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Contents
Issue Twenty Eight 31: MUSCLE BIKE
The nearest thing to Mopar in motorcycle form: who says the Hemi’s dead? Certainly not Mike.
36: FLSTSB CROSS BONES
Splice the main-brace and break out the rum, Harley’s gone overboard but there’s nothing nautical about this vessel, cap’n.
42: REFORM SCHOOL PANHEAD
Old school is for people who wear ties. Striking a blow for those whose school was so good, it was approved!
The standard is only getting better and we’ve not seen a day that you’d call summer yet. More prizes announced and heat winners.
55: TECH: PAINT
Piers Dowell gives us a rare insight on what lurks beyond the scope of a tin of rattle-can black.
60: PIMP MY GLIDE
Having resisted the temptation all through the feature to point out the visual gag between bike and location, I can’t contain myself any longer ... damn, ran out of space!
66: 2008 BUELL XB12SS LIGHTNING LONG There may be a new street-going Ulysses due any time now for strapping six-footers, but the biggest Lightning has a lot to offer.
72: DABBLING DEALERS
We’ve seen dealers’ PandAs before, but this is takes it a little further than the P&A alone will allow.
78: THE GREAT BRITISH BUDGET BOBBER BUILD-OFF 3 The one where Thundercity’s Sportster is hacked into small pieces and reassembled, twice: the first time with lots of welding, second time with paint.
86: 1955 FL BOBBER 4: NEWS & NEW PRODUCTS 13: REVIEWS
Zippo Lighter, Scorpion Racing’s Dyna Beads and Gem All Weather SLR bag
16: 2008 VRSCDX NIGHT ROD SPECIAL The V-Rod from the dark-side: black as sin and hot as hell – you could take that either way but with uncharacteristic accord, we seem to agree.
24: SALTFIGHTER
Raw, elemental, quick and dirty: when did you last hear an 883 Sportster described like that? But then, when did you last see an XL883 like this?
Editor: andy.hornsby@american-v.co.uk Features Editor: rich.king@american-v.co.uk Contributors this issue: Ian Mutch, Piers Dowell, Pneumatic Bob, Punktur II Proofing: Amanda Wright (At last! Someone to blame!) Design: design@american-v.co.uk 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 Advertising Production: Joanne Osborn: 01778 391164 joanneo@warnersgroup.co.uk
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 Copyright 2008 American-V.
If they’d put FL forks on the Cross Bones it could have used this as its inspiration. If they’d done the decent thing with the seat, it could have looked as good.
92: AMERICAN-V EVENTS CALENDAR 2008 It’s that time of year to plan what you’ll be doing for the rest of it: here’s our best attempt at rounding up the most relevant events.
92: PARTY
Just to remind you on that we’re having our 5th B’day celebration at the Thundersprint.
98: RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS
A little escapism is all well and good, but flights of fantasy can be detrimental to reality ...
