- 5/14/2025
Would you believe the great success of the Harley-Davidson Softail started in one man's private garage? Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about the FX of 1971 and how the Softail was born, plus how Dyna fits into the picture.
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Looking to buy? Get prequalified
https://octane.co/flex/1?a=171
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
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00:00:00Welcome to the Cycle World Podcast. Kevin Cameron, our technical editor, is here today with me, as usual, and I am Mark Hoyer, the editor-in-chief.
00:00:09The topic today is germane to some recent news, and that is the return of the gray ghost, or the Harley-Davidson fat boy.
00:00:20And in a 35th anniversary commemorative color, it's part of the Icons collection where Harley takes one iconic model that it redoes from its history per year, and, you know, to honor their past and highlight their history.
00:00:41And the fat boy is certainly, uh, was a, was a big one for, for them. It, it signified a shift in design, at least for me looking at, um, and also for the, the lead designer, Brad Richards, the, uh, vice president of styling and, uh, design and, uh, yeah, real, real change.
00:01:02Anyway, now that's the soft tail. Uh, but before the soft tail was the Harley-Davidson Dyna and, uh,
00:01:11there's a lot going on. There's just, as, as, as ever with Harley-Davidson, there's a lot going, a lot going on and cultural currents and the buyback, um, 1981, 13, uh, 13 folks placing their bets, putting all the,
00:01:27Maxing out their credit cards.
00:01:29Well, and the word, yeah. And at possibly the worst possible time to do that. I mean, interest rates were insane. Like you did not want to be incredibly leveraged in 1981,
00:01:39but, uh, as, uh, as Jerry Wilkie said, who was there for that, I think he was hired in 1975 and he helped direct product. He was actually on the team that, um, helped to come up with the fat boy.
00:01:55He bought the, uh, original, they called it the low boy. And it was a custom that was built in Montreal, uh, the Harley dealer, Harley dealer in Montreal.
00:02:03And, uh, it had disc wheels. It had a distinct look. It didn't look necessarily like what the fat boy, uh, turned into, you know, Harley really put a stamp on it.
00:02:14But Jerry Wilkie was the guy visiting the dealer and he said, you always go to the service department, really see what's going on.
00:02:20You know, the dealer is their customer and the customer is their customer.
00:02:23And the really good dealers who were cultural centers were making custom motorcycles with Harley products to sell to their customers and to, you know, build a relationship and make an impact.
00:02:35And that's where, uh, fat boy came from. But Jerry was there and he said, uh, uh, what did he say?
00:02:42When you're staring at the guillotine, it really brings focus.
00:02:45And so that was, that was his comment about just the, the buyback and, and how tight things were in that, the coming of the Evo.
00:02:53So we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. Um, so I'll, I'll get, as Kevin does so well, we'll, we'll start with the origin story where the, the molecules somehow seemed to blow and, and there was light and Harley Davidson.
00:03:10Well, the way, the way it appears to me is that, uh, in the post-war years, which really extended into the sixties, the effect of the war on the economy and on the people in this country, um, there was the sort of comfortable, uh, mom and pop touring population of people who went to, uh, Sunday breakfast,
00:03:40breakfast with other motorcyclists and who rode long distances on their heavy touring bikes.
00:03:47And then there were the young blades with their sportsers who were going to the ebb tide up north of Boston to, uh, listen to, uh, the flamingos.
00:04:01Well, along comes the movie, um, easy rider, and it shows radical customs.
00:04:10In a romantic setting of desperate young men who are trying to do something of their own, not simply to sit, keeping a corporate chair warm for the duration of their working lives, but to cut loose and go.
00:04:30And so in 1971, Harley took a small step, which was at the time, modestly hailed as the first factory custom, namely FX.
00:04:43And what that was, was the back end, basically of, uh, of an FL and the front end of a sportster, which was, uh, longer, slightly, uh, chopper-ish looking.
00:05:02And then in 82, um, no, in 1980, uh, Harley put rubber mounts on, uh, made them available on the tour bikes.
00:05:15And then rubber mounting was made possible, uh, for, uh, the, uh, FX, which became, uh, FXR.
