Last year I was on holiday in LA for a couple of weeks. I had always wanted a Harley, so when I saw one advertised for $2500 in the local paper I was on the phone in an instant. A two year old 883 Sportster with a mere 12000 miles on its clock. The owner agreed to thump over to my hotel if I had the cash to hand. I was taken for a wild ride on the pillion that soon convinced me the motor was OK. It took a while for the feeling to come back into my crotch and bum, what with the skimpy seat and harsh vibes.
The owner was of dubious sexuality and seemed more into black leather than motorcycles. He suggested that I come to some kind of party that night but, fortunately, the presence of the wife limited his overtures. I was later to see the venue on the late night news, a riot had broken out when the transvestites had argued with the transexuals. Strange creatures, these Americans. I'd played along a little and gotten a few hundred dollars off the price for my pains.
I had a week of riding around riot torn LA streets, getting used to the strange nature of the Harley. Luckily, I had spent most of my youth growling around on British bikes so the character of the Yank was not so strange as it might otherwise have been. I was, however, convinced that the gearbox was seriously amiss. The change was incredibly heavy, made noises more like a BMW boxer and often fell out of gear just when I needed forward momentum - this disappeared later when I'd got the hang of the change.
I rumbled over to the nearest Harley dealer. These were even weirder chaps than the previous owner. Huge fellows with the air of ex-convicts and enough hair on them to go into the wig business on their own account. One of them jumped on the Harley, roared up the road, coming back five minutes later with a dangerous scowl written on what I could see of his face. Hell, I was lucky to get out of there in one piece, having apparently committed the cardinal sin of insulting the great God Harley! What I did gain from this traumatic experience was that the gearbox, as awful as it was, was quite normal for a Harley and not in need of expensive surgery.
Which is more than could be said for my foot, which had protested at having to whack the gearchange lever - I was only wearing trainers, not having come fully prepared for buying a bike. Large blisters made it painful to walk for more than few feet. I found the only way to ride the Harley was to start off if second and whack it up to third or fourth at the earliest possible moment [Sounds fuckin' marvellous - 2019 Ed.]. The tractor like torque of the motor would have made that OK had not the rear chain flopped about hysterically below 2000 revs. The transmission could only be called vintage inspiration. The only problem with riding a HD in the States is that they are so popular that just about everyone else on two wheels is similarly equipped. My naked and basically standard Sportster was slightly odd in that most people had gone to great length to customise their own brute: the minimum was a flash paint job, more usually huge amounts of luggage or wild choppers.
I actually dig the aesthetic purity of line of the base Harley and had few qualms about being the odd man out. I did a couple of long freeway runs on the Harley, doing a couple of hundred miles in a day. Rumbling along at 65mph (anything faster is likely to make you a target for hovering police helicopters) was a fine experience, the bike feeling perfectly contented. There were plenty of gas stations and cafes in which to make a brief stop, so the small tank and minimal seat were never of any great concern. The vibes even got to the wife which improved our sex life no end.
I arranged packing and shipping to coincide with the end of my holiday. Then I had to wait eight weeks for the ship to turn up in England and hand a bundle of cash over to the UK customs. Still, the cost of everything came to just over two thousand pounds (the pound bought $1.95 then) which is cheap for a Harley of this vintage. The MOT was no problem even though I hadn’t changed the headlamp for one with the correct dim, er, dip, beam pattern. Stock Harleys come with such pathetic headlamps that they are one of the first things to be chucked even on proper UK models.
I had read elsewhere that the headlamps do suffer from blowing bulbs so I fitted my new unit with a triple dose of rubber mounting and experienced no problems in the next 13000 miles. The beam is limited by the meagre output of the alternator, and the car unit I fitted wasn’t much good for more than 50mph on unlit roads. I gave the bike a thorough going over, gratified to find that the previous owner had dumped the pathetic chain primary drive in favour of an expensive belt conversion.
Everything was looking very nice indeed, the bike leaned over on the propstand outside the house, the neighbours casting most envious glances whilst I dug out a suitably tatty leather jacket. I came back to find that the Harley had rolled off the side stand and come crashing down on the tarmac. A neighbour helped me right the beast, damage was limited to a few scratches and a bent indicator. Even though I took great care parking the beast, the same thing happened a couple more times, That stand is diabolical.
It may have been these doses of tarmac rash that caused the indicators to become very weird, flashing on and off at varying rates, often refusing to work at all. It may just have been the vibes, which played havoc with both the rear light and the battery, the latter being reduced to rubble after about six months. With electronic ignition, the last thing I wanted was surging voltages through the system so I took great care to make sure all the connections were OK. The electric starter made strange grinding noises but invariably fired up the motor after registering its protest. The handlebar switches were fine when I'd bought the bike but very finicky after another year’s abuse.
