall, the petrol consumption was 32 mpg (US), equating to about 38 mpg (UK), which wasn’t bad as I hadn’t been riding with fuel economy in mind. Be warned, you probably won’t be either! How can I put this bike into context? Well, if a Dyna equates to Def Leppard’s Slang, and an XB corresponds to late-ish Metallica, this bike was Guns n’ Roses’ Spaghetti Incident! Did I say that out loud? I didn’t mean to, but it’s amazing the odd thoughts that go through your head when you’re riding a good bike ‘in the groove’. For example, I would suggest that the 1125R would make a good winter bike as it’s got a lot going for it: most importantly, it lets you – the rider – feel totally in control. It has confidence-inspiring handling. The fairing and tank cutouts would offer a degree

of weather protection; you could have heated handlebar grips fitted, which, together with the heat coming through the frame would keep you relatively snug. The brakes are excellent and offer plenty of feel and not only is the power delivery linear but – due to the generous rev range – would allow for considerable flexibility in how you fed it through to the back wheel. Ride it steadily though the winter and hammer it in the summer – can’t be bad! I loved the 1125R and when I got home, I told my wife, Hazel, all about it ... at considerable length: “Well, if you liked it that much – get one!” “Great!” “Just sell your Dyna first” “Oh b*ll*cks!” But then again ... Words: Graham Gabriel

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Roadtest: Buell Low 1125R Xl1200C Vs Dyna Rider

THIRD OPINION: This ‘R’ looks as radical as all the other Buells have done to date, but for my liking it looks just that bit too much like a sport bike, but I was eager to give it a go and see what all the fuss was about. The Buell 1125R is aesthetically challenging, mainly the somewhat hideous exhaust system and the two ‘prawn’ air intakes, but then like most Buells before it, you either love it warts and all, or you find the style unforgivable: personally, I’m not sure I could live with the aesthetics, but then I don’t own one and don’t have to. Sitting on the bike and familiarising myself with the controls was straightforward enough until I tried to pull-away ... and I couldn’t find anywhere to plonk my feet up out of the way. If I’d had an audience, they would have been rolling around on the floor laughing at me trying to find the footpegs with my feet. As it was, Andy sat patiently round the corner looking perplexed. I just hadn’t bargained on them being so high or tucked so far back and this position was alien to me: I’m far more used to riding bikes with forward controls or with their footrests in ‘normal’ places.

survive into its dotage, and then gunned the Helicon motor through to Holmbridge and into Holme, the broken road surface in the same state as it has been for the last twenty-five years. Like the Congleton to Buxton Road through Wildboarclough, the Cat and Fiddle’s unkempt brother, this is a road that serves to demonstrate what low unsprung weight means, and I hope they never see the need to resurface either of them because it would ruin them – not least because they’d be used by heavy traffic, and power rangers determined to prove something to themselves ... much as I suppose I was, and have done in glorious isolation on a wide variety of bikes over the years. If the bike was too fast for the Saddleworth road, this could be seen as wholly inappropriate, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This is where controllable power comes into its own. You could ride up and down on the East side of Holme Moss a dozen times and never use the same line, or combination of revs and gear twice – especially in the lower section which is made more complicated by blind bends and ill-timed light traffic – and you either want masses of roll-on torque and the luxury of an ignition you can retard, or predictable power, stunning brakes and a chassis that goes where you point it and can cope with late changes in line. The measure of a good sportbike to me, however, is not to be able to fine tune either your racing line or IAM and Police-approved line of maximum visibility by endlessly negotiating the same stretch of road, but to be able to deal with the road ahead of you as it unfolds for the first time. I don’t recall using this route for the last two, maybe three years, which made it all the more challenging, and meant I was in the wrong gears, at the wrong revs far more often than I would have liked, but the bike forgave me. It had enough torque to pull me through when I needed it, and didn’t get out of shape when it came on-cam mid-way through a challenging series of bends, critical on the Woodhead to Glossop stretch, which can be an unforgiving stretch of tarmac to the unwary. And did it pass? Yes, with flying colours, not putting a foot wrong and protecting me from my shortcomings in a way that the XB-series bikes have always done ... which just made it all the more depressing that the 1125R is no more. All that potential wasted. Of course, I could always go and buy one, if there’s still one in the ‘Everything Must Go’ jamboree, but that would depend on a couple of things, not least of which being what I want of a motorcycle. To be honest, though, as much fun as it was to put it through its paces – okay, to let it put me through my paces – it isn’t a motorcycle I’d choose for myself. I can’t fault it as a motorcycle – well, apart from a concern about the effects of condensation from the free-form Henry Moore-esque