00:05:27And in 91, the back and forthing with the idea that radical custom look could be a third way for Harley Davidson,
00:05:42which it certainly, uh, which it certainly, certainly has been in a very big way.
00:05:47What, what have we got here?
00:05:49Let's study this.
00:05:51And, uh, in 91 came the actual Dyna name.
00:05:58And this was a motorcycle with, uh, rubber mounted engine, uh, twin rear shocks and swing arm with the shocks that leaned forward.
00:06:11And a variety of front ends could be, uh, applied to this with this four tubes spaced more widely apart or more closely together.
00:06:21Front wheel with, uh, various, uh, pertinences.
00:06:26Um, and I think it was decided both by the public and by Harley Davidson.
00:06:36Yes, there's something here.
00:06:39And the notion of putting the big twin into a, a lighter, more manageable motorcycle, which was,
00:06:51Californians might call it a beach cruiser, but, um, this was a motorcycle on which you could make yourself seen in your scenes.
00:07:04And a lot of people went for this and a proliferation of options made it less and less likely that you were going to see anybody on the same motorcycle that you were riding.
00:07:20Because these machines, some of them were produced in quantities like 1500.
00:07:25That's not a lot of machines.
00:07:27If you sprinkle them over 50 States.
00:07:32Indeed.
00:07:33The world, Kevin.
00:07:35Yes.
00:07:35The world.
00:07:36Let's not forget export because it has always been very important in Milwaukee.
00:07:41And I think that's wonderful because of course, uh, the temptation of the motorcycling, the sort of the, the Japanese bike crowd is to regard, uh, the Milwaukee vibrator as a product of conservatism or even fear of the new.
00:08:02But the people in Milwaukee turned out right from the beginning to have been well-informed.
00:08:10And if they were conservative, it was because that enabled them to survive the depression, which Indian almost didn't.
00:08:191933, they produced 1600 motorcycles.
00:08:24That was the whole production for Indian.
00:08:27And Indian was always doing crazy stuff like, oh, there's some single cylinder leftover frames in the back.
00:08:34Maybe we could put the 45 in those and, you know, call it something.
00:08:39See, run up the flag, see who salutes it.
00:08:41Indian always in those days, twenties and thirties had suicidal tendencies at the same time, they were producing these advanced racing singles.
00:08:55So it's, it was a scene.
00:08:58Yeah.
00:08:58The Indian were super, you know, uh, Dinah was joined in due course by the, the big diagonal.
00:09:10The obvious straight line from the steering head down to the rear axle, accentuated by the hardtail looking, but actually suspended with a triangular swing arm.
00:09:28Um, it was suspension disguised as a hardtail.
00:09:32So they called it softtail.
00:09:35So, and softtail had certain inherent problems.
00:09:42Um, one of them would be 3.4 inches of wheel travel where Dinah had, uh, 4.1.
00:09:54Well, big deal.
00:09:55Seven tenths of an inch.
00:09:57But what happens is energy absorbing ability of a suspension is proportional to the square of the travel.
00:10:07So 1.2 difference squared, it becomes 1.44, 44% more, uh, bump absorbing capability.
00:10:18So part of, this is part of the reason that people, uh, had reservations about softtail because how are you going to adjust preload?
00:10:30You couldn't.
00:10:31So if you had a passenger, your wheel travel went away.
00:10:36Um, not necessarily a lot of ground clearance.
00:10:40Back and forth it went.
00:10:41But, uh, some people like it this way and some people like it that way.
00:10:49Also, uh, just as Eric Buell had had problems getting the suspension manufacturers to make a shock that would have reverse action.
00:11:02That is, it would extend when the wheel compressed, um, Harley had the clout to get it done.
00:11:13Well, it's a, I think it's a very interesting story because they had the twin shock.
00:11:18They had Dinah and, uh, a fella approached them.
00:11:22This, uh, fella from St. Louis, an engineer and enthusiast, Bill Davis.
00:11:28He wanted a hardtail look.
00:11:30I think he had a super glide and he wanted a hardtail look and being an engineer and a tinkerer, he, he worked something up.