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49: PHOTO COMPETITION ROUND 2
American-V American-V # ONE
News & Products PUTTING THE SPOKE IN
MINEHEAD’S TRIBUTE OF TRIBUTES The full details of the 105th Anniversary shindig down at Butlins in Minehead are coming through thick and fast now along with news that tickets are selling quickly quickly. The UK’s homage to Harley-Davidson is going to be a night of stars, but rather than signing top names and turning it into a music concert with bikes, they’ve booked a host of tribute acts and it’ll be a bike party with music. Once the sun goes down you can shuffle round the holiday camp’s dance floors to the sounds of Tina Turner and Bon Jovi played by their doppelgangers, and others as diverse as Diana Ross, Elvis and Neil Diamond: a real ‘something for every taste’ line-up. Harley are particularly pleased to be staging a prequel to Milwaukee’s main event with Bruce Springsteen tribute, Born To Run, on the Saturday night. If you want a broader musical range, there’s plenty more happening across Butlins’ stages, with themed retro club nights covering the 60s, 70s and 80s each featuring live music, with Time Out’s favourite ’60s tribute band The Mods starting the ball rolling. I was going to say kicking off, but there’ll be enough irony already them playing to a room full of leather-clad motorcyclists so close to a seafront. Abba Forever and Ballroom Glitz will be doubling up to make the ’70s night a spectacle, and a Bryan Adams tribute conjures up
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the eighties for those who like their music electric and guitar based. It’s not all tributes, of course, and circuit favourites like ‘The Shovelheads’ will be banging out a rhythm alongside the likes of ‘The Affray’ who have built up a name Europe-wide, for their mix of traditional biker favourites. An interesting addition is a tribute to the Comedy Store, where Billy Connolly and Peter Kay will be, in spirit if not in person, in the forms of Bob Lucas and Lee Lard, as well as some original talent. Elsewhere, it’s pretty safe to speculate that there will be the usual array of activities and trade stands, ride-outs and custom shows to keep you occupied for the whole three days. Ticket prices include three nights B&B accommodation and were subject to HOG discounts for members before the 1st April, which rules anyone out who’s reading this, but then HOG members will have been receiving this stuff for months now. When they first announced the return to Minehead, they were very keen to put across that it is a Harley event, with all welcome. Reservations can now be made by ringing 0845 070 4763. See you there for the best Harley party the UK has ever seen. www.harley-davidson.com
How many spokes does a cast wheel need to be as much of a pain in the neck to clean as a laced one? When the wheel looks as good as this 36-spoker, it probably doesn’t much matter, it just means you’ll be less likely to ride it in the rain. These three part hubs from German crew HPU – what is it with the Germans and wheels? – are machined from high strength aircraft grade aluminium and can be specified in a polished or powder-coated finish in sizes from 15 to 23-inches and a variety of widths, and because it’s Germany all come with TuV certification, as well as matching pulleys and disc rotors. If your tastes are simpler, however, but you still want to make an impression they have an alternative solution that might interest you even more that goes under the name of “pimp your custom wheel” using a three spoke design, with a message or motto set into the fabric of the metal courtesy of Freudenhaus. They suggest your favourite football team, girl or credit card number, but it’s perhaps not a decision to take lightly: think of it as a tattoo, albeit one on an expensive but replaceable arm. For full details of the range see the current HPU catalogue, available for 10 Euro plus post, or go on-line. HPU Design: www.hpu.biz Phone: 0049 7344 214 00
S&S COMMIT TO VICTORY, AND REDUCE THE PRICE OF THEIR 106-INCH HOT SET-UP KIT. We’re not seeing much in terms of tweaked Victory over here at the moment but as The New American Motorcycle becomes better established through a more confident dealer network it is going to happen, and something like the news of S&S not only announcing a three year extension to its agreement with Victory, but reducing the price of their stroker crank conversion by almost $1,000 back in the US will go some way towards bringing that forwards. If the rumours of very quick Victory development bikes and deep rumbling exhaust notes and lumpy idling speeds are to be believed, there’s a lot more to come. The downside is that the kit can only be supplied as fitted by an approved Victory dealer, who also happens to be an S&S agent, but any authorised S&S dealer can now ship the whole motor back to La Crosse to have the kit installed by S&S’ own technicians. That’s obviously much more sensible in the US because you’re not sending a bloody heavy motor across the Atlantic, but it does open the door to real performance hikes in a motor that’s not too shabby to start with. The obvious solution in
FRED HILL DAY
