{"id":22226,"date":"2011-08-18T14:15:11","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T13:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=22226"},"modified":"2022-06-22T17:54:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T16:54:58","slug":"harley-davidson-soars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/harley-davidson-soars\/","title":{"rendered":"Harley Davidson Soars"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Rain. Lots of rain. At night. Soaked through, 50-odd miles from my destination and on a lonely road in the middle of bleak West Country moorland. My headlamp was pointing anywhere but at the road, mainly because it was off another bike and had been hastily lashed between the yokes with bungees, because three hours earlier the Harley-Davidson Sportster I was riding had vibrated its own bulb to pieces just as I\u2019d left home. As road trips go, this was bad and I was proper fed up.<\/p>\n

Then came the electric shocks…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

That was over 20 years ago, but my first decent ride on a Harley-Davidson is still painfully fresh in my memory. It coloured the way I thought about all Harleys for more than a decade. OK, so I loved the look of some of the old models, and I still reckon that one of the most handsome engines ever made is a Knucklehead, like a motor turned inside out, all tubes and bosses and chunks of sculpted alloy. And of course having seen On Any Sunday I, like millions of others, couldn\u2019t help being struck by the brutal beauty of a bucking, sliding XR750 flat tracker (below) in the hands of the majestic Mert Lawwill. But XR750s, even today, are rare beasts in Britain.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

As for the stuff I rode though the \u201990s \u2013 and I rode most of the then current models \u2013 well, it was like climbing onto a fairground ride in a provincial town. Waltzer-gaudy behemoths that shook the money from your pockets and wouldn\u2019t stop when you felt sick and wanted to get off. Massive heavy things, under-powered and under-braked that made the dodgems feel like finely honed sports cars. Harley fans told me I didn\u2019t get it. No I didn\u2019t, and I didn\u2019t want to either.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Then in 2002 something extraordinary happened. The Harley From Mars landed on Earth. The VRSCA V-Rod (above) dropped among us like a spaceship. Here was proof that the blokes in Milwaukee had not only heard of liquid cooling, overhead camshafts and effective braking, but had engineered it into one of their bikes. The V-Rod managed to mix contemporary with custom with tradition with performance. And it does perform. I took an early one out for a blast in 2001 and when I gave it a fistful and felt 115bhp through my low-slung backside I laughed out loud, tickled to be so surprised.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThen 2008 finally brought something that echoed Mert Lawwill\u2019s XR750. In the XR1200 (above), Milwaukee has given us a Harley suited to roads with those pesky things called bends. The styling reflects the dirt oval\u2019s most successful race bike and has helped to boost an already growing interest in all things flat track. It\u2019s a bike that combines the rorty chug of the old-style air-cooled pushrod V- twin with a feel that\u2019s sportier than any street Harley before it.<\/p>\n

Oh Mr Davidson, you\u2019re spoiling us.<\/p>\n

So do I get Harleys now? Well, I suppose I do, but then there\u2019s more to get these days. But also, and you might call this age, I do find something comforting about, in the case of almost the whole Harley-Davidson range, a relatively basic motorcycle shamelessly showcasing proven old technology. Living history, you might call it. But then so is Bruce Forsyth, though I know what I\u2019d rather be riding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mick Phillips on the monsters from Milwaukee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[332,6],"tags":[1001,2811,2812],"class_list":["post-22226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-features","tag-american","tag-american-bikes","tag-harley-davidson","manufacturers-harley-davidson"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHarley Davidson Soars - Influx<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mick Phillips on the monsters from Milwaukee...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/harley-davidson-soars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Harley Davidson Soars - 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