Harley-Davidson V-Rod
Harley-Davidson V-Rod
CYCLE WORLD TEST
Runnnin' to Reno on a two-wheeled hot-rod
BRIAN CATTERSON
NEW FOR'02
THE THREE BICYCLE-MOUNTED policemen pedaled up and stopped at the edge of the circle of onlookers admiring the 2002 Harley-Davidson V-Rod. With their crisply pressed shirts, tight-fitting shorts and dark sunglasses, they looked like they’d just stepped out of an episode of “Pacific Blue.”
Only we were in the desert, in Reno, Nevada, 200 miles from the nearest ocean.
“Are you going to be here long?” one asked. “Uh, I can move the bike if you want,” I replied, afraid he’d ticket me for parking in front of a fire hydrant.
“No, nothing like that,” the officer explained. “It’s just that there are a couple of guys back at HQ who are dying to see this bike.”
Minutes later, a pair of motor-cops rolled up on their rattly, highmileage Kawasakis. “We were hanging out at the station when all of a sudden we got a call: ‘There’s a V-Rod downtown.’ We couldn’t get here fast enough,” said Officer Hawkins.
That’s the sort of response the new V-Rod elicits. To a man, the Cycle World staff has yet to ride this bike anywhere and not be hounded by Harley types and wannabe Harley types, some knowledgeable, some not, but all realizing that this motorcycle is something special.
V-Rod
It is. With its longand-low drag-bike stance, racy anodized-aluminum body and disc wheels, the V-Rod is guaranteed to turn heads. And with an all-new Porsche-developed liquidcooled dohc V-Twin engine sourced from the VR1000 Superbike, its performance is head-turning, too-or at least the three staffers who rode it briefly at the press introduction said that it was. But what we didn’t know was how the VRod would stack up against its power-cruiser competition, how it would fare in real-world riding or-and this one was a biggie-how the Harley-Davidson Faithful would react to it.
It is, after all, a radical departure for a company known for its conservatism, at least in technological terms.
What we needed was an appropriate destination-someplace far enough away to allow for ample seat time, yet populated by Harley types willing to voice their opinions. What we found was Hot August Nights, an annual event billed as the world’s largest hot-rod gathering, held in Reno, 500 miles north of Los Angeles. Some 5000 chopped-and-channeled cars stalked the streets of “The Biggest Little City in the World” this year, and while their owners might be car guys, there aren’t many who don’t like bikes, too, Harleys in particular. Even better, these guys all have a highly developed sense of style. One look at their rides tells you that.
But before I could gauge the rodders’ reactions, I had to ride the V-Rod to Reno. And so early one Tuesday morning, I threw a leg over the bike and pointed it north.
The first thing that strikes you about the new Harley is its low, low seat, which measures just a tick over 27 inches off the deck. You next find yourself hunting for the ignition switch, which you Finally locate beneath your right thigh. Turn the barrel-shaped key, toggle the killswitch to “run,” thumb the “start” button and the fuel-injected engine springs to life, no choke required, and immediately settles into a 1200-rpm idle. Twist the right grip and the revs rise quicker than any Milwaukee-made V-Twin this side oFan All-Harley drag race, the needle on the attractive crescent-shaped tachometer zinging toward the 9000-rpm redline, at which point the rev-limiter kicks in. The tach needle glows red at redline, which is a neat touch, but it would be more useful if it glowed a tad sooner, so that it could be used as a shift light.
With lightweight (by Harley standards) flywheels, the 1130cc, four-valve engine is surprisingly free-revving, more like a twin-cylinder sportbike than a cruiser. In fact, the engine the V-Rod’s was most often compared to was that of the Honda VTR1000F Super Hawk. Only thanks to a counterbalancer and rubber mounts, the Harley is smoother than any Japanese Twin, or a Beta Twin Cam, for that matter. Images in the bar-mounted mirrors are crystal-clear at all times.
Pull in the clutch lever and you find that it’s heavy by Harley standards (though light compared to an Aprilia or Ducati), but it has excellent feel, the hydraulic actuation making for smooth take-offs. Gear changes on our testbike were a bit notchy-one facet of the bike Harley says will be improved before production-but the fault seems to lie not with the five-speed transmission, but with the linkage. There’s a bit of slop that you can feel by pushing down past first gear, or up toward the non-existent sixth.
Initially, the riding position is quite comfortable, with a cushy seat, high-rise handlebars and far-forward footpegs that let you stretch out your legs as though you were riding a motorized La-Z-Boy. Spend any length of time there, however, and you soon change your tune. Without any fairing to hide behind, your arms quickly tire of pulling your torso forward against the windblast. And because your feet are stretched out in front of you, you carry the weight of your body in your butt, so the seat wears thin after a while. Highway pegs offer a nice change of pace from a standard seating position, but they’re not as nice when they’re the only position. And the ultra-short-travel rear suspension, so necessary to achieve the V-Rod’s slammed-to-the-ground look, sends road shocks straight up your spine.