Record numbers of bikers turned out for MAG’s Fred Hill runs this year. Was it the splendid weather or the full page advance warning in MCN, or a growing impatience with the authoritarian style of government? We can speculate on the reasons but there was no disputing the evidence of ones eyes. The London run from the ACE Cafe to Pentonville Prison which normally attracts a dozen or so diehards attracted 157 riders this year, while the Oxford run managed 132 bikes and Leeds over 200: all across the country the picture was the same. It’s 24 years since Fred Hill died in custody having been sentenced to a brutally extreme 60 days – his 31st custodial sentence – for refusing to pay fines imposed under the compulsory helmet law. MAG President Ian Mutch summed it up this way: “This sustained protest is not about ‘helmets: good or bad’, it’s about the exercise of law and getting things in proportion. Most people would wear helmets most of the time and most did before there was a law, which may be a big part of the reason that it made no difference to fatality rates. Why pass a law to make people
the UK would be to establish an existing S&S service centre as a Victory Service Agent – a lot easier than to set up a full S&S service centre at a Victory dealership – and the sensible money would be on Matt’s Machine Shop, an S&S dealer for more than 20 years, acting as the hub over here, as Matt’s will already have an established relationship with most of the Victory network on their Harley work, as well as full Dyno and EFI facilities. Guess who’s pitching to leapfrog 100-inches with their currently bog-stock 92-inch Vegas? Which leads us to the upside: the extra 6mm of stroke, S&S airbox, cams and valve springs – and EFI download – gives 40% more horsepower and 12% more torque on top of the 100-inch motor! And an S&S 106 badge to stick on your dummy air-filter cover if you’re feeling generous, so people can feel less aggrieved when they can’t keep up. It’s worth noting that owners of 92-inch models will need to upgrade to the 101mm 100-inch barrels before fitting the 106 kit www.sscycle.com
do what they are already doing? The real nub of the issue is whether it is fair or a proportionate exercise of law to criminalise people who just want the right of choice to wear what they like when riding a motorcycle on the public highways which they pay for? Have we got things out of proportion when evil violent thugs walk free with community service orders while a 74 year old man is incarcerated thirtyone times for wearing a beret?” Furthermore, if you accept that riding a motorcycle without a helmet is too dangerous an indulgence to be tolerated then what if government decided that riding motorcycles per se is too dangerous to be tolerated: that debate has already begun in Europe. If you sympathise with these sentiments you may wish to join The Motorcycle Action Group an organisation with a remit that extends way beyond the helmet issue but performs no U-turns on principle. Annual membership £20pa which covers a subscription to MAG’s bi monthly 84 page full colour magazine, The ROAD, which always has Harley-Davidson and travel feature content. Join on line or call 01788 570065. Motorcycle Action Group: www.mag-uk.org
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This was going to be ever such an easy piece to write, taking back all the nasty things that I said about the V-Rod a couple of issues ago, but I thought Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d better cross-reference to the last time we had the Special on test, which also happened to be just after the regular Rod, and discovered that almost everything that was forming in my head was already down on paper and not that long ago.
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Roadtest: 2008 VRSCDX Night Rod Special
2008 VRSCDX
NIGHT ROD SPECIAL
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SALT
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Custom: SaltFighter
FIGHTER It was an inspired casting decision to stand Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito side-by-side in the film Twins. It was contrived, sure, but there’s nothing like over-emphasising something to really drive a message home, and there was a good wholesome Hollywood message buried just above the surface for the ‘hard of understanding’ to trip over.
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Performance: Flameworks Hemi
Never judge a book by its cover: it’s a timeless adage that is as relevant now as when it was first coined, as anyone who pulls up alongside Mike’s innocent-enough looking Softail will confirm a split second after the lights have changed.
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THE COSTA PERFORMANCE American-V.co.uk
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Quickspin: 2008 FLSTSB Cross Bones
Somebody has been burning the midnight oil in Milwaukee, judging by the plethora of new models coming out of the Motor Company at the moment and, as ever, the bods in the marketing department have been conjuring up new names for them. Their most recent collaboration is a truly classic blacked-out Softail Springer with fifties-style pin-striping providing the styling flourishes, and then they went and called it the Cross Bones.
