Harley-Davidson Presents: Instrument of Expression | 2022 Nightster
The Sportster's like the first American muscle on two wheels And there she goes. Harley-Davidson's racing team perfected the bike The fastest man has ever gone on two wheels. It's like tipping back in the seat. - Hey Ben. - Ashley.
Thinking about what I'm going to say about the Nightster. Go through some of the design process. Tough decisions. I know we went back and forth on this guy a few times. And I think it's, you know, about the experience when riding this bike. - Don't screw up your lines. - Yeah.
I'll try not to. - What's up, guys? - Hey, Kyle! Let's do it! With any Harley Davidson, the engine is the heart of the motorcycle, and with Revolution Max, Pan America and with Nightster, we've taken that really literally. We started with the engine, the frames bolt to the front, subframes bolt to the back, and that's what creates the motorcycle.
We're delivering this powertrain with a brand new displacement. So, 975 cc, variable valve timing, a downdraft air intake system that really helps this engine deliver torque, deliver power, and seeing it finally come together is pretty exciting. There's nothing on this bike that doesn't need to be there. The soul of this motorcycle is gritty and rebel and raw. And so that's where we get some of these cast looking finishes and really pull some of the surfaces forward and backwards.
And that's how we play with your eye and give it visual interest. The Revolution, Max has a really interesting combination of all that technology, all that performance, the power, the torque, but at the same time, it's got all the craftsmanship that comes along with being built at Pilgrim Road, here in Milwaukee. The weight of the new Nighster is 485 pounds. You know, that's nearly an 80-pound reduction over Sportsters of today.
Pull it up off the kickstand, you'll feel how light this is. And as you ride down the road, the handling that comes with it. Those two come together and they really make for a rocketship of a motorcycle once you throw your leg over this. And one of the biggest challenges with Nightster was trying to cram this beast of an engine and fitting that into something that's recognizably Sportster, that has that iconic silhouette and that millions of people around the world are familiar with and know and love. That's probably one of the biggest points of tension in the project is how do you solve that combination of fuel, air volume, running into that proportion and silhouette that people expect? And then in the end, the dual outboard shocks and the architecture of the motorcycle allowed a really radical solution to put the fuel underneath the seat. And that frees up the area that would traditionally be the fuel tank up here to become only air box and it allowed us to get this into the size of the old Sportster fuel tank.
There are other benefits that we get from that, too. When we move the fuel tank underneath the seat here, the center of gravity of the bike stays low, which actually helps to make this bike feel even lighter and more maneuverable. We've increased the lean angle by three to five degrees on each side of the bike compared to Sportsters of today. We have three ride modes in rain, road, and sport. Especially, riding this bike in sport mode, this bike is fast! You can run it all the way out to over 9000 rpm and it just keeps pulling, and pulling, and pulling the whole way. It almost feels like you have two different types of engine, right? Like, if you're used to riding Harley-Davidson, it's like the low end of 5 or 6000 rpm might feel a little bit familiar to you. But on top of that, you've got like this whole other rev range and this whole other character that really brings the horsepower, it brings the speed and the exhilaration to this bike.
So when we design a motorcycle, we're always making sure that the choices that we make enable customization and they allow riders and builders to make these bikes their own kind of instruments of expression. One small example of that on Nighster is that we're using a separate riser system in that, you could put tall risers on there, you can put a differently shaped handlebar on there. But the choices that we've made in the design in that particular area, they're not precluding any style of motorcycle.
You can build it with clip ons, you can build it with a T-bar, you can build it with ape hangers, just really flexible. Hundreds of people at Harley-Davidson have put their daytimes, and their nighttimes, and their weekends and their holidays into making this bike what it is here today. And so we're excited to be able to showcase that effort and send it off into the world and see what riders do with it, see what builders do with it, see what kind of life it takes on beyond these walls. All right.
Alwin, we good? All right. Yeah. First take. Just see what happens, mate. Let's see what happens. I don't think anybody buys a Harley-Davidson just because it's a motorcycle. I think, it's because Harley
Davidson is an emotion. working on Harleys and a lot of them are Sportsters. But it's not just about the motorcycle. It's the vibe. It's the community.