muffler on the rear brake and rotor, and a couple of combinations in the multi-mode LCD instrument panel that aren’t there, but which were only frustrating in getting to grips with the bike quickly and wouldn’t feature with long term ownership – but it lacks the flexibility and character of the air-cooled bike, and if ownership meant parting with my Cyclone, it wouldn’t get a look-in. And that, I suspect, has been an issue in terms of its acceptance within the market place – especially bearing in mind they’re sold through Harley-Davidson’s dealer network – and with the attitude of the mainstream bike press being slow to forgive the less-than successful launch filtering through to the bike’s natural target market, it always had a hill to climb. No pun intended. But maybe that’s about to change? Erik Buell’s announcement on the 20th November that he is to set up Erik Buell Racing, buying race use only 1125Rs under licence from Harley-Davidson, could potentially be the olive branch that the 1125R has always needed. If Erik Buell can push the 1125R to a prominent position in circuit racing, he’s got a chance of gaining the sort of recognition and grudging respect that Ducati enjoys, and if that creates a market for a resurrected Buell Motor Company – maybe even one that uses the 1125 motor exclusively – can you really see Harley-Davidson not capitalising on the amount of money that the Helicon tooling will have cost? I suspect that might even be a contingency plan, simmering away on a back burner. Making new engines, even for racing, means they’re not just going to put the Helicon plans in a cupboard and forget about them, and it would be a hell of a comeback: then can you imagine what would have happened if, say, Triumph had bought Vincent in 1955, and subsequently relaunched the Black Shadow in the 1960s, when café racers were in the ascendant? Don’t hold your breath, but watch this space! Words and Pictures: Andy Hornsby

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After about ten yards, I decided that I wanted to get off the bike and put it back in the garage as I was really struggling with the position of the handlebars, and the weight on my wrists, it was so heavy at slow speeds in the urban backstreets where we’re based. But, I decided to persevere and headed over to my mum’s house about twelve miles away, stopping only for fuel and to relieve Andy of his babysitting duties: he had first hand experience of my reaction to radical Buells in the past, and wanted to make sure I was completely comfortable before abandoning me to my fate. Once I’d cleared the stop-start town traffic and got onto more open roads the weight on my wrists lessened considerably, then onto our local dual-carriageway to see what the Buell felt like. I decided to get into ‘sports-Buell’ mode and so crouched down behind the mini fairing and stuck my fat ass up in the air to get the full benefit of the streamlining for both bike and rider, and opened the throttle. Oh joy! What sheer uncomplicated joy! The ‘R’ flew like a jet plane and in no time at

Specifications

all, I was really whooping it up on this mad little two-wheeler, wondering how something could change do drastically, so quickly. The whole dynamic changed and the steering came into its own on the open road, and it was such a different experience to how it handled in town; out here the handling was pin-sharp and so incredibly precise that I was concerned about oversteer, but it didn’t put a foot wrong: it’s a bike that you need to put your confidence in, but reassuringly you can do and it will come up trumps. I was going to suggest it might be an issue if you didn’t know what you were doing, but that actually could refer to me in terms of so sharp a sportbike, but it just went where I pointed it, so perhaps I’m overstating the case? And it’s not only the handling that makes you realise how motorcycling at the sharp edge has evolved in the last ten years: those brakes! Sorry, I’ll rephrase that: that brake! The massive 8-pot caliper with its perimetermounted rotor was a little disconcerting at first, but again trusting in the machine and altering my existing habits to account for its