2008 FLSTSB
CROSS BONES This is Harley-Davidson going seriously old school. Way back before low slung custom bikes were a glint anyone’s eye, this harks back to the time when bikes were lightened for speed, but not necessarily compromised for comfort. Don’t forget that they were days when returning GIs with wanderlust rode rigid framed motorcycles over roads that were little more than dirt tracks once you were outside the city – and sometimes while you were still in it – because the originals plans for 26,700 miles of federal highways linking the major metropolitan centres were first mooted in 1938 under Roosevelt, and were the routes that the Army reckoned they’d need for the defence of the nation. They were updated to 33,900 miles in 1944 with another 5,000 miles of auxiliary urban routes, and finally drawn up in 1947 as a 37,700 mile road network, but it wasn’t until 1956 and into Eisenhower’s presidency that the go button on the Interstate network was finally pressed, with a projected initial estimated cost at the time of $25 billion over ten years. Just to show than time over-runs and flexible budgets aren’t a modern phenomenon, it finally took 35 years and $114 billion (reckoned to be more than $410 billion in today’s money) for its 41,000 miles, which makes the maths nice and easy: $10 million per mile, assuming the American definition of billions.
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Custom: Gansta Rat Panhead
GANSTA RAT
PANHEAD
The one thing that humans have always been able to count on is evolution, and not only human evolution but its technologies which have consistently become better, faster, more sophisticated, cheaper and more readily available â&#x20AC;Ś but the downside is that as they do so they become worth less, soulless and ultimately worthless.
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PIMP M 60
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Custom: Pimp My Glide
Okay, so we’re not MTV, and I’m delighted to say that I’m not Tim Westwood, but that can only be a good thing. Good in that we haven’t got to suffer the sort of rubbish that the bling bling generation tunes into, and because that means this isn’t about a Datsun Cherry, a Fiat Panda or any of the other nasty rubbish that I’d sooner see on Scrapheap Challenge.
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Y GLIDE American-V.co.uk
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Roadtest: 2008 Buell Lightning
2008 BUELL LIGHTNING The last time I was on a Buell it was chasing round Mallory Park at the Buell experience … actually no, the very last time I was on a Buell I was riding pillion behind Matt Llewellyn and I realised very quickly that I had probably been using less than 50% of its potential on the track, and had been giving it a very easy ride on the road. I also came away with a renewed respect for their robustness and a better understanding of where they make their power, and left Leicestershire rubbing my hands together looking forward to the 1125R launch a month later and the chance to put the new motor against a Firebolt to test horsepower against torque. I’m still waiting for that opportunity, but the 1125R is about to make its debut in the next couple of months and there are Firebolts with our name on them at a few dealerships in case Harley’s ‘Experience’ fleet has been disbanded by the time we need one. That should a lot of fun. Think of a Streetfighter, though, and I typically think of thrashing round city streets, ducking and diving through the traffic, using the quick steering and lack of bodywork to squeeze through impossible gaps before hitting a stretch of urban clearway and putting as much distance between you and the 4-wheelers as possible before the next blighted junction looms. Loads of fun, a menace to society when viewed through the eyes of the gridlocked, an organ doner to medical professionals by all accounts, and not something to even attempt unless you have got second sight or masses of experience and the sort of nature that doesn’t equate ‘getting away with it’ with words like immortal or Teflon. The most successful exponents of the
art that I’ve come across in that most crowded of cities, London, are teenage ‘untouchables’ on Aprilia mopedcum-scooter-cum-motorcycle thingies whose lack of power is more than compensated for by the narrowness of their ride, and sheer fearlessness. In truth, the XB12Ss Buell Lightning – indeed any Buell XB12S incarnation – is a little too big for the centre of a bustling metropolis, and there’s a very good reason why Buell don’t make a 1200cc version of the CityX. Granted the 985cc CityX is no smaller, but it is more eager on the throttle at much higher revs, and will handle the cut and thrust from the city centre to the suburbs with alacrity, and while the XB12 will keep pace, it is really a better bike on the open road where the broader power band can be used to better advantage. It only really got labelled as a Streetfighter because it followed on the heels of the Firebolt, for which the phrase Sportfighter was coined, but it is in fact a really engaging scratcher’s tool, never more at home than on twisting open roads, which draws a subtle distinction between it and the Firebolt with its fairing and forwardbiased weight distribution, which is a dream to ride on more sweeping open roads. Again, that doesn’t mean the Lightning won’t handle sweeping open roads, any
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Quickspin: Nightster
Harley are getting ever more creative when it comes to new model launches, and the big hit at the end of last year was the Nightster, but no matter how creative they get, there will never be a shortage of people queuing up to put their own stamp upon it.
