The reactions to the Harley-Davidson 500cc/750cc Street have been all over the chart. Like it, love it or hate it, I think this was the right move. The foreign bike sweat shops had been filling the demand for smaller bikes for years while Harley sat like an old hound dog on the porch licking its nuts. Sure the old dogs in Milwaukee have made some smaller bikes at various times during their more than 100 years of bike building, but they had conceded that market to outsiders for longer than I can remember.
I felt like the new bike was getting a bad rap from people who haven’t even booted up for a ride on one, so I started asking about the new bikes at Rommel’s Harley-Davidson in Durham, NC. I had my friend, Cindy, lay the ground work for me; i.e. “Mike isn’t some irresponsible psychopath that will run off with the bike or trade it for a ticket to Bangkok.” Rommel’s staff, John, Jack and Julian were agreeable about giving me a bike for a few hours to do a test drive and photo shoot for Bikernet. All set, just have to wait for delivery.
I had put the Street 500/750 project on the backburner for a few weeks, and then in early May, I came home from work and saw the new Harley-Davidson 500cc Street in my driveway, sitting pretty. Like a well oiled Benelli shotgun, slightly exotic, yet very familiar. I parked the Jeep and walked over for a closer look and developed an urge to jump railroads. Hell, the keys were in it, the tag looked right, so why not? I summoned Prince Najar and his eager henchman, T-Bag, so they could get a piece of this action too. They told me to bring it by the house for some video work and to check it out. A new bike is always worth taking a look at, and this one only had 38 miles on it.
I knew my daughter, Savannah, had just taken the last of her final exams that morning and would be up for a ride. We decided to meet at the walled compound, manned by Prince Najar and T-Bag, so she and I could go two-up for the videoed part of this test ride. I don’t recall ever reading a test ride done with a passenger, but it makes sense, unless you have a solo seat without a fender behind it, sooner or later you will take on a passenger.
With the camera rolling we hit the easy streets of western Durham, not much to worry about here except half-crazed mini-van drivers sipping thermoses of margaritas laced with prescription meds. The two-up ride went well, Savannah thought the Street 500 lacked an adequate passenger seat for longer rides and was extremely quiet (compared to my wake-the-dead two-into-ones on my Softail), but she thought it was a perfectly fine bike to take out on country roads or in town. Savannah would know she’s gone thousands of miles with me, camping in Colorado, the Outer Banks and a few Florida trips. What a good Daddy! Right? We finished up the video work and returned to the compound so she could go back to Raleigh and do whatever 18-year-olds do. It was time to speed this test ride up a bit.
Harley-Davidson has been pushing this bike as suitable for a wide range of riding and especially appropriate for the demands of urban pavement. My first plan of action was to go straight to the Canal Street speed bumps for a suspension test.
We fired past the gentrified outskirts of the hood and leaned hard onto Canal Street. I took it easy on the first bump, and then twisted it good on the second. The bike came down solid, no shaking parts, no sloppy bounce. I was safe here, the locals leave me alone because they think I’m crazy, and the police don’t know what this street looks like in the sunlight. After our tour of the hood, we hit 9th Street and rode by what’s left of Charlie’s Bar and the ghosts of baggers past. We then moved on to Main Street, along the edge of Duke University, past the dorm where Richard Nixon learned to screw his pants on every morning before class.
It was a good Carolina sunny day on a new motorcycle, perfect time for a cold one. The beer tastes good in Durham now, so many choices, so little effort and whammo, you’ve crossed into .08 BAC territory! I have to calculate my alcohol intake very carefully now because of the mad mothers and the amateurs with no driving skills. When I was in high school, ramming my Chevy Nova down the back roads of Central Pennsylvania, we treated drinking and driving as a sport. I was a champion! My sturdy Irish/Scandinavian genetic structure was my guardian angel well into the .20 BAC range.
After passing by some crowded hipster joints on Rigsby Avenue, we finally settled into Bull McCabe’s Irish Pub, you never go wrong with an Irish pub. Bull McCabe’s just put the finishing touches on an outdoor sheltered drinking area that overlooks a nice patch of lawn where the big dogs chase Frisbees, and about six parking spots that fill up with bikes during the warm Carolina summer nights. I downed two pints of Guinness, Prince Najar had four fingers of Tullamore Dew, a good Catholic whiskey, T-Bag had a tall Fullsteam IPA and we hit the streets again. We decided our buzz was just right to return to the back roads of Bahama; but not before a detour to the railroad tracks on Junction Road.
The pavement was steep and peaked at the near rail, you couldn’t drive an old-school Cadillac over these tracks without getting it hung up on the sharp angle, this was Jeep country. I felt like Evel Knevel when I made a few passes over the tracks to calculate my speed and landing situation. I figured I’d hit the ramp at about 30 then on subsequent passes, I’d increase my speed by five mph increments until I was satisfied that the edge was near; I was hoping to make GTP proud.
Prince Najar and T-Bag wanted nothing to do with this blatant abuse. After I dropped my demands for them to photograph my criminal acts, they agreed to at least stay to pick up the pieces if I dumped it. Then it happened, just as I was getting turned around for the first run, my spider-sense alerted me to trouble. I noticed an unmarked police car parked near a ball field on the other side of tracks. So, I figured this was a good time to head north to see what it can do on some ugly curves. We headed to Bahama, home of cold $2 beer and the site of eight motorcycle wrecks (one fatal) in the past year.