English roads are rather different to those in the States, the Harley proving somewhat cantankerous in the daily commute. Especially in the wet, when the tyres would skid all over the road and the front disc didn’t seem to know what it was doing. It was never a powerful stopper even in the dry, requiring incredible amounts of pressure to bring the front tyre near to squealing. Fierce engine braking helped aid loss of momentum, but the bike required a lot of forward planning to avoid serious loss of face.
Although not that heavy, at around 450lbs, the Sportster always required hefty shoulder muscles to throw around. Ground clearance was laughable and the rear shocks more likely to be of use on a child’s mountain bike than a big mother of a motorcycle. The front forks were OK, but limited in their movement and prone to binding up. Despite all that, the bike seemed to run through bends with a reasonable degree of faithfulness and didn’t weave to any appreciable degree on straight motorways.
The motor did not encourage fast riding, anyway, as the prodigious production of vibes once past 75mph in top gear made a mockery of the machine’s name. If you gritted your teeth, grasped the bars in a firm grip and could take the way your feet leapt off the pegs, the old warhorse could be persuaded to breach the ton for short periods of time. God knows what the bigger vees are like. I’ve owned Bonnie twins that were smoother at 90mph than this Harley!
Despite the way it shook about, it didn’t go off tune between 2500 mile service intervals. There wasn’t very much to do, the valves were hydraulically adjusted automatically, the ignition was electronic and the OHV heads obviously did not suffer any of the camchain nastiness of the Jap iron. The single carb precluded any insane juggling of vacuum gauges and the belt drive primary chain did not so much as produce a moment's worry. The bloody drive chain did, though, the enormous power pulses and mighty torque of the vee able to destroy the cheaper variety in as little as 3000 miles. The most I've managed is 6000 miles.
As mentioned before, the transmission was rotten, but it seemed to become no worse with age and I was becoming a dab hand at getting into top gear as soon as possible. This had the excellent effect of not having to use the clutch lever too often, the action being Norton heavy with a spiteful take-up that could cause a stalled motor despite the easy going nature of the engine’s torque delivery. My temperance on the throttle and gearbox probably aided fuel economy, which hovered around 60mpg.
Which would have been fine had not the tiny petrol tank, with the most minimal of reserves, made going more than 70 miles a frightful prospect that could easily end in disaster, with either a dead motor stranding you amidst a mad traffic flow or a long, long push to the nearest petrol station. Either join the AA or strap on a gallon can. The seat did not make doing long distances an easy prospect, either, although the pillion perch placed well endowed ladies’ juicy bits at a perfect height for resting one’s head — shame about the helmet, though. Of course, a large body of suppliers are waiting with hands out to take large chunks of money in exchange for a wide range of bits that would solve most of the minor problems encountered on the Harley.
Everything from high performance brakes to large petrol tanks and engine tuning kits. The bike did have slash pipes which burnt a lovely roar into the passing landscape but probably didn’t aid overall performance to any useful degree. There was a disturbing amount of backfiring in the exhaust on the overrun, evidence of an air leak somewhere but I was never able to track it down, although the vibes would often shake loose the exhaust clamps. Other bits that tried to fall off included the rear light, the odd indicator and the front guard. A weekly check over of the bolts was necessary.
What did surprise me was the way the Harley reacted to being ridden through an English winter, even a relatively mild one. The exhaust rusted, paint fell off the petrol tank and the shining engine alloy was blitzed with enough corrosion to make the Harley an object of open derision in the eyes of any owner of an old Honda hack! Its previous beautiful black and chrome finish was ruined. I had to pay out for new bits and have the bike resprayed. Asking around other Harley owners the answer seemed to be to store the bike away over the winter months. OK for some rich gits, but the bike was my only means of transport.
The Harley was hell on wheels in the wet until I’d replaced the OE tyres with some Avons. These made the bike a bit twitchy at low speeds but stopped the suicidal slides that I'd been experiencing. The disc brakes were horrible but as the pads didn’t seem to wear out | had no chance to try patterns. The controllable torque made an otherwise unpleasant experience just about bearable. Speed was so reduced that the HD was turning in nearly 65mpg before I'd replaced the tyres!
After the aforementioned work, the bike is once again looking like it should, but needs a weekly going over to keep it up to scratch. Now that the sun has come back and the roads are mostly dry, I’ve got back into the swing of hustling the Hog. Once all its many idiosyncrasies are overcome, the bike can still put an ear to ear grin on my face, there’s just something so majestic and elemental about these V-twins that they keep hitting you in the stomach and sending shivers of joy up your ~ spine. Ancient, antiquated and agricultural in nature, they may well be, but they still capture the raw essence of motorcycling. Also, the bike’s been flawless in its engine reliability!