St LEGER
NIGHTSTER It’s a good job really, otherwise Parts and Accessories catalogues would sit gathering dust in showrooms across the globe and we’d all be riding around on the same bikes as each other. The Nightster is actually the perfect example of that flexibility in terms of The Motor Company’s own range of goodies, not just because there is a ready supply of bolt on goodies just itching to leap off the pages of the 2008 P&A, but because it is already two distinctly different models depending on which dealer showroom is rolls out from: an American one, or a European one. The easiest distinction to draw is the side-mount plate – Harley’s first on a production model – which was welcomed with open arms in the USA and removed from EU models because they fall foul of type approval, and even SVA, but that wasn’t the only modification to the Nightster. The most important change is the suspension which is governed by its perceived role: the Nightster is a sporting Sportster, and the American style of sport is very different to our own. We traverse the country along twisting lanes, following tracks that were originally made by sheep, adopted by shepherds and wearers of Wellingtons, and eventually surfaced by the inventors of mass transport; meanwhile the American’s have scarcely got the time to go from A to B in a straight line and so live in a country cross-crossed by lines that would make a Roman road planner wistful. Consequently, we hurtle round corners with alacrity and benefit from as much ground clearance as possible, while the Yanks blast down straight roads and have made an art from out of nailing their bikes from one set of traffic lights to the next, and clearance is not as critical. All of which is a long-winded way of saying we get 883R rear shocks on our Nightsters, while the Americans get those off the 883 Low. For those who prefer the American style – and you’d need more than the fingers of one hand to count them among Harley owners – the side
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Technical/Project: Great British Budget Bobber Build-Off Part 3: Thunder City. American-V #The ONE
Tech/Project
THE GREAT BRITISH BUDGET BOBBER BUILD-OFF PART 3:
THUNDER CITY MOTORCYCLES There is more than one way to build a budget bobber – actually there’s quite a few more than two too, but I won’t tell anyone if you don’t – and at just about the same time that Benny rolled out his Flyrite, Thundercity were really starting to get stuck into theirs, and it was going to be a very different build indeed..
With a complete XLH1200 as the base from which to work, the Thundercity crew were going to work with what they’d got, refabricate the bits that didn’t suit the new form and buy-in or make any remaining bits that they needed. There are many advantages to working this way providing you have the fabrication skills, one of which is that the bike you’re about to cut to pieces can be MoT’d before you start and will therefore be easily made road legal at the dry build stage as well as when fi nished; another is that you’ve got something to smoke around on while you accumulating the bits, which is what Andy was doing before the fateful day when the road tax exoired, and it was wheeled into the workshop as a caterpillar, eventually to emerge as a butterfly. They’d formed a plan of how they wanted to redesign their Sportster long before they originally picked up the phone to ring us, and the major element that would defi ne the build was retaining the swing-arm suspension but with the shocks shifted a couple of inches forwards and a couple of decades back, with dressed shocks immediately behind the rider’s seat: a little like a Duo Glide but
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without hydraulic front suspension: I s’pose makes it an Uno Sport, but I haven’t got the heart to tell them. It couldn’t have been more different to the reframed XLH883 that Boneshaker had put together unless they’d used a different engine – that being the only thing that the two bikes have in common … well, that and the forks. Yes folks, it looks like it’ll be the year of DNA Springers, but then they’re currently such good value that it’s allowing everyone to indulge themselves.
