PUTTING THE "NO" IN "NOSTALGIA?"
Harley-Davidson
Just like Samuel L. Jackson at the end of Pulp
Fiction, Harley-Davidson is going through a
profound transitional period, only no one's
pointing a gun at them while they make
big speeches about pork and the tyranny of
evil men. Over the last two years, the Motor
Company has been trending away from the
nostalgic iron that's been its signature move for
decades, feeding performance upgrades and
new platforms to the public bit-by-bit. Some
bits were bigger than others; the merging of
the Dyna and Softail lines into one monoshock
chassis being the most dramatic.
Harley-Davidson's 2019 stable is pretty tame
compared to the great big changes of 2018. It's
the calm between two storms. The first hit with
the new Softies and the death of the V-Rod last
year, and the next one will be in the coming years
as the LiveWire e-bike and the four water-cooled
models Harley-Davidson teased in 2018 go into
production.
This year's biggest new model would be the
FXDR 114 Softail. It's billed as "a drag racer
crossed with a fighter jet" which is a colorful
way of saying H-D placed a lot of emphasis on
performance over style. The aluminum swingarm
gives the bike a 10.2-pound weight reduction
(13.8 pounds vs. 24 pounds, or 43 percent less)
over a steel Softail swingarm accommodating
a 240mm rear tire. Because of the unsprung
weight (weight located below the suspension)
it has a significant impact on rear suspension
performance, enhanced further by a lightweight
18-inch aluminum disc rear wheel. The 19-
inch forged aluminum Ace front wheel is a
lightweight design that features very thin spokes.
Moreover, the Softail's seat and tail section are
supported by a sub-frame of welded aluminum
tubing, and the tail section is composite. All of
that replaces a steel subframe, steel rear fender
and aluminum fender supports used on other
Softail models, for a weight savings of about
seven pounds.
Harley-Davidson also brought two new Sportster
variants into the world this year: a 1200cc version
of the Iron and the Forty-Eight Special, which
draws its looks from the 1970s. Hey, nostalgia's
not completely gone.
2019 LINE UP
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