00:11:37He called it the sub shock because it took the shocks and it moved them under the bike.
00:11:42And there's a famous marketing photo, uh, that they parked the motorcycle on glass probably.
00:11:48And they shot the motorcycle from below and you see the tires and you see the pair of shocks there.
00:11:53So, you know, this fella did that and he, he tried to get Harley to buy it sooner and they didn't.
00:12:00And I think he did a bit more engineering and came back later, uh, circa 1982.
00:12:05And they were like, Hmm, this is interesting.
00:12:07And they were able to get that line you're talking about steering head to axle, that straight line, what they've been selling since with the, with the 61, the original knucklehead.
00:12:19And, um, yeah, I mean, it, uh, it was really evocative for people.
00:12:25It was, it really clicked into the cultural mind of all the things that we'd experienced at that time.
00:12:31You know, there's even into the eighties, how many, how many people, you know, were alive or had relatives and how many of those bikes were still on the road and making the visual impression and an audible one as well.
00:12:43So, uh, Bill Davis, you know, he's, he's the guy and they, they licensed it.
00:12:49And, um,
00:12:50He had them in production for a while.
00:12:52Yeah.
00:12:52It was road works.
00:12:53He had a company put together with the sub shock, they called it.
00:12:57And, uh, I think he was ultimately abandoned by his investors and left with the debt, which I think made him more amenable to making a deal with Harley.
00:13:06Although Harley was also more amenable, I think, to, to doing that.
00:13:09I talked to Jerry, um, Wilkie about that, uh, who was there and, um, in product planning and even going into, I mean, in 84, you know, they had the Evo and they knew that they could, they, they had to have the engine and they did.
00:13:26They got an engine that was a big, big step forward for them.
00:13:30It certainly was.
00:13:31And, uh, but they were still placing big bets.
00:13:36This was, you know, this was not a research driven, well-funded company.
00:13:42This was a bunch of hard.
00:13:44This was do or die.
00:13:45Well, this was hardcore enthusiasts.
00:13:47I mean, he, you know, at the buyout, I think 40% of salaried workers were laid off.
00:13:55It's a big deal, man.
00:13:56But you get the people who stay are the deepest into the religion, right?
00:14:03Typically, right.
00:14:05If you're going to place the bet on your career, you know, you have a family, you have kids, uh, you got a dog.
00:14:12You're going to, you know, you got to really be into it.
00:14:15Yeah.
00:14:16So, uh, these two, these two motorcycles were, uh, fairly different in the people who were familiar with them, riding them all the time, uh, regarded, uh, soft tail as being less, having less pleasing dynamics.
00:14:43You couldn't lean it over as far, um, by the time a realistic load was on it, it didn't have much suspension travel.
00:14:53And, uh, if you look at the structure of the soft tail swing arm, the pivot is actually in the vertical between the, the two struts.
00:15:06The pivot is here.
00:15:08So this piece is loaded in bending and it's, uh, a little different from a normal swing arm in which the load path is, is quite direct.
00:15:22The swing arm beam goes to the pivot.
00:15:24So on the other hand, there's Dinah, um, which when it was given rubber mounted engine had to have an extremely modern looking chassis.
00:15:41So they gave it this wonderful piece of square tubing that went up to the, uh, steering head and the bottom of this tube was reinforced for a considerable distance from the steering head back.
00:15:55And of course there were people out there, grousing, rubber mounting makes a thing 50 pounds heavier.
00:16:02Well, if you take out the stiffening effect of a rigid mounted engine and instead have the engine sitting in these bowls of jelly, you're going to have to come up with, uh, a stiffer chassis to replace the loss of stiffness.
00:16:19Well, related story, uh, BMW, uh, with their K engine, the, uh, lay down inline four, when they came out with the R 1200 S it was, or, uh, Oh God, what year would that have been?
00:16:39Uh, somewhere around 98, perhaps they took that inline four and they were trying to get rid of the buzz cause they were always notorious for having a bit of a buzz and it was an inline forest too.
00:16:56Yep. And it was a stressed member. And, uh, with that K bike, the sport tour, they built a great big frame to go over it and rubber mounted it.