prodigious power didn’t cause me any heartstopping moments, but I don’t think I would have troubled it too much either: it goes a long way towards boosting your overall confidence though. Massively more powerful than the single-sided twin pot on my winter hack – an FT500 – it was user-friendly and progressive with plenty of feel. Having seen Craig Jones standing an 1125R on its nose at Silverstone, I didn’t doubt its capability, and was pleased that I didn’t have Wing Chui clinging to the front. Having overcome my initial concerns, and despite only riding it for a relatively short distance, the Buell 1125R left a lasting, positive impression on me. I’ll be the first to admit that I was unlikely to get the best from it – or indeed that it is the sort of bike I could live with on a daily basis – but I came away with a renewed respect for a bike that was patently built for someone far more capable than I, but which wasn’t intimidating. Power is nothing without control, and the 1125R is a wonderful example of controlled power. Words: Amanda Wright

Buell 1125R

Length ......................................................................................................2040mm Seat Height..................................................................................................775mm Ground Clearance ........................................................................................125mm Rake/Trail ............................................................................................ 21° / 84mm Lean Angles Soft Contact L / R..................................................48° / 48° Hard Contact L/R ..................................................50° / 50° Wheelbase ................................................................................................1375mm Fuel Capacity.................................................................................................. 21.2 l Oil Capacity ......................................................................................................3.1 l Dry Weight ....................................................................................................170kg Powertrain ..............................................Helicon liquid-cooled, 4-stroke, 72° V-Twin Displacement .............................................................................................. 1125cc Bore x Stroke....................................................................................103 x 67.5 mm Fuel System................... Dual 61 mm down draft throttle bodies, DDFI III fuel injection Compression Ratio......................................................................................... 12.3:1 Torque .................................................................... 111 Nm / 82 ft. lbs. @ 8000 rpm Horsepower............................................................................ 146 hp @ 10,000 rpm Exhaust...........................................Tuned tri-pass resonance chamber with integral helmholtz tuning and mass-centralised mounting Intake ......................................... Zero-resistance airbox, pressurized RAM air intake Primary Drive.....................................................................Helical Gear, 1.806:1 ratio Final Drive .......................................... Constant path, 14mm pitch aramid-reinforced Veyance Hibrex belt with Flexten Plus technology, 2.593:1 ratio Clutch ..............Wet, multi-plate, Hydraulic Vacuum Assist (HVA) slipper-action clutch Transmission.................................................................. 6-speed, straight cut gears Gear Ratios: 1st ........................2.46 2nd ........................1.75 3rd ........................1.38 4th .........................1.17 5th .........................1.04 6th .........................1.00 Frame ............................................................. Black aluminium frame, fuel in frame Front Fork ............................................. 47 mm Showa inverted forks, adjustable for compression and rebound damping and spring preload Rear Shock.........................Showa monoshock with external reservoir, adjustable for compression and rebound damping and spring preload Suspension Travel Front ....................................................................120 mm Rear ......................................................................127mm Wheels Front ................. 6-spoke, ZTL cast aluminium 17 x 3.5-inch Rear ........................ 6-spoke, cast aluminium 17 x 5.5-inch Tyres Front ............................ Pirelli Diablo Corsa III 120/70 ZR-17 Rear ............................. Pirelli Diablo Corsa III 180/55 ZR-17 Brakes: Front ......................................ZTL2 brake, 8-piston caliper. 375 mm single-sided, stainless steel, floating disc Rear .....................................................Two-piston caliper; 240 mm, stainless steel, fixed disc Instruments...............................Instrument cluster featuring analog tachometer with integrated shift light, digital speedometer on LED display, odometer, 4-digit security system with ignition immobiliser, lap timer, ambient air temperature, coolant temperature, average and instantaneous fuel consumption, miles to next service display, low fuel; high beam, neutral, turn signals; clock Colours ..............Racing Red; Arctic White; Midnight Black; All with tinted windscreen Warranty .............................................. 2 Year, unlimited mileage warranty (Europe); 1 Year Buell Assistance roadside assistance (Europe)

