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Way back in 1964 I was sitting at my school bus stop waiting for my ride home from Gosford Primary School . I was 8 years old and unaware of the big nasty world that awaited me. I heard this motorbike chug up the road past me and I saw what I believed then to be the best looking motorcycle I had ever seen. As it proceeded down the road my dad showed up in his work van and ordered me inside.

“Did you see that ’58 Harley Sportster just go past? I’ve been tailing him for miles” he said. “what a top looking bike”!

Obviously as the years went on I lusted after various other machines Norton Commando, Honda 4 and even the odd Ducati, but that ’58 Sportster always had a place in the desire list.

2002 and Frasers Newcastle invited me to their Harley ride day. I particularly wanted to sample the Sportster, but was disappointed with the standard 883 and 1200. They lacked “grunt” for their engine capacity and price, they seemed to live up to their reputation as a “girls bike” (God I’ll cop it for saying that!). However, I found that the then new orange and black 883R was fun had good acceleration and could be thrown around happily.

During September 2003, I was privileged to be included with this country’s and New Zealand ’s leading motorcycle scribes for the 2004 Harley Davidson Sportster launch at Port Macquarie. Harley Davidson Australia, who are due to take over the distribution of the companies motorcycle range in 2006, pulled out all the stops to make sure that the attending journalists were given every opportunity to sample the new Sportster range and all the best bits of Port Macquarie and the surrounding area. The 2004 Sportster range has been given a ground up redesign and the results of all this work were evident during the five hundred odd kilometres and two hot days, we hooned around the excellent and twisty roads that the Port Macquarie area has to offer.

Basically you get a re-engineered frame offering 714mm seat height, rubber mounted engine, new heads, better fuel/air flow, much improved cooling, lighter clutch, 6000rpm redline, new stronger swing arm, 150 section rear tyre, 2 year warranty and lots more that I couldn’t scribble down fast enough. This would have to be the biggest revamp of the Sportster marque since it was first introduced back in 1957.

I was given the opportunity to ride two 883s (Roadsters) a 1200R and a 1200C Custom. The first day we took in the roads from Port Macquarie to Kew via North Brother Lookout, on to Wauchope then out to Comboyne for an excellent lunch. The second day was Port Macquarie out to Gingers Creek via Long Flat. I have to say that if you haven’t been out to ride these roads, it’s about time you did. Beware though if you don’t like tight corners or heights as there is plenty of both. During these rides the combined journalists showed the new bikes no mercy and after surveying their views of the new motorcycles I think I can say that on the whole it was very positive.

OK, let’s get started. The 883 has taken a lot from the 2002 orange and black model, plus with the new engineering you get a bike that can be thrown around hard and run hard. There was little to separate the 883 from the 1200R in the lower end, sure you could use the extra horsepower of the 1200 to outrun the 883 on the longer straighter sections but the 883 was able to corner into and punch out of them pretty much right on the 1200’s tail. The frames felt solid and strong with unnoticeable flexing (my opinion anyway). The seat got a little hard after a while but sheepskins can cure most of that. The idiot lights are hard to see, especially in the very bright hot conditions we found ourselves in. Engine vibration, while greatly reduced, still had the rear view mirrors shifting from good visuals to poor. The 883 doesn’t get a tacho while the 1200R does. 

All the Sportsters carried self-cancelling blinkers. The standard mufflers were of course too quiet but still allowed for adequate gear changing by ear. They were also the first thing to touch down on the right-hand corners if you weren’t careful or in our case of trying to see how far you could actually get them over. The tight left-hand corner will grind parts of the side stand away but at least that’s not as expensive as a muffler. All in all the new bikes will cop quite a bit of lean and this coupled with the new strong engines gives them a lot of fun factor. The suspension felt stiff on the straight flat roads but it didn’t take much to bottom things out on bridges or bad tar. Good wide handle bars help control the stability of the machine in harsh conditions.

The 883 gets a single disk front and rear while the 1200 gets twin disks up front and a single rear. Both bikes stop extremely well with a stability that was commented on a couple of times during the tests. The tacho on the 1200 showed 3000rpm for 100kph in fifth but prefers to do its best work through the tight bits in fourth gear. You can run first gear up to about 60kph on the 883 with a little bit more for the 1200 and this came in very handy on some parts of the tight mountain road up to Gingers Creek. I was also able to get the standard 883 to 160kph along several straights, albeit by flattening out over the tank.

So there you have it, whether you’re a Harley fan or not, the 2004 model Sportsters once again live up to their name. It’s a really good bike, lots of fun with good power and at a price that makes it competitive with the copies coming out of Japan . There has been a lot of emphasis by the company on quality control, and the finish on the bikes I saw was great. A major advantage to buying the Harley will of course be its resale value plus this model recaptures the look of the machines that originated the name. I still think the ’58 model I saw all those years ago will be a memory hard to forget but as Mark Bracks said to me “mate, I think I’m becoming a fan of the Harley Sportster”.

I would like to thank Managing Director John Shingleton and his team for a most enjoyable 2 days. The engineers, Dominic and Chad , were more than forthcoming with any mechanical information, the ride marshalls allowed a good pace for the journos to thoroughly test the bikes. Laura and Brooke made sure we only had to worry about the tests although they were quite a distraction by themselves and the photographers who made that hot Tuesday seem even hotter.

May your lid never skid…iparks@hunterlink.net.au.....www.users.hunterlink.net.au/~mbbidp