00:17:06So you had an engine that was structurally ready to be a stressed member, not doing it anymore.
00:17:13That thing was 628 pounds to the sport tour because it loaded up.
00:17:19It needed the stiffness of that chassis to hang the thing in bowls of jelly, as you say.
00:17:25And, uh, yeah, related story. Anyway, we've seen a few bikes.
00:17:29There have been, um, events with, with rubber mounting. If you put on a lot of miles, if you, if you allow the rubber mounts to become oily and, uh, stay that way for a long period of time, there can be deterioration and excessive engine motion.
00:17:50There were what they called stabilizing links that made sure that the engine stayed in the central plane of the motorcycle.
00:17:58Uh, Eric Buell, uh, started that kind of thing, uh, on his own because it was really a reprise of Norton Isolastic in which they said, well, the two pistons are moving together.
00:18:14So the engine doesn't rock from side to side. Why don't we let it orbit in its own plane and there won't be any wobbling.
00:18:25Let's, but it is possible if, if, uh, advisable maintenance is not adhered to that.
00:18:34That the engine in a rubber mounted machine can become, uh, less firmly coupled to things.
00:18:41And if you read, uh, the, uh, forums, you'll find people talking about wobbling and weaving and the engine's going its way and the chassis is going its way.
00:18:54Well, this is, this is, this is something that can happen.
00:19:00And this is a reason why extra weight is added to the chassis in the form of independent stiffness.
00:19:09Well, uh, around the turn of the century, here comes the balanced, um, twin cam.
00:19:18Um, and so the twin cam 88 came out and then not long after that was the twin cam 88 B or beta.
00:19:26Yes.
00:19:27The twin cam first, then, then the B model, which had two, uh, primary balancers, one ahead of, and one behind the crankshaft driven by a chain.
00:19:40And, uh, I went to the intro on that balancing setup and, uh,
00:19:48it was interesting because there was a transmission engineer there who said, who told us the moment we smoothed the engine out, we had shift trouble and clutch.
00:19:58And yeah.
00:20:00And of course, any of you who've been through the shift mechanism of the motorcycle gearbox knows that there is a detent, uh, that holds the shift drum,
00:20:12which has cam slots cut in it that caused the movement of the shift forks to move the gears into, from one position to another.
00:20:22Those detents will hold the drum in the desired orientation for each gear and for neutral.
00:20:30Well, uh, without, uh, without the engine shaking, rattling and rolling, um, sometimes the shift drum didn't make it all the way to the next detent.
00:20:44And so then you were stuck between gears, a neutral between gears.
00:20:50And this engineer described the very same procedures that I had to teach myself in 1970 to make my,
00:21:00H-1R road race like transmission shift smoothly.
00:21:07Um, it shouldn't be a surprise.
00:21:09A transmission is a transmission.
00:21:11They were both, uh, drum shifted, uh, gearboxes.
00:21:16So when they made the appropriate changes, gear changing became smooth and sure again.
00:21:22And you had a balanced engine, um, that could once again, be bolted rigidly into the chassis.
00:21:33Well, eventually.
00:21:34I like the quote.
00:21:35I like the quote at the time that we had a, uh, an interview with the engineer was what you were involved with.
00:21:41And he said, it was time to stop beating up the customer.
00:21:44That's what they said.
00:21:46So, so yeah, those, the original, you know, the rigid mount, um, on counterbalanced, uh, soft tails were pretty vibratory.
00:21:55You know, if you really revved them up, especially, you know, and if you rode the torque and you kept them like 2000 or whatever, it was, it was sort of fine, but man, you can't beat it.
00:22:03I put a lot of miles on the original, uh, counterbalance soft tail and it was a really nice motorcycle.
00:22:10You know, like what a, what a change and you think, you know, it's weird.
00:22:15It's this conservatism of Harley.
00:22:18And I think it's, it's sort of Harley's rock and hard place is that you have to change the motorcycle enough to make it appealing to people, but you can't change it too much because then it isn't necessarily what they expect it to be.