I figured I had put enough miles on the new tires to wear off the slippery new tire surface and expose some good rubber. So I hit the throttle some more halfway through the first curve on Bahama Road at the edge of Lake Michie, the bike’s suspension squatted as my speed increased around the curve. The 59.5 inch wheel base made its 480 pounds ride solidly within that sweet spot between stability and agility. The belt drive, the six speed transmission and low center of gravity all combined to keep the ride quick and smooth well past the 70 mph mark. The Street 750 hits 60 mph in just 4.6 seconds and can run the quarter mile in just under 14 seconds. I haven’t seen any numbers yet for the Street 500. There are faster bikes out there, but not everybody needs a high-dollar torqued-up rocket. Most of us just like to get around on two wheels without the need to blast through traffic and into the emergency room, or into handcuffs.
Bottom line, this bike has what it takes to move my 6 foot tall, 200 pound ass down the road, around curves, over speed bumps and train tracks and I like riding it. And I think it looks cool, in that 1970s XLCR Café Racer kind of way. Some of the specs that matter to me; How much gas does it hold? What’s the fuel economy? What’s the top speed with a 200 pound guy on it? When I pull a wheelie, will the front forks bottom out when I bring it down? I was surprised by the reviews I read about other new bike models coming out this year. Most of them were pure speculation based solely upon the manufacture’s info, like they had sat in a cubicle and phoned it in. What kind of punk would write about a new bike and NOT get on it for a ride? In my day job, we call that “pencil whipping.”
After I put the Harley Street 500cc through two more runs on the unforgiving Bahama Road “S” Curves, I ran a full throttle twist down Cassam Road and decided to get some attention when I pulled this little two wheeled Café Racin’ curve hugger into Van’s Bar. I came off the throttle, and then hit the rear brake enough to swing the ass end sideways across the gravel from the edge of the road to the front door. It was a reckless move, and will likely keep Rommel’s Harley shop from dropping these bikes off at the house anymore. I figured this may be my one and only chance to deal some calculated abuse to a brand new bike and brag about it.
After the cloud of dust settled, I saw some movement from behind the camouflage net draped over the lower level. The good folks at Van’s are used to me behind custom handlebars made by Hank Thibodeau, and they’re used to seeing me ride in very respectfully with, my girlfriend, Terre, looking over my shoulder. Van’s Bar is a rock solid-little country bar with cold beer, good people, three official bar dogs, and always a handful of bikes out front. The Andy Griffith show plays every afternoon. I knew I could rely on the wisdom of LD, Don, Fireman Glenn, TJ and Van to give me a good spectrum of opinions to aid my own judgment of this motorcycle. The consensus of the afternoon beer drinkin’ crowd at Van’s was all good.
They thought the horn sounded and looked funny but could be easily replaced by someone feeling strong enough about it. They also thought it would be a cool bike to customize because it had good basic geometry and a fairly familiar seating position. They agreed with Savannah’s recommendation for more of a passenger seat. I had read complaints about the brakes not being as responsive as they could be. My take on that is; these brakes are adequate for stopping the bike. I believe it is the rider’s responsibility to adjust their riding habits to their equipment, not the manufacture’s to turn the bike into something it’s not. Be flexible or you break.
The word around the campfire is this bike is tight, but it has some components that could use upgrades from the likes of Fab Kevin, Widowmaker or Led Sled before this bike wouldn’t be sneered at so quickly by the chopper crowd. My approach to evaluating this bike is enlightened with the strong belief that Harley had to do it to gain new customers. The Sportsters are okay, but they’ve had the reputation among the “lifestyle warriors” as a “ladies bike.” The “warriors” need to be tended to, they have some real money and are known to lay out $30,000+ for a big wheeled bagger to mount on their trailer and maybe strap down an 883L for the little woman to ride four miles from the hotel to Boot Hill Saloon during Bike Week. Right before the second oil change, they’ll sell the whole rig.
The Harley-Davidson Street 500/750s are a logical move based upon simple math. The bulk of Harley riders are aging out of their motorcycle riding years and the twenty to thirty fivers are not thinking $20,000 is a practical way to meet their two wheel transportation needs, especially if a new Dodge Dart gets better fuel economy than the big V-twins. These bikes will appeal to those young studs who’ve decided it’s time to ride off campus; they’ve sold their Vespa’s to incoming freshmen and need something more respectable to throw their leg over.
This age group has a dominate sense of unwashed pragmatism, and a smaller bike meets their basic needs without having to worry too much about anything but running out of gas. Not sensible to go into debt for what you WANT, makes better sense to buy what you NEED and avoid the interest rates.
This is a generation that has been raised without high school shop class. They haven’t been taught to respect machinery nor developed a desire to understand the role they should play to maintain their own equipment. They accept the fact that they need to pay somebody to work on anything they own, so the practical thing is to make sure there are fewer trips to the shop, less stuff to worry about. Fortunately, many of them are sensible enough to believe it is always better to buy American made products when given the choice. Add gas, turn it on, pay later, don’t worry be happy.
Motorcycle technology has run with two priorities since S. H. Roper’s 1869 Steam-cycle. The first priority is bigger and faster and the other is reliability. The earliest bikes needed to have their cylinders oiled with hand pumps which made the rider worry about how far and how fast they were riding between oil squirts. Since then, the engineers have reduced our worries by giving us fuel injection, self-canceling turn signals, gel batteries, electric starts and liquid cooled engines. I know I worried about my own bike overheating at the start of Long Road 2011 in New Orleans, when the dial on the dipstick went about a quarter turn further than normal.
At the end of the ride, I took one more look at the 500 Street and tried to visualize camping gear for two and my little hottie, Terre, on the back seat. Looks like it might be a tight squeeze, better keep this bike for running errands around town; half-day rides into the country or a quick ride through the French Quarter without thinking about the cylinders swelling to a stop.
The Street 750cc is due at Rommel’s Harley-Davidson in June, maybe I’ll give those train tracks another try.
Watch the ride on Utube:
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