Travel is supposed to teach you things about yourself: your ability to shrug off snapped carburetor pins in rapidly failing light for example, or just how much of that open road remains a dream come true when the beer is warm and you’ve just planted your behind on a colony of biting ants.
Insights into my own awesomeness (and idiocy, oh yes, and idiocy) are why I travel, but I have to say it was a surprise to discover on my most recent trip that I have, and I’m still struggling with this, strangely short arms.
Perhaps they’re only short by North American standards. Having had such an excellent time during my inaugural, week-long visit to the U-S-of-A, and having met such nice, welcoming people, I’d be the last to suggest they’re in any way a nation of knuckle draggers. That would be poor manners and anyway quite untrue, but unfortunately it leaves me with just the one alternative. It must be me. T-Rex boy: the only guy on the Harley Davidson tour with the audacity to ask for his bars to be pulled (just a little bit!) back because, well, I couldn’t quite reach.
I’ve been riding motorbikes for six or seven years now – exclusively enduro and adventure bikes with long seats (all the easier to slide yourself forward on, I now realise) and pretty standard, straight out, no fuss, handle bars. Until a few weeks ago I’d never ridden a chopper or any kind of street cruiser, let alone the king of custom motorbiking, the Harley Davidson. Before this I’d had no cause to suspect my freakish shortcoming. My feet reached the pegs okay, but as I looked around the group it was unavoidably apparent that while everyone else had relaxed, super-cool, bent-looking elbows, my arms were two out-thrust battering rams – like some old school Street Fighter move: forward, forward, high-punch, high-PUNCH!
Now Harley are keen to point out that they have over 10,000 genuine, after market parts and accessories available for their custom-loving clientele. Buying yourself a Harley involves far more than just picking a model and stocking up on chrome polish. In fact with all those custom parts you can take an off-the-floor bike and get so crazy on it it’ll soon be unrecognisable from the original. Over time most Harley riders will have added a bit here and a bit there until their bikes are truly their own unique creation. Even before you ride out of the show room, you’ll have a ‘fitting;’ each peg moved forward or back, the seat checked and adjusted, the suspension raised or lowered, and so yes, if you have a minor syndrome of the diminished limb variety, the bars can come back into your lap too.
The bike in question was their new ‘Seventy-Two’ custom, just released in South Africa this year. It’s a beautiful old-school cruiser with shoulder-high mini-apes – those classic, easy-rider handle bars that, with the soles of your shoes thrust out wide in front, make you feel like the king of the road (or, in my case, king of the Cretaceous anyway). I’m a dirt-loving single cylinder biker, but despite feeling a bit of a spatchcock at first, the riding position and sheer style of the machine didn’t take long to win me over. I’m not saying I’m going to trade in my thumper just yet, but there’s no doubt I’d jump at the chance to ride one again.
I spent three days riding around Miami, including a nine-hour blast down to Key West and back on a matte-black Night Rod Special – a 1130cc, 115Nm beast just about as different from the classic 72 as you can get. The surprise to me was that they’re both still very much under the Harley Davidson umbrella. It’s all about the customisation. For day trips, long distance touring or simple city cruising Harley has options (and options on top of options) that I never knew existed and if, like me, you’re too lazy for hours of diligent chrome polishing, you’ll be happy to learn that it doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite anymore. I’m already thinking that there might, one day, be place in my garage for something other than a line of dirt bikes. But should it be the Night Rod or the 72? It’s going to be a tough choice if I’m ever forced to make it. Actually, what am I saying? It’ll just come down to whichever has the best feel – once I shift the seat forward and the bars back a bit.
This blog was inspired by my Harley-Davidson Experience trip to Miami in early 2012, which in turn led to another expedition through the Western Cape later that year and an article in Getaway Magazine in October 2012. Check out our latest magazine here.