00:22:36So there's this very fine line of putting it.
00:22:40But at the same time, uh, they said that in their, um, marketing research, they found that Harley riders did want good function.
00:22:51They wanted good performance.
00:22:53They wanted light responsive steering, all the benefits of modern motorcycle design.
00:23:00So this was a problem of somehow importing these qualities, the balanced engine, the, uh, steering axis, centering the weight of the steered frame, the front wheel and the fork, so that you weren't like you're pushing a loaded shopping cart.
00:23:23And when you try to steer it, you're, you're, you're having to accelerate this mass that is not on the center and it takes effort, but they got subtle and they made these changes and people like them.
00:23:40And there are old timers who want to be vibrated until the bottoms of their feet become red and sore.
00:23:50Uh, that's fine.
00:23:52Uh, that's fine.
00:23:52They're welcome.
00:23:53But what people want evolves over time.
00:23:58A lot of people who have bought Harleys did so after having owned several other brands of motorcycle.
00:24:04So they knew that relative freedom from vibration was possible.
00:24:11They knew that light steering was possible.
00:24:13And Harley knew that they knew because they talked to them about it.
00:24:19So these improvements were fitted into the motorcycle as it evolved, uh, to keep it a, an up to date vehicle that still felt like a Harley.
00:24:33And above all, still was a Harley.
00:24:37Yeah.
00:24:37It looked right.
00:24:39It sounded right.
00:24:40It was right.
00:24:41There was an interesting period of time there where they did twin cam and, and a twin cam 88 B and the sportster was not updated.
00:24:49They did the rubber mounting.
00:24:50I think it was the O four model year and we did stuff with it in no three, uh, to be ready for that.
00:24:56But, uh, where when they, when they were redoing the sportster, the sportster had a heavier clutch pull than the twin cam bikes.
00:25:08And of course it vibrated a lot more.
00:25:09So that was, that was their motivation to rubber mount the sportster.
00:25:12And they did a bunch of other stuff to, to, again, you know, bring it into more modern times and, and take some of the onus off of the, uh, operator a little bit.
00:25:22Diaphragm spring.
00:25:23Yeah.
00:25:24That kind of thing.
00:25:27A diaphragm spring, um, becomes softer.
00:25:30The more you, the more you deflect it.
00:25:32So when you're lifting, when you're pulling the clutch in, the force is, is, uh, strongest when you first pull the lever, but then it gets easier.
00:25:41As on a Norton commando.
00:25:42And as we recently discussed, I feel certain that they, you said they definitely had an English engineer on the, uh, Evo and around during that time.
00:25:53And we ended up with, I think, uh, 58 degree included valve angle, like a Norton on the Evo.
00:26:00So, and we got rubber mounting and I think we had, uh, combustion chambers that were possibly inspired by Norton commando.
00:26:09I don't know.
00:26:10But, uh, and then we, and then we end up with a diaphragm spring, like a Norton commando.
00:26:14Like the Norton.
00:26:15Yes.
00:26:15Well, that's a, that's a result of drinking in more than one bar.
00:26:22Um, it's nice to see your friends, but it's nice to hear something new, a new viewpoint from time to time.
00:26:29And of course, that's what Harley engineers were looking for when they went on that 1924 trip to England, Europe, and the down under countries.
00:26:38Find out what the other people were up to.
00:26:40So, so the big, uh, showdown came in 17 when it was decided to, as it was put, merge Dinah and Softail, uh, which visually means park the Dinah over there.
00:27:02Here's the Softail.
00:27:03And a primary reason that was given was, uh, economic.
00:27:10And at the time, a, uh, chassis redesign took place in which the chassis was made about a third stiffer, um, with fewer components and a reduced number of welds.
00:27:28And as you may know, uh, Japanese have pursued this, uh, direction because welding takes time to do properly, even if it's a robot that's doing it.
00:27:42And your overheads are doing the equivalent of tapping on the desk while all that welding is going on.
00:27:50So the, the, the mere passage of time is costing them something.
00:27:55Yamaha ended up with a chassis with no welds.
00:27:59This is the goal is to simplify and lighten things and rationalize them.