Frequent stops are the solution, and thanks to the smallish underseat fuel tank, you do indeed get to stop often. The farthest our testbike ever went on a tankful was 135 miles, and during one particularly blustery stint near Four Comers, the tank ran dry in just 118.5 miles. You’d think that with both a fuel gauge and a tripmeter that toggles to show remaining fuel range, I could have avoided running out of gas, but the gauge is misleading. A miniature gas pump illuminates on the speedometer and the fuel-gauge needle glows red as it reaches a quarter-tank, but this typically occurred around 80 miles, at which point there was closer to a half-tank left. Knowing this, I was lulled into a false sense of security that ultimately left me stranded by the side of the road. Suffice it to say that when the needle hits “empty,” the tank’s empty. Fuel mileage was the last thing on my mind, however, as Highway 395 headed into the mountains north of Bishop. There, I was impressed by the fact that the Delphi fuelinjection let the V-Rod run as efficiently at 8000 feet as it did at sea level.
Later, as the road became narrower and the turns tighter, my attention turned toward the V-Rod’s handling, which is surprisingly good for a motorcycle that weighs more than 600 pounds with gas. In spite of a distinctly un-sporty 34 degrees of rake (offset triple-clamps allow the forks to be kicked out to 38 degrees) and 3.9 inches of trail, the steering is quite crisp. Steering effort is initially light and fairly neutral, but as you lean toward the 32-degree maximum bank angle-at which point the footpegs ground out, followed on the right by the lower muffler-it gets progressively heavier and less neutral.
Lean the V-Rod all the way over and hold it there, and you can feel the 19-inch front Dunlop Sportmax radial tum in and start to push, though with the bike’s low center of gravity, it’s unlikely to wash out.
With a train-like 67.5-inch wheelbase, the V-Rod is ultrastable at speed, though abruptly snapping the bars to one side and back to center can invoke a weave that takes three to four cycles to damp out. And those solid-disc wheels get the chassis dancing pretty good in a crosswind. Fortunately, hauling the V-Rod down from speed isn’t an issue, as the trio of Hayes four-piston calipers put a serious bite on the one-piece floating rotors.
Somewhere around Mammoth Mountain, a guy on a Honda CBR1100XX Super Blackbird with Florida plates pulled up alongside and spent an honest-to-God half-hour admiring the V-Rod from every conceivable angle. Inevitably, on a long, straight stretch of road, he twisted his right wrist in the universal symbol for “Let’s rock!” And so we did, pulling quickly to the V-Rod’s top speed, if not the Dos Equis’. Having seen the results of Road Test Editor Don Canet’s performance testing a few days prior, I knew that the Harley was the new king of the power-cruiser class. On the CW dyno, it made 108 horsepower at the rear-wheel-47 more than the last Big Twin this magazine tested, with comparable torque in the 74-foot-pound range. I also knew that it was capable of mid-11-second quarter-miles, and a 134-mph top speed-more than a second quicker and 20 mph faster than any previous Harley, not to mention .7-second and 9 mph faster than the previous power-cruiser king, the Honda VTX1800. But the XX pilot had no idea what to expect, and must have been suitably impressed, because he flashed me the thumbs-up before blasting off toward the horizon.
The next morning in Reno, photographer Jay McNally and I parked the V-Rod on Virginia Street during the Fitzgerald’s Casino Show-’n’-Shine, in the hopes of soliciting some opinions and shooting some photos. Ironically, I almost didn’t get into the show after a clipboard-toting official wearing a Hot August Nights hat and a Harley T-shirt failed to notice anything special about my ride and blocked me from entering! But fortunately, the two guys at the other end of the block grasped the bike’s significance, literally jumping into the street in front of me and shouting, “It’s the new Harley!” They waved me right in.
Once inside, the V-Rod absolutely stole the show, with admirers at times stacked three deep. Everyone asked the same three questions: 1) Does it sound like a Harley? 2)
How much does it cost? 3) Where does the gas go?
The answers are: 1) Sort of, the 60-degree V-Twin sounding like a cross between a traditional 45-degree Harley and a 90-degree Ducati, only with less mechanical clatter than either, and far less exhaust noise than the typical straightpipe Big Twin. 2) $16,995, though you’ll be hard-pressed to obtain one for that figure; already, reports are filtering back about dealers asking $20,000-plus for the 11,000 first-year examples. 3) Under the flip-up seat; the “gas tank” is actually a sculpted sheet of aluminum that lifts off with a single Dzus fastener to reveal the automotive-style airbox, battery, fusebox, radiator catch tank and filler.
I fully expected to hear some whining from the old-timers on hand, but there wasn’t any. To the contrary, the 82-yearold who told me a story about going jackrabbit hunting on his 1936 Indian Scout smiled in approval, and the similarly elderly owner of a 1947 Harley and a tribe of Indians declared, “It’s about time Harley got off its ass! I might have to sell my V-Max to buy one of these.” My kind of geriatric.
Ironically, the few negative comments we did hear came from younger guys.