It's now my work. It's my life. You know, my first Harley was a Sportster. My girlfriend's first Harley was a Sportster.
The first Harley I raced was a Sportster. It's versatile. They're a great canvas for for custom builds as well, you know, and now we've taken it to the next generation of the Sportster. And now I've got to redesign it.
I mean, the good thing with custom building is there's no right and wrong. You know, it's like it's all down to someone's opinion. I kind of know how the bike is finished before I lay my hands on it. So I try to visualize a lot before I start. Going over ideas back and forth. Stand back, have a coffee, have another look, and I'm building in my head. Or I just take a bike, strip it back to kind of what we have here, and then you can see the bones for everything.
You know, what you can sacrifice, what you can move. Just trying to break that off... We don't need that. Everything is redesigned.
The technology is lightyears ahead of what we've had before. And an animal of a motor. Loads and loads of power. It's very different to any Sportster that we've ever seen. But when you take everything off and you look at the bare bones, the chassis, the motor the swinging arm, the wheels, you know, it's very much a Sportster.
You know, a simple design is sometimes the best design. It's an awesome looking machine. And that's kind of what the Sportster has been for many, many decades. If it's not broken, don't change it. I don't think of work as work. You know, this is just a way of life.
It's what what we do. I mean, my dad and I eat, sleep and breathe motorcycles. Good afternoon, Perewitz. People ask me, "How long you been doing this?". Well, the last job I had was in 1970. Yeah, we definitely like to be noticed.
We like to stick out, but it's a nice bright color. And everyone will say: "Oh, which one's Jody Perewitz's bike?". "Oh, the teal one?". "Oh, I saw that one!". I hope that when I'm into my dad's age, I still love what I do, because he's still out there doing it for 50 years. Here, here and here.
He's still here every day. I can tell the consistency of this paint, how long it takes before that stream turns to a drip. I can't wait to get all these together and on the bike. People say that this is magic, can transform something into our work. Art is something creative, can be anything. A socket.
I gotta' get in there and do it. I feel so cool. Another o-ring and then the spacer. That's it. Ed should be out here. Wow! That sounds so good...
Can't wait 'til it actually runs. I know, me too. That's what I was thinking. Yeah it will, like even just a little bit of throttle you can give it... it's like, ha...
What intrigues me is problem solving. I think of it as like a creative engineer. You know, and thinking like: "Now that can't be done". And then figuring out a way and making it happen. You know, typically when I start a build, I will literally spend more time staring at it than probably the time I spend executing it.
There's a lot of different equations that need to work out in order to move forward with an idea What I do, I think take pride in, is being able to build something that I know can handle on the track. Whenever I think of a Hooligan bike, I think of like an older sporty, somebody picked up pretty cheap, found in someone's garage, or dug it out of grandpa's barn or something. A few modifications to it and then get out there and run it on the track. You know, that's sort of the whole concept with this.
After staring at this new platform for a while, it just kind of lent itself to moving in that direction. I just think it's got more classic lines. It's more traditional Sportster. So that's kind of where we're heading with this deal here. All right, so check this out. This is going to be the yellow, which is going to be our secondary, but pretty much our primary color and this will be black. Dude, even if we...
Yeah, right. That's good. Yeah, that's gonna work. If you ask any custom builder out there if there's one particular thing on a fully custom build, what really sets a lot of these builds apart, I think a real true custom exhaust does a lot.
A lot of times I won't even build the exhaust until the rest of the build's done. And then that'll be the last piece of the puzzle. If the lines didn't quite line up the way I wanted it to on this exhaust, I'd probably be rebuilding it. Yeah. Making a new one, but it lines.
Yeah, I don't like to build things that I know aren't going to last. I've got a few guys that ride really, really hard, so I know that we need to put some of the best equipment that we can on their builds, because they need it. They're going to utilize it. It felt good. Yeah. I had a really nice time.
That was a really nice time. So it's two chuggy build, two chuggy melody two chuggy power melody and then you're off to wherever you want to go. You know what, our company is run by emotion and I think that's very unique and I hope it goes on forever. That's what I hope.
2022-04-19 00:10