00:28:06So they work extremely well and look good.
00:28:09So, uh, when the, uh, Milwaukee 8 engine was presented to, uh, the Dinah, uh, reinforced chassis, of course, there wasn't room for it.
00:28:22It's too tall.
00:28:24And that's another thing that was cited at the time as, uh, hey, you Dinah people, uh, we're really sorry about, you know, killing your favorite line.
00:28:35It was an interesting period of time because, uh, Dinah, if you look, especially on the West coast, if you look at sort of the, the Dinah nation type thing, it was, it was where all the action was.
00:28:49It was all those performance people.
00:28:51You had the low rider S which came out six, it was a 16 and a half and a 17 model.
00:28:57And it was, it was knowingly put together outside of normal product planning as the swan song for the Dinah.
00:29:03They just said like, how can we make something cool?
00:29:06And, uh, you know, it's, and the good product planning does that good product planning, as we've discussed, kind of predicts what the customer wants before they want it.
00:29:17And often can happen without research, not without it, but there is a, there is a relationship with the broader customer base and natural intelligence.
00:29:33It's right.
00:29:33The not artificial, but natural intelligence of, of living in the culture and going to all the events and modifying your own bikes and paying your own money.
00:29:44Like I think to me, leadership at a motorcycle company, all the business sense and all that stuff is really important, but you have to be, um, you have to have a history of riding in bad weather and spending your own money on motorcycles.
00:30:03It's not something that you, you know, that you get delivered to you because you get the job and it goes in your garage and you put a couple of hundred miles on it.
00:30:10It's, I just gotta, right?
00:30:13Like, why did you go to Daytona?
00:30:15Why did you get in a van every year to go to Daytona?
00:30:18Like, let's talk.
00:30:19Is that rational?
00:30:20No, it isn't rational.
00:30:21In the 1960s, um, people talked about motorcycles as leisure products and they carried on into the 1970s talking that way.
00:30:33And it offended me so much because it compared the motorcycle with a folded up and roll it into the closet treadmill.
00:30:45It's going to stay in the closet forever.
00:30:48That's why it folds up.
00:30:49So you won't be reproached by it standing there saying you want to get on and maybe put in an hour or so.
00:30:56Well, the motorcycle beckons and the motorcyclist yearns for the motorcycle in return.
00:31:05So, uh, this is not leisure activity.
00:31:10This is part of the rider's life that is very important because you can look at the number of times that the motorcycle has prevailed in the individual's life and other important influences have not.
00:31:26So, uh, as I know well myself.
00:31:32Motorcycle DNA.
00:31:35It's in you, right?
00:31:37Well, the thing is that, uh, the rider and the motorcycle are a cooperative entity which generates, well, the Israeli Air Force saying speed is life.
00:31:50And the Bentley manual from, with its forward written by Mr. Honda himself said primarily essentials of the motorcycle consist in the speed and thrill.
00:32:05And while we might not all put it that way and we're not, um, implying that Harley-Davidson's are crotch rockets, something's going on along those lines.
00:32:19So, somehow, Harley-Davidson's have come from three speeds, which they were for a long time, to four, then to five, and now to six.
00:32:32And there are good reasons for doing it.
00:32:34The Milwaukee 8 is a change to the classic line of Harley Big Twins that is akin to Honda's changing the Goldwing to four valves per cylinder.
00:32:48Because once you do that, you can shorten the timing and you can fatten up the bottom end torque without having the engine wheeze out on top end, which is what can happen with two valves.
00:33:03You've heard of the Shed Roof Torque Curve.
00:33:07It jumps up to a high value at low RPM and slowly declines as you rev up.
00:33:16Even the XR750 Dirt Tracker has this torque curve.
00:33:21The torque is falling at about six foot pounds, pounds feet, pardon me, per thousand revolutions in the torque band.
00:33:30So, this is characteristic of a two-valve engine with short timing.
00:33:40So, this allows the combination of adequate airflow and strong bottom torque, which is why these new engines have quite a lot of power on top and undiminished torque on the bottom.
00:34:00And I never thought I'd see it, but they did it.