The Dry Build If it’s important to put a bike together without pain t when you’re building it out of new parts designed to fit together, it’s doubly so when you’re cutting into original steel and fabricating new frames and mounts. It’s not so much because you want to make sure it’ll fit together, because you’ll be doing that as you go along, but to make sure it all works when it’s back in one piece. With the bike washed to lose all the loose muck, it was up on the bench and within half a day Edge was left with a frame and swing-arm with a motor in it, and an autojumble stall’s worth of original XL kit, some of which would be re-used, some of which would end up on e-bay to help finance the build. Stripped to its bare essentials, it was time to confirm that they were on the right lines before taking the electric hacksaw to it, so the 2-inch
the ignominy of a small classified ad headed ‘unfinished project’ – and there’s a full “It’s a Knockout!” team comprising people from VOSA and the DVLA, painters, chromers and parts suppliers and someone representing basic engineering principles swinging pendulums and throwing buckets of water at you. No such worries though when you’ve been there before, it’s not your only form of transport and you’ve got a deadline to meet. Continuing the analogy, it’s easier to keep your balance when you know how long it takes for a pendulum to return, and how quickly a bucket of water can be thrown; and professional builders stack the odds in the favour by bringing along their own balance beam which is about two foot wide: it’s called a fully equipped workshop and a full grounding in how to use it. If you look at a postXLCR Sportster frame you’ll see something like this shape: the shocks
mounted a long way back on an extended seat subframe, and behind the wheel spindle on the swing-arm, which is great in terms of controlling the rear wheel’s movement and was borrowed from the XRs. Before then, however, XLs were more like 4-speed big twins with a much shorter chassis and a rear wheel bouncing up and down a couple of inches behind stiffer shocks, which had to account for the increased gearing. To get anything like the older look, the rear subframe was going to have to go. It went.
THE DRY BUILD:
under stock Springers were slotted in, initially still with the original 19-inch front wheel although it would ultimately be running a fat tyre to match the back, and the original back wheel refitted for balance. Then it was time for one last look before committing: it’s less of an issue for a shop because they do this sort of stuff all the time, but for you building your own, this is the point of no return. The first cut is the deepest, so someone once said, and this one separates the bike that you were riding from the bike you want to ride, and it’s a narrow One last look before going under the knife: it’ll never look like … and then it’s time to reduce it to its engine and frame … this again …balance beam for the home builder: on one side is a white elephant in the garage that will taunt you every time you go in, and on the other
… and a pile of bits.
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Xl1200C Vs Dyna Low Rider
STEVE’S PAN
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Classic: Steve’s Pan
One day we’re going to find out where all the Evos have gone to – and there must be some out there because Harley sold thousands of them – but until we’ll keep on making the most of the amazing numbers of Panheads and Shovels that just keep turning up. It’s not as though they’re all S&S reproductions, but mainly genuine original motors which, in the case of Pans, are at least forty years old but still going strong; and which are still sought after for use as bikes built for riding. That really is something special, and bears testament to their over-engineering. How they all seem to ended up over here is an odd one though: there’s certainly no way that even Fred Warr at his most prolific could have supplied this many bikes, and while American service personnel brought a few with them – which probably accounts for why East Anglia seems to have more than its fair share – a few of them will have taken them back too. Interestingly it doesn’t seem to extend as far back as Knuckleheads, which leads me to make the rash assumption that it was all part of the wholesale abandonment of older generations of Harleys by Americans when the 1984 Evo was launched, by which point a Shovel was last year’s model and the Panhead was just an old bike, but the Knucklehead was a classic. The newly independent Harley-Davidson of 1981 had already captured the Americans’ imagination and the new Evolution engine not only promised much, but delivered it which seemed to be the buying signal that many American riders
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