2015 Harley-Davidson Street 750 Review – First Ride
Even for those of us who came up on
Japanese bikes, the new Harley-Davidson Street 750
– the Motor Company’s first new model since the V-Rod of 2001 – is
perfectly acceptable. All six gears click in and out with nary a bang, and you
don’t even need the light-pull clutch past about third. Steering’s quick and
light, and ergonomics are really close to standard if you’re not tall.
Nobody expected a drag racer, so
nobody should be disappointed, but the new liquid-cooled V-Twin runs great,
with no stumbles or flat spots, right from idle – and it’s flexible enough to
pull from 35 or 40 mph in top gear no problem.
One of our competitors managed to
get a pre-production Street on a Dynojet 250 a few weeks ago, where it made
57.6 horsepower at almost 8000 rpm. That’s 11 hp more than an 883 Sportster
on the same dyno. This more than makes up for the fact that the 883 makes more
torque down low, and tells you all you need to know about how the new Street
750 compares to the old Sportster: One’s an old-fashioned, undersquare,
cam-in-block two-valver with 9:1 compression; the other is a modern, 85 x 66mm,
4-valve-per-cylinder with single-overhead cams and 11:1 compression that likes
to rev right into its (hard) limiter at 8000 rpm.
Splaying cylinders 60 degrees apart
instead of 45 lets the tank snuggle down nice and tight on top of the 38mm
Mikuni throttle body.
Mainly what strikes you when you see the Street
in the flesh for the first time is how small it is. Harley has always gone
overboard trying to keep seats low on its “entry-level” motorcycles (all
its bikes, really), but this time
they decided to just shrink the whole bike. On its website, H-D says a new Iron
883 tips the scales at 562, ready to ride. For the Street 750, it claims 489.
That’s a huge difference you can feel every time you pick the bike up off its
kickstand, every time you accel- or decelerate, every time you go around a
corner.
Discuss
this at our HD Street Forum.
Wider-splayed (60-degree), shorter
cylinders allow everything to be lowered and compacted. In short, the boys in
Milwaukee have built a modern motorcycle. (They’ve also built one that will
require its eight valves to be adjusted every 15,000 miles – no big deal
really, since they’re screw-and-locknut swivel-foot adjusters, just like your
old Porsche 911.)
The Street 500 starts at $6799;
$7,499 for the 750. But a Mysterious Red Sunglo 750 is going to set you back
$7,794.
And now for the bad news. To keep
the 750′s price down to $7499, a few fit-and-finish corners were cut. The
triple clamp castings look like they came out of the sand mold, got painted
black and bolted onto the bike. The last time I saw anything like them was on
the Cleveland Heist, made in China and no bones about it.
Where H-D sometimes goes to great lengths to
hide cables and wires on some of its bikes, on the Street it seems to have left
everything exposed on purpose. Maybe they’ll be selling a Dark
Custom Trim Kit, like they sell to
cover the wheels and propane tank on your mobile home? Maybe that’s unfair?
It’s my job to find fault, but if
you’re looking at what might be your first motorcycle, you won’t notice any of
it, will you? Overall, the little Street cuts a low, lean, dashing figure. Its
forward-leaning lines, especially the new gas tank, reminded me of the old
Yamaha Radian, which was also a great little urban runabout.
I can’t say something nice about the
bike’s triple clamps and wiring harness, so I won’t say anything. Wait! The
fork lock is integrated into the ignition switch!
Urban is exactly how H-D’s mighty
marketing arm is positioning this one, right down to its name and tagline: “The
Street is where I live” almost implies it’s cheap enough for a homeless person
to afford. At a bar on 6th Street in Austin, while I was there for the bike’s
launch, a guy actually stole my half-drunk can of Lone Star. Now that is poor.
At 5’8” and about 160 pounds, the
thing fits me pretty well. Tall people appeared to be a bit cramped, but I
didn’t really hear any complaints after our shortish ride.
In town, the other Great Leap
Forward is 3.5 inches of rear suspension travel – which is about 1.5 more than
the Iron 883, and the Street actually absorbs most bumps instead of bludgeoning
them with its back tire. The back tire itself is an unusual-sized,
flat-profiled Michelin Scorcher with unusually tall sidewalls, which also seems
to be really bump-compliant. It’s a 140/75 R15, which I thought maybe the
design department had asked for. But Mark Daniels, lead designer on the Street,
says the tire was specced by engineering. In any case, the Street goes wherever
you point its skinny little 37mm fork tubes with enthusiasm, and likes to be
treated disrespectfully like some kind of naked sportbike, even. It’s happy to
be flung into corners and put away wet.
Suspension is not exactly
sophisticated, but well-sprung for my 160 pounds, if a little underdamped when
the going gets sporty and bumpy. There’s enough cornering clearance to have
some fun but not enough to let you forget you’re riding a Harley. The brakes
are old-school ABS, ie., the 292mm front disc doesn’t feel powerful enough to
lock the wheel. Actual ABS is not available.
The dance of the seven veils is
over. H-D’s first new model since 2001 seems worthy.
The seat is actually remarkably
comfy, soft and nicely shaped, for about an hour. Later in the day, after
you’ve been on it a few hours, it feels maybe a little too soft, but that’s
such a personal thing. Your numbage may vary. (And H-D’s accessory catalog is
already on the case with three seats – a Tallboy, a café solo and a reduced
reach one, which scoots the rider even lower and 1.5 inches forward.)
Speaking of which, H-D claims 41
mpg; I saw 60 miles on 1.5 gallons, so that’s about right. The 3.5-gallon
capacity might cause problems for Western-state riders. The other thing that
might limit long-distance range is significant vibration that creeps into the handlebars
at around 80 mph in spite of the engine’s counterbalancer.
Whichever marketing genius at H-D
decided to throw in with the X Games deserves a medal. They’re pushing to make
flat-track racing a new XG discipline, which really could breathe new life into
the sport.
After it was all over, as I sat
there killing time waiting for my ride to the airport and watching the rally
car track get set up for the X Games at Circuit of the Americas,
I really wanted to like the kids (some of them bearded) on the BMX bikes on the
Jumbotron, but it’s hard. I think my generation needs the gasoline, preferably
Ethyl.
My lunch beer had me almost dozing
there in the shade when suddenly a couple of Stadium Super Trucks! making their
X Games debut fired up in front of me and started testing out the track –
hot-rod V-8s flexing serious muscle – and my eyelids sprang to attention.
That’s Harley’s challenge maybe: Will a generation of deprived,
clean-living youth, happy well into adulthood with self-propelled children’s
vehicles, hop on the fossil-fuel bandwagon? Can they be converted?
H-D already has the designers at
work showing what’s possible. Aftermarket support is a big advantage for any
bike that says H-D on the tank.
I’m going to go with “yes.” Harley’s
display at COTA for the X Games drew plenty of young attention, and my own
20-year old skatepark rat is dying to get his hands on a Street. He already has
modifications in mind, which do not include a loud exhaust. He’s still
traumatized from his time in the stroller when loud Hogs used to scare the hell
out of him.
