Test drove the latest Sportster S for a couple days, the latest congenitaly malformed wannabe "sporty" bobber by Harley Davidson.
First thing that suprised me is while this beauty is laid out as a cruiser, if it gives you a herniated disc with only half an hour of riding, how are you supposed to "cruise" to the town over? Anyway.
I'm taking Harley at their word to walk through how it's all boloney:
"Engineered to thrill" - No HD is engineered to "thrill". And besides, you'll find that hard to do with an output of 121HP at just over 500 lbs. But that's just your average Harley.
"With rider-assist electronics" - Great, now if only the turn signal switch was engineered to be reached by your thumb, and gave any meaningfull feedback at all, I'd move on to be thrilled by the revolutionary inclusion of TC, ABS and an opening screen that screams "2000s DVD idle animation".
"Optimized handling" - Rewriting physics aren't we? Optimized handling on a bike that kisses the ground, whose front wheel is 90% the width of the back, and on which extending any of your arms to countersteer means snapping the corresponding neuron that runs through to your leg? Why do they feel the need to sell this as "sporty?"
"lightweight frame" - It's true, this bike is lighter and nimbler than the Titanic, but nowhere near light or nimble enough in relation to its power to justify mentioning the "light frame" as a selling point.
"this next-generation Sportster is all about performing rather than conforming" - fuck right off.
My separate takes:
- The riding position stretches what your body wants to do, again, even for a bike of this general geometry it's way too exaggerated. The express purpose of a "sporty" bike is not to give you orthopedic problems, it's to naturally put you in the optimal position for sporty riding, which this does not, in any way.
- This is a bike where an automatic gearbox is the only "electronic" it sorely lacks and sorely needs, because compounding on the fact that your ligaments are already unnaturally extended, is having to move them to change gears on its very "meh" gearbox.
- I don't know whose idea was to place the exhaust pipe in the exact spot you'd need to put it to slow roast your right asscheek, but I know Harley themselves know they've fucked up when they try to mitigate the overwhelming heat difussion by slapping a fat piece of plastic on it, and not making it much better.
- You know what a "sporty" bike needs? A suspension. 10 plastic bags on top of each other would have made a better one than the rear suspension in the Sportster. The lightest bump directly delivers to your spine, and because it puts the body in such a folded position, it's even harder to lift your bum or use your legs for contraction than on a more traditional cruiser.
All together I must have ridden like 13 bikes so far in life. This is the first one I've actively hated.