BIKETEST:The V-Rod Muscle does exactly what it says on the tin, with more comfort than ever, writes TOM ROBERT.
THERE I was, hurtling towards Ballymena for the greater glory of The Irish Times, when suddenly the back end started to shimmy like a Balinese dancer.
“Mmm, must be a puncture,” I thought, in a rare moment of common sense, until I noticed the clouds of smoke in the rear view mirrors.
Closer examination revealed two things: firstly, the biking community are the friendliest bunch on the planet, since not one but two people stopped to see if I was okay; and secondly, the bike had sprung an oil leak at the filter – a rare thing in today’s ultra-reliable Harleys.
“How embarrassing,” said Ricky at the dealers when we got it back to the workshop. “Looks like the threads on the seal have been mis-machined, which is the first time I’ve ever seen that. You won’t mention this in the paper, will you?”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
A week later, when I got on the V-Rod for a proper spin, it confirmed my initial suspicions that this is the best V-Rod yet.
When the V-Rod came out eight years ago, everyone fell over: Harley aficionados, because it was liquid-cooled and looked like something from outer space; and bikers who wouldn’t normally touch a Harley, because it did the things they thought Harleys couldn’t: accelerate, brake and go around corners, that sort of thing. In 2007 they made it even better, with a bigger engine and a better clutch and gearbox.
The funny thing is, though, I didn’t like it – I felt exactly the same way I’d felt about the original V-Rod.
The reason was that it was, and is, an incredibly long bike, with a wheelbase of 171cm, a fork angle of 38 degrees, and a back tyre that is 24cm wide. For those still unused to metric, that’s about as wide as the M1 in old money, and since anything over 20cm on a bike is a complete waste of time, it’s there for no other reason than Harley thought it looked good.
Add that up and you get a bike that looks stunning and goes like a bat out of hell, but it does take some getting used to.
On corners, the length, rake, fatness of that back tyre and contrasting lightness of the front one mean any attempt to lean and cruise as you would on a Road King or Dynaglide makes you wobble more than a stranded jellyfish in an earthquake.
But then you realise this beast is built like a dragster and dragsters need technique to seduce them around bends. That technique is: lean hard, counter-steer harder and use that nice, smooth throttle to keep everything at just the right angle.
In the Muscle, Harley have done nothing about any of this, since it’s part of the intrinsic nature of the bike, but they have addressed an even more fundamental problem – handlebars and footpegs so far away from the seat that, after half an hour at high speed, you got off with your spine welded into the shape of a croquet hoop.
Now they’ve put in a solo seat, lowered it, and brought both the internally cabled bars and pegs back so that your first and lasting impression is of supreme, effortless comfort – all of which gives you time to admire what they’ve really done, which is turn the panther-sleek grace of the original into a chunky, more muscular look, make the instrument panel more purposeful without taking away the sexiness, add bigger pipes for a better sound, and turn the forks upside down.
There have been a few vehicles in my life which have not been entirely aptly named: the NSU Quickly Moped I rode slowly as a teenager, my Enfield Bullet, whose only resemblance to a speeding shell is that both are made of metal and the Triumph Spitfire, which was my first car, and only lived up to its name when I blew up the engine hurtling down the motorway flat-out (the only speed I knew in those days).
But muscle, in this latest incarnation of Harley’s most iconaclastic icon, is exactly what you get.
FACTFILE: Harley V-Rod Muscle
Engine:in-line 1250cc V-twin liquid-cooled fuel-injected four-stroke producing 122bhp @ 8250rpm, 85 ft lbs torque @ 7000rpm
Chassis, tyres and brakes:mild steel frame, aluminium tank, Dunlop Harley-Davidson tyres, radial, front D208F 120/70ZR-19, rear D419 240/40R-18, Brembo triple disc brakes.
Dimensions:Length 2460mm, overall height 1120mm, ground clearance 127mm, wheelbase 1715mm, dry weight 287kgs.
Price:€19,320. Dublin Harley-Davidson, Naas Road, Dublin 12, 01 464 2211, dublinharley-davidson.com
Test bike £12,595 from Provincewide Harley- Davidson of Antrim, 028 9446 6999, provincewide.com