00:34:05And in order to make two paired exhaust valves, which are quite close to each other, viable,
00:34:13they had to add strategic cooling of the exhaust valve seat region, either by oil or by engine cooling.
00:34:23And that allows an engine with fins to soldier on into the 21st century.
00:34:31Yeah, that's the fabled exhaust bridge, right?
00:34:34That area between the two exhaust valves that we definitely want to keep cool.
00:34:38Keep cool.
00:34:40Yeah.
00:34:40And that's why often if you look at a diagram of cylinder heads of modern four-valve engines,
00:34:49the air-cooled ones, the two intakes are quite close to each other,
00:34:55and the two exhaust valves are as far from each other as the dimensions of the cylinder will allow,
00:35:00as though they were mutually distasteful.
00:35:04You just stay over there.
00:35:07The reason is to make the exhaust bridge, the material between the two exhaust valve seats,
00:35:14as substantial as possible so that it can conduct away the heat that is received in that region
00:35:23in high concentration.
00:35:29Another change that was important when the Dyna-Softail merge, in quotes, took place,
00:35:38was to switch to a single shock coil-over shock on top, under the seat,
00:35:50which goes from the top of the swing arm up to the steering head.
00:35:55And this...
00:35:57Hey, let's let people take a drink and say TZ750.
00:36:01Oh, okay.
00:36:05Yes, the Yamaha monoshock was noted in the early days, 1974, 5, thereabouts,
00:36:13that the monoshock was a tremendous unit, like two feet long.
00:36:20Huge.
00:36:21It's where you see the body off for those bikes.
00:36:23Yeah, it's like it just goes all the way up the center of the bike.
00:36:26It goes all the way up to a bracket at the steering head where it's bolted in place.
00:36:29And nothing wrong with that.
00:36:33They made room for it.
00:36:34There wasn't room for two shocks.
00:36:36The two shocks that were underneath where you could not adjust the preload,
00:36:40where you couldn't make any real changes to it unless you were willing to go to a lot of trouble.
00:36:49That's gone now.
00:36:52Single shock on top.
00:36:53And all Showa suspension using the modern bending washer technology,
00:37:04which enables a better, a closer identity between the velocity of the damper rod
00:37:13and the damping force that the damper produces at that velocity.
00:37:18So you want that to be a nice linear relationship.
00:37:23It lets you get the most out of the suspension travel you have without bumps and glitches.
00:37:31We have an entire podcast on V-squared damping.
00:37:34This is what Kevin's talking about.
00:37:35We did a podcast, you know, 45 podcasts ago, possibly.
00:37:40But it's on V-squared damping, and it goes into all the physics and properties about what Kevin's talking about here
00:37:49in terms of using valves instead of using an orifice, orifice damping only.
00:37:55Yeah.
00:37:56And go check it out.
00:37:57So that got redesigned and rationalized.
00:38:05The chassis was simplified.
00:38:07Its costs were reduced by reducing the number of components and the number of welds required to assemble it.
00:38:14And at the same time, the styling department was seeing to it that Harley Davidson still recalls a time when life made sense.
00:38:32Those colors that are chosen are ones that I think we remember from childhood.
00:38:40I think there's a lot of subtle stuff that goes on in this evocation of permanence and reliability in a changing, oh, dear, that phrase, the changing world.
00:38:57So, but there's no way to dress it up.
00:39:02They got rid of Dinah.
00:39:03No doubt the aftermarket will make an M8-accepting chassis that will allow Dinah motoring to carry on into the future with the latest power plant.
00:39:17Yeah, I'm sure it's not a unique idea, but every chance I get to talk to somebody in Harley, you know, product planning or design or styling,
00:39:27if I see Brad Richards somewhere who runs that entire operation, he's the vice president of design and styling, et cetera.
00:39:39I always say, please make a hand-built chromoly frame Dinah chassis and just go full West Coast on it.
00:39:48High performance, put the Olin shocks just right out of the factory.
00:39:52Just do a limited run, 1,500 bikes.
00:39:55Go ahead and do it.
00:39:56I miss the Dinah proportions.
