The old excitement is still there

The film Easyrider is iconic in many ways and there has been much discourse as to the different metaphors contained within it.

To me as a young boy watching the film the main attractions were the Harley-Davidsons with their chopper styling which have become icons in themselves, and the freedom of the open road that the film epitomised.

At 16 my first bike gave me the opportunity to explore my surroundings in a new and exciting way which I thought that I would never experience again.

Well I have to tell you that that excitement came back to me on the Harley V-Rod, fortunately, without the acne, hormonal mood swings, bad haircuts, poor clothes, and angst that I had as a teenager which was probably a great relief to my mother and my partner!

The V- Rod is a strange bike in the Harley family as it seems to me to be an oddball when compared with the rest of the range with their pushrod V twin engines and their traditional cruiser styling.

The V Rod on the other hand has a V twin engine, overhead cams, water-cooling, and the styling is definitely cruiser but with very modern overtones.

From the clocks down to the rear wheel this bike screams individuality. It also has a profound effect on those who don’t like Harleys as I had an almost unanimous approval for the bike.

The first impression is that the bike looks very substantial and heavy, and at weight this would seem to be confirmed. This is nothing like the reality when you sit on the bike as it transforms in to a diminutive, light machine which is easy to handle and move around.

This was difficult to get used to initially as my brain kept telling me that this bike should be heavy and ponderous. The back tyre is a huge 240 section affair which looks fantastic but I was concerned that the difference between the front and rear tyres cross sections would give strange handling.

So my first forays on the bike were gentle affairs, especially due to the fact that we were experiencing torrential rain storms at the time, and dropping one of Harley-Davidson’s most expensive bikes was not an option.

If you want to know when not to ride your bike give me a call and I’ll let you know if I going out which seems to correlate nicely to poor weather.

At this point I would like to apologise to Harley-Davidson for the sorry state I returned the bike in. I know it looked like I had entered a local motocross event but in my defence I had already washed it once, but the mud on the Shropshire roads stuck to it like the proverbial to a blanket.

I not only felt guilty, but wanted to keep it longer so I could go to town on polishing it. There are not many bikes, including my own, that I am this keen on keeping clean.

As I said earlier, the V twin is liquid cooled so I was expecting it to sound nothing like a ‘traditional’ Harley but the engineers have done a great job of fusing the old and the new with a great exhaust note to boot. Talking about the exhaust it does resemble something out of a Flash Gordon comic and initially I was not a fan but the styling grew on me.

At 1,250cc and 123 bhp the engine is not lacking in the go department and allows very un-cruiser like behaviour; more on this later. Fuel injection appears on so many bikes now that it is almost not worth mentioning but I suffered no flat spots or glitches when riding the V-Rod at any speed.

The frame is a traditional affair with twin shock rears and conventional teles up front. Twin discs up front complete the package.

After my initial gentle excursions and with rapidly drying roads I was able to explore the V-Rod much more. The clutch is light and the bike pulls away cleanly without needing a handful of revs. This is where I had to switch my traditional Harley brain off as the engine can be treated like the twin cam engine and does work well but this does not show the engine off at its best.

With a redline of 9000rpm the engine provides power way after the brain tells you to change gear in the slick, five-speed box. When I did open the V-Rod up it responded beautifully with a great power band and I was left with a silly grin from ear to ear.

My initial fears were unfounded on the tyre front. There is a slight feeling of resistance from the rear as you bank it over but it takes very little time to get used to this and I was happily throwing it in to corners after a couple of miles.

The brakes are very effective and pull the bike up from any speed with confidence. Why don’t Harley fit these to the rest of the range?

I like to see if it is possible to use bikes practically for the work commute. As I live about 80 miles from work this does test this hypothesis quite nicely.

I can report that the V-Rod passed with flying colours; I even tried to find other, longer, routes to work as I was enjoying myself so much. Why is this important to me? In Gordon Brown’s UK with its nanny/police state (delete as applicable) approach to anything that emits more CO2 than a bottle of pop, and a litre of fuel approaching the cost of an ounce of gold this may be my only option in the future.

However, if the V-Rod was the preferred form of transport I would not consider this a hardship. So stick this in your pipe and smoke it Mr Brown! Oh sorry, you made that really expensive that as well.

Is there anything that spoils for me a perfect bike? Well, yes. First, the ground clearance. The V-Rod allows a level of cornering which will have your heels touching down first, then the pegs and finally the Flash Gordon exhaust at virtually every corner when pushing on. Not dangerous, but very annoying.

I also suspect that the exhaust system is not a throwaway item! Two more inches of ground clearance would make a huge difference!

The biggest fault are the front forks. I use the term loosely as they felt more like two pogo sticks. Virtually every bump at anything more than 30 mph resulted in banging and clattering which reminded me of a bike I had as a young lad for a field bike.

The more you pushed the V-Rod the worse it became. On one stretch of road, accelerating up a hill I thought I was going in to a major tank slapping moment as the forks and headstock combined to give the directional stability of a puppy on a lead.

Please guys, give me some serious adjustment so I can iron this out. Failing this take it to a suspension expert and let them work their magic and put in UK settings.

At £12,495 the V-Rod is not a cheap option, however, even with its faults the V-Rod is still an awesome bike and made me want to go out and ride at every opportunity, and I can’t think of another bike around that inspires this level of commitment from me.

By Neil Ward