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Order on our website or call 01303 240440

www.grizzlyscustombikes.co.uk

We also have thousands of parts in stock from W & W • MCS • Zodiac • Kuryakyn Vance & Hines • Progressive • PM • Held Biker Clothing • Draggin Jeans • NOLAN • Davida • Avon Tyres • Dunlop Tyres • War Eagle • Mustang Seats • Genuine H-D parts • and many many more

Daily deliveries mean we can get what you need FAST

Servicing, Repairs, Tyres, Fabrication, One-Off Builds and Approved Insurance Repairs

Unit 18, Highﬁeld Industrial Estate, Folkestone Kent, CT19 6DD

Rizoma billet aluminium parts for V-Rod and Sportster models

@ Triple Tree Kits, headlight protection, control kits, chain guards, pulley covers, indicators, grips etc...

Freephone 0800 4580677

For full details of all our exclusive XR1200 parts and Rizoma products please contact us or check out the website: www.adrenalinmoto.co.uk Adrenalin-Moto Ltd, Unit 2, Banks House, Banks Road, Darlington DL1 1YB

Online

exhaust-coatings.co.uk

liquid ceramic coatings 



Tel: 07545490783 Email: exhaust-coatings@hotmail.co.uk Cerakote high temperature coatings  Improved performance

�� Excellent corrosion protection  �� Extremely durable   Thermal barrier protection  Maximum chemical resistance ��  Visually appealing

Over ��

��- Matt �� / Satin Silver Available Colours Black / �� Cobalt Grey �� Stewart Black �� Tel: 07545490783 �� Email: exhaust-coatings@hotmail.co.uk ��

Forthcoming Events

Sunday 10th October 2010 07951 244 079 Proudly supporting The Sussex Heart Charity

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Cylinder Heads

Motorcycle Artist

FOR SALE. YLINDER HEAD SHOP

alliwantisaharley

THE ENTIRE BUSINESS. • over £130k worth of serdi machines & tooling. Plus aquablaster-head facer-pressure tester etc, etc. • nucleus tradename • www.cylinderheadshop.com & .co.uk domain names • comprehensive website • relocatable anywhere in the world. • hands on consultancy - short or long term. • best offer over £120k secures this well known successful business.

CALL LEN PATERSON. T: 01428 685883. len@cylinderheadshop.co.uk

Ian Matthew, motorcycle artist. For more examples of his work and details of prints for sale, visit the website or email ianmatthew@btinternet.com

Call Andy now on 01778 392054 to advertise in the next issue of American V

Clothing

Road Tested Ultimate protection with style

www.hoodjeans.co.uk or call: 01953 861166

“What an incredible job of protection, no less than you would expect from leathers” To ﬁnd out more on the jeans and the above crash visit our website or call for our free brochure

Looking to give something different for Christmas? Orders now being taken.

www.alliwantisaharley.com Motorcycle Engineers Unit 6, Love Lane Estate, Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire SY9 5DW Email: malcolm@malarkeyengineering

Design and Development Motorcycle Engineers 15 years experience building frames, rolling chassis and complete bikes for: Cafe racers, ﬂattrackers, bobbers, trikes, streetﬁghters and chops. Restorations, completions, machining, welding, wiring & polishing. Yokes, forward controls, girder forks all made in-house

Tel: 01588 630288/638823 www.malarkeyengineering.co.uk

Vintage Style Clothing Made Stubborn Japan’s Most Famous Biker Denim Traditional Jeans and Jackets Painstakingly Crafted out of the World’s Heaviest Black and Indigo Denim Iron Heart Denim - Heavy-Duty Indulgence www.ironheart.co.uk - 07740 706464

