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There are many Sportsters...

Chirpy

0
Joined
Jan 1, 2004
Messages
6,454
Reaction score
2
Location
Hippo town
First Name
Daryl
Last Name
Tschoepe
...but this one is mine :eek:
beautysportster.jpg


For the moment the VTR stays in the stable, what the heck, it's paid for. You ought it to yourselves to ride a new "flubbermount" Sporty. It'll change your mind.

This from a guy that still thinks the rest of the line up is a bunch of overchromed show barges... :chug:

Funny thing, picked it up last weekend. With an inch of snow on the ground, they couldn't beleive I was riding it home. Then I caught a plane to Cali. Yuck.

Waiting for the weekend,

Daryl
 
Where do you live again? :twisted:

That is a good looking bike, clean and elegant.

Adios,
 
Very nice, Daryl. Good score.

I hate to admit but I am a closet Sporty fan. And as you know, the magazines heaped praise on the new rubber mounted engine design.

Have you ever had a H-D before? What are your impressions of this new bike? Please, full disclosure!

Steve
 
Yeah, tell all! I am seriously considering a new sporty this spring, possibly fall. I had a rubbermounted Dyna for years, loved it, but it had to go due to a x-country move, on short notice. Now I have the Bandit, and love it, so I cant get rig of it, to buy a big twin, but I think I can keep the Bandit, and get a sporty too! Best of both worlds. I am thinking of the 883 custom though, to save money. The Bandit will still be the daily rider, the sporty for the occasional weekenc cruise.

TR
Brady TX
 
Tourmeister said:
Where do you live again? :twisted:

Next to a gun safe and a couple of mean dogs...

Never had a Harley before, as you may have guessed from the "overchromed show barges" comment, not even a Harley fan. Well, of their marketing prowess yes, the bikes no.

Then I saw the "04 Sporty.

Full disclosure later, gotta go to work! First payment coming up!

Daryl
 
It started when I realized that as track time was accumulating, it was less and less fun to ride my VTR on the road. It’s sucks to ride at legal speeds, and the lack of corner workers kept me from enjoying supralegal speeds on the street. I figured it was time to look for something that would slow me down.

Shadows and such left me underwhelmed, mostly because of forward controls. I hate forward controls, I don’t feel like I’m actually in charge of the bike. How do you weight a peg two feet in front of you? At one point I was actually going to hunt down a Shadow 750 with a mashed front end, and replace that with an F3 front end I have left over from an unfinished EX track project. Kind of a mini-power cruiser.

Oddly, the only cruiser/standard I could find with normal controls was the Harley Sportster. This wasn’t very appealing, as the last one I rode vibrated so bad I feared I wouldn’t make it around the block!

Then the ‘04s were intorduced...

And a confirmed sport bike guy and play racer (who's alway lusted after Allen Girdler's street going XR), fell in love with the rubber mount 1200R. Couldn't shake it. Kept buying magazines, stopping in at HD dealers as I drove around Texas. Finally got serious when I took a test ride.

Loved it. Far better than the last Sporty I rode (admiteddly 20 years ago +/-) and unlike some of the Shadows and things I've ridden, I could just say "Nice motorcycle" without having to add "for a cruiser" on the back side. I guess the basic nature of the Sporty appeals to me. I look at Dynas and FatBoys and such and see chromed show barges, but the Sporty tugs, making you think of the time when a K bike was the baddest thing on this side of the pond.

Also, the Sporty has some pedigree. What's a Dyna? A stretched Sporty! Where did the XR come from, the Sporty. Where’d the Bostrum brothers get there start? Racing Sportys!

I’m still a little in shock. I’m the last guy I ever thought would buy a Harley, but I surely do like this bike. Sweet spot appears to be 60-70, right where I need it.

It’s actually competitively priced against Japan Inc. A Shadow 1100 is only about $300 less MSRP. Both dealers in Austin will sell Sportys for list, at least in January ;-) Trust me, the difference in paint and chrome quality is worth it. I looked at a Dyna Sport, but the extra weight and six grand weren’t that appealing.

The accessories can kill you, it’s easy to start going “I want this tank” (I did) and “I want this fender” (I did), but it’s also nice to have a bike that is truly your vision of what you want.

So, go to your local Harley barge store, and test ride one. It’s free, and it’s fun. Although in my case, a little expensive!

I think this is the bike Harley needs, in a bad way, as it can attract guys like me into the fold. In another way, I think it’s also a bike the industry needs...just a plain unassuming motorcycle. It’s not Miguel’s bike, it’s not a show barge, it’s just a motorcycle. Somewhere in the era of specialization, we lost that. Is it dawn yet?

Daryl
 
Daryl, which dealer did you get it from? I personally liked the attitude of Austin H-D (in their previous location) over Central Texas, but my neighbor liked the latter, he only paid a little bit over MSRP for his (iirc) Softail...
 
Hah! After wandering around Austin HD for 30 minutes, I finally flagged down a salesman. When I mentioned I was trying to compare a Sporty against a Dyna Sport, he left! This was a weekday afternoon with an empty store and I was all gussied up as I'd been in front of customers all day.

Being in sales for 20+ years, this kind of crap drives me batty.

CenTex treated me right, they let me test ride three different bikes, and offered more. I know, they are part of the evil empire that is PowerSports, but they are also WAAAAAY more convienent than going down to freaking Onioin Creek.

I'm pretty happy with the CTHD. They came pretty close to my offer, of course buying in January may have helped that. They also signed a shirt for a buddy who was in Iraq, so overall I think they run a pretty good ship.

Got in a little ride today, ride report to follow :-D

Daryl
 
I had a 1200S Sportster for a while, great bike. But I'm 6'3 and it was way too cramped. Grabbed a "stretched" Dyna Sport to get a few more inches of leg room. I did ride it on a 3000mi trip out to the carolinas and back on backroads, but like a lot of bikes, it's just physically too small and cramped for me for long rides.

For me the Dyna sport is the only Harley I would own. Hardly any chrome, best hieght, best lean angle of any harley more than the new sportsters I believe, tunable preload, compression and rebound dampening front and rear, triple discs, pretty sticky dunlops and handles a lot better than it has any right to.

It's a plain standard bike that I can carve up as much curve as is healthy, more than is legal, and tack several consecutive 500 mile days on as well.

But ya don't tend to see many of them on showrooms, they don't seem to sell as well as the chrome barges. :)
 
Dude, you have got to post some pics! Soon!

Adios,
 
RE:

Any comments about the reliabilty of the new Sportsters...????

I like the looks of the "XL 1200R Sportster 1200 Roadster" what are the numbers..??

0-60MPH....???

HP...???

Torque...???
 
Have you got the bike back from the dealership yet??

Adios,
 
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