There's a time and a place for Harley-Davidsons. Riding in convoy from Central Park down Fifth Avenue at 6am on a steamy July New York morning counts as a fairly perfect time and place, I'd say.
We had two days' riding ahead of us, stopping for photos in Brooklyn with a back-drop of the sadly emasculated Lower Manhattan. Then on to lunch near the Statue of Liberty and south on the New Jersey Turnpike. Well we'd certainly found America. I was stuck with Simon and Garfunkel in my head, harmonising badly with the rumbling Rocker I was riding right then.
It might look like a tricky prospect, but the Rocker is a bike you can get on with immediately, easy to ride at slow pace, light to manoeuvre with predictable steering. The enormous rake and wheelbase make it super-stable, a trait highlighted by how well it coped with the awful roads we were bouncing around on. Unlike most of Harley's range, the Rocker doesn't mimic any classic model from its history.
Its styling is pure custom special, a factory production version of an Orange County chopper - it's a natural contradiction, but let's not get too purist. Chopped means just that - front end hacked off and raked out, rear-end sawn off - crude and brutal, just like the rufty-tufty war vet rebels who rode them. It's come on a bit since the 50s (chopper building is now virtually an art form and a whole genre of reality TV) creating lots of interest and demand. So it makes some commercial sense for the great-grandson of co-founder William A Davidson, Bill Davidson and his team to come up with a budget everyman chopper.
Besides affordability, the key difference between the factory job and a commissioned chop is that the factory job rides and feels like a normal motorbike.
The basic chassis of the Rocker is the Softail, which features that triangulated rigid-looking rear end which has shocks hidden, horizontally, underneath. This apes the day when the only rear suspension was a couple of springs under the seat.
The forks are raked out to 36.5-degrees, 4.5 more than the stock Softail chassis. Front and back together create a classic chopper profile. I couldn't help putting myself into that classic Easy Rider poster as we crossed Brooklyn Bridge. I once met Peter Fonda. Harley had dug him up to PR some event at Daytona.
Quick interview opportunity - I asked him where he'd been hiding since Easy Rider - what had he been doing for the last 25 years? "36 films," he replied, turning and walking off. Well, I hadn't seen any of them...
So the Rocker rides well, which is quite an achievement for such a radical-looking bike. You can feel the massive 240-section rear tyre resisting slightly in some corners, but that's no surprise - it's wider than most cars'. What is a surprise is how high you feel when you're riding on the bike. It looks (and is) a very low seat height at 622mm, but the sensation is the opposite. The long pull-back bars give the impression of extended forks but allow the bike to steer predictably where a chopper's front wheel would be flopping into corners.
The engine is the air-cooled, fuel-injected 1,584cc V-twin with a six-speed box, the standard motor used in all Harley's big cruisers. Sixth is an overdrive and you surf the torque with the lower five. It lopes along, most comfortably between 2 and 3,000rpm, reflecting the easy rider attitude - lazy, relaxed, cool.
XL1200N NIGHTSTER
If you can't stretch to the 1,584cc cruisers, your options have just improved with the Nightster. It's a 1,200cc Sportster dressed in black - black wheels, forks, shocks, handlebars, fork gaiters. It runs a short front 'fender' to emphasise the big black wheel front wheel. Harley calls its look 'neo-retro chic', I'd call it well-hard.
The European spec model is jacked up to give it more ground clearance, as we have bends over here which we're obliged to negotiate. It's an indication of the increasing say Europe is having in Harley product development and very welcome. It also has integral LED stop lights and indicators which is extremely neat and an original idea.
The Nightster comes with a single seat and a single front disc, both of which you'd be advised to upgrade to double versions to keep both of you happy.
FXDF FAT BOB
Bob is a verb, not a person. 60 years ago if you bobbed your rear fender, you chopped it in half - a bobtail. If your girlfriend bobbed you, that'd be different. The Fat part is the wide two-part petrol tank. Of the '08 models, this is the one that suited me best. I loved it's evenly-balanced riding position and direct road-contact feel.
It has wide, flat but curved bars and just slightly forward footrests which make for simply natural ergonomics. A 28-degree rake makes the Fat Bob less relaxed than the Softails, but this is a model that's more streetbike than cruiser. It uses the same 1,584cc motor, but is tuned to produce more power higher up the revs to suit its more agressive style. Time and a place for this one? Now, in my garage.