Motorcycle Brakes MATT’S MOTORCYCLES

169-171 FISHPONDS RD. EASTVILLE, BRISTOL BS5 6PR TEL/FAX 0117 951 7609 EVERYTHING FOR HARLEY DAVIDSON & MERIDEN TRIUMPH MOTORCYCLES, S&S PERFORMANCE PARTS FOR HARLEYS, CUSTOM PARTS FOR JAPANESE CRUISERS, ONE OFF CONTROL CABLES M.O.T.TESTING WE UNDERSTAND CLASSICS & CUSTOMS ZODIAC, CUSTOM CHROME, LUCAS, AMAL CARBURETTORS , BOYER IGNITIONS, MOTORCYCLE STOREHOUSE, CHAMPION PLUGS, MORRIS OILS, SILKOLENE OILS, ARLEN NESS, KURYAKIN, W&W PLUS LOTS MORE. STAINLESS BRAKE HOSES, ONE OFF CABLES 2008 CATALOGUES IN STOCK NOW FULL OR PART RESTORATIONS, 883-1200 CONVERSIONS, TWIN CAM 1550 CONVERSIONS, TYRES & FITTING WHEEL BUILDING 0117 951 7609

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Custom Bikes

Motorcycle Accessories

Classic & Custom Specialists

ARROW ENAMEL PINS & PATCHES

Lightning-Services

geratarrow@btinternet.com www.arrowenamels.co.uk arrowenamels.com

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Complete Workshop Facilities inc: • New and Pre owned Bikes for Sale • Full Custom Bike Design and Builds • Customisation • Custom Paint and Repaint • Crash Repairs & Insurance Quotes • Servicing & Parts Fitting

• • • • • •

On site Tyre Fitting Diagnostics Polishing Shop Full w/shop Facility @ £35.00 p/h + VAT In House Fabrication Parts & Accessories Sold

Come and visit Nick Gale’s Motorcycle World at our Wembley Showroom open Monday – Friday (Saturday by appointment). Tel: +44 (0)20 8998 6775 or +44 (0)79 51 74 13 52 E mail; Nick@nickgalecustoms.co.uk Unit 5 Montague Works, 250 Water Road, Wembley, Middx HA0 1HX

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E M O R H C IN S A M T IS R CH INDIAN LARRY BELT BUCKLE

BATTERY TENDER BT-TWIN 800 2 BANK BATTERY CHARGER

164,25

31,79

59,29

OPTIMATE 4 BATTERY CHARGER

61,39

£ DELUXE ALL-SEASON COVER

AMIGAZ SKULL WALLET CHAIN

29,80

32,90

ECONO TOOL KITS BY CRUZTOOLS

62,25

B2 MINILIFT

CUSTOM CHROME EUROPE FLEECE

124,59

LIMITED EDITION 3/8” AND 1/2” DRIVE SOCKET KIT BY GEDORE

44,45

311,59

148,35

MULTIPLE SKULL ROCKER BOX COVERS

INCL. UPDATES 1.200 NEW PRODUCTS

8,40 GBP + SHIPPING

25.000 WAYS TO ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS. CONTACT YOUR CUSTOM CHROME EUROPE DEALER TO HELP FIND THE PERFECT GIFT. Order your copy now or download at www.custom-chrome-europe.com. Call +49 (0) 671-88888-0 for the dealer nearest you.

All prices are retail prices including 17,5% VAT. Custom Chrome Europe Planiger Strasse 154 55543 Bad Kreuznach, Germany

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Phone: + 49 (0) 671 - 8 88 88 - 0 Fax: + 49 (0) 671 - 8 88 88 -100

e-mail: info@customchrome.de www.custom-chrome-europe.com

10.11.2009 15:43:19 Uhr