One self-described “old fart” (with a full head of non-graying hair, go figure) who rides a Road King said he appreciated the technology, but thought the VRod looked too much like a Buell. Others remarked that it looked too Japanese, though exactly which Japanese bike it looked like no one could specify. One fellow suggested it resembled an American copy of a Japanese copy of a Harley. Yet another thought it looked European: “I was walking down the street and thought, ‘Is that one of those BMW cruisers? No, it’s the new Harley!”’
Another Road King owner thought the V-Rod had “too much of a yuppie look,” and fixated on the only part of the bike that looks sub-par. “I’m a certified 6G welder, and I spotted those crappy-ass muffler welds from clear across the street,” he declared.
Worse yet was the guy we met later that afternoon in the parking lot of the Peppermill Casino. “That’s not a Harley!” he shouted from 10 yards away. “I mean, I know it is, but that’s not a Harley. That’s sad!” I tried to get him to elaborate, but he was too pissed off.
But worst of all was the self-righteous dirty-shirt I met on the way home Thursday morning, while having breakfast at a diner overlooking Mono Lake.
“That ain’t no @#$*in’ Harley,” he grumbled.
I don’t know what it was about this guy-whether it was his gruff attitude, foul smell or simply the fact that he’d interrupted my breakfast-but he triggered a nerve. I sprang up from my chair, subconsciously anticipating punching his lights out, but then regained my composure.
“Yeah, it’s Japanese,” I told him, diffusing what could have been an ugly situation. “I just don’t want my bro’s to know I ride rice.”
“That’s what I thought,” he spat, and strode off, vindicated. He’ll feel pretty stupid once he learns the truth.
Oh well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. And if a few old-school bikers get turned off by the new-age V-Rod, so what? It’s not as if the folks at Harley have stopped making Big Twins and Sportsters. But someday, under the tightening noose of ever more stringent emissions and noise standards, they might have to, and so they need a modem engine to carry them from that day forward.
Perhaps more importantly, there’s a finite number of oldschool bikers, many of whom are closer to their last motorcycle than their first. And the V-Rod should help usher in a new generation of younger buyers, many of whom may finally have to make good on their promise to buy a Harley “if only they were any good.”
Believe me, the V-Rod is good. Really good, not just for a Harley, but for any motorcycle. The only things that need fixing are our attitudes.
EDITORS' NOTES
IT WAS A SUNNY SUNDAY AFTERNOON and I could think of any number of places l would rather have been. Like at home helping my two-year-old polish her tricycling skills, or at a racetrack honing my own technique. Instead, I sat in a hotel conference room.
At the head of the room was Harley’s latest creation covered with a sheet. “Let’s get on with it,” I thought to
myself as we waited for the bike’s ceremonial uncloaking.
“Well, hey there!” May have been the raw, naked appeal of unpainted anodized aluminum, but my jaw literally dropped as the sheet came off. I must say, the shimmering silver V-Rod is a looker-and it’s had the same effect on countless others everywhere I’ve ridden it. What's more, its performance backs up its good looks, yet the level of refinement exceeds that of any custom I’ve ridden.
Here it is Sunday afternoon again and I find myself not at the track, nor at home with the tyke, but out riding what I feel is Harley’s best bike ever -Don Canet. Road Test Editor
THE JAPANESE ENGINEER WAS BESIDE HIMself. “I do not understand American public,” he said in his best broken English. “Fifteen years ago, we had liquid-cooled, double-overhead-cam power-cruiser, and no sell. So we build old-style cruiser with same engine, and sell okay. Then we build big, air-cooled, pushrod V-Twin, and sell very good. And now V-Rod: liquid-cooled double-overhead cam power-
cruiser! I do not understand American public..."
Yeah, well, I've got two words on that subject: HarleyDavidson. Put that logo on any gas tank, and the bike beneath is virtually guaranteed to be a success. The fact that there’s a liquid-cooled, double-overhead-cam V-Twin lurking beneath the V-Rod’s “gas tank” only makes it, in my opinion, more attractive-with the possible exception of an old XLCR café racer, this is the only Harley I’d consider owning. I just wish that engine was housed in a production version of the VR1000 Superbike in which it began life. Did somebody say project bike? -Brian Catterson, Executive Editor
WHAT SORT OF STRANGE PARALLEL UNIverse is this? In the new power-cruiser world order, Harley-Davidson is horsepower king and Kawasaki brings up the rear? The Milwaukee motor runs a radiator and dohc while Yamaha sings the praises of air-cooling and pushrods? The VTX1800, brought to you by those masters of refinement at Honda, looks a little ropey next to the stylized, all-alloy V-Rod?
Welcome to the 21s' century.
Can't say I’m a fan of the H20 Hog’s heels-forward riding position, raked-out fork or crosswind-catching disc wheels, but I will tell you this: In my 17 years in the business, no other machine has stopped traffic or dropped jaws like this new Harley. It’s got a stance, a presence that commands attention.
Love that engine, too (okay, except for the water hose running up the right side). Any cruiser Twin that matches a Ducati 996 bhp for bhp is all right by me. In the case of the V-Rod, the Motor Company (with a little help from Porsche) really has lived up to its name.
-David Edwards, Editor-in-Chief
H-D VRSCA V-ROD
$16,995
Harley-Davidson Motor Co., Inc.