00:39:57That's the thing I think that we lost is it's classic to take the Lowrider S as kind of like the poster child for the ultimate Dinah.
00:40:08So you take a 2017 Lowrider S and you put it next to the Lowrider S that they're making now.
00:40:14And the resolution at the back of the bike is, I think, you get shorted on the soft tail a little bit.
00:40:23It doesn't have the same sigh going back to the twin shock.
00:40:30It's just a different proportion.
00:40:33I think, yeah, it just, that made me think of Willie G and Willie G's, Brad Richards said this to me in a recent interview about Willie G's sophistication,
00:40:45his design sophistication, and I think about those models particularly around Fatboy and following Fatboy because Fatboy, as it was for Brad Richards, he said, you know, this signified, this is when Harley, that model made a real impression on him.
00:41:05And this is all related to the gray ghost that they're making now, which is this physical vapor deposition Fatboy.
00:41:12It's, it's got a, it's not paint.
00:41:15It's, it's basically like polished aluminum almost applied in vapor onto the gas tank and fenders.
00:41:23And it, you know, the story is just, oh yeah, we're, this is the Fatboy.
00:41:30They redid it with the disc wheels and all of that.
00:41:32And in 2018 for the 2018 model year, along with all the other soft tails.
00:41:38And it's really got a presence and they changed, you know, they, it used to be very Hydroglide inspired on the fork and all that.
00:41:45But, um, but basically what they did with the 35th anniversary icons model is they took that of a piece, that simplicity of the silver paint of the original bike and those disc wheels and that very spare nature, so much restraint, yet so much impact.
00:42:09And they took this and they put that aluminum paint on it and you think like, oh, it's just, it's just paint, right?
00:42:15Like, well, not paint, but it's a, it's just a coating, you know, it's just, it's, it's cosmetic.
00:42:19Like, yeah, well, they're, they are largely cosmetic, aren't they?
00:42:23And yet they make us feel a lot.
00:42:25That's what art is.
00:42:26You know, this, this is art that has an extra dimension of movement and everything.
00:42:30It's just so, uh, Willie G is the designer, I think really did a lot of incredible work.
00:42:39And one of those was being part of that team that came up with fat boy and it changed it from what came out of that dealer as the low boy, Montreal Harley Davidson.
00:42:49And it was so, it was so designed.
00:42:55And now they've got this new bike and you think like, oh yeah, it's just, it's just real shiny.
00:43:00But the more you stand around that motorcycle and absorb it with the yellow accents as on the original, it's, it's, it's crazy.
00:43:11You know, it's crazy.
00:43:13The impact that it has, it's just, it's beautiful in the world.
00:43:16And there's like an infinite, there's this infinites to the, to the finish.
00:43:25And normally I don't like a very, like the, there's always the chrome bike.
00:43:31If you go to any show, there's almost always like, I'm going to chrome everything.
00:43:36And they just, yeah, they just chrome the crap out of it.
00:43:40And I always felt like there's something that you lost when you, you were kind of undefined because it was so reflective.
00:43:49You didn't necessarily absorb the shape and contour.
00:43:52You couldn't see it.
00:43:53All you were seeing was the reflection of everything around you.
00:43:56And so you lost something.
00:43:57And a lot of times those polished alloy tanks, you know, like you got Evan Wilcox making these beautiful polished alloy tanks.
00:44:03And somebody inevitably wants a polished aluminum fairing and they want to expand the tail section.
00:44:09And, and I always felt like accents on that, some, something to give it some more definition helped it.
00:44:16And I don't know specifically, you know, the, the PVD finish on the new soft tail is.
00:44:23It's, it's a different tone than chrome.
00:44:27Chrome typically, there are lots of different ways that chrome expresses itself.
00:44:33Like where's the nickel, uh, the copper, and you can get sort of the straw colored, you can get sort of brown tones under a chrome.
00:44:42You can get very blue tones, like a Jaguar, a Jaguar from the sixties.
00:44:46They were doing the chrome in Rhodesia and the chrome from that plant.
00:44:51And it has a very blue tone behind it.
00:44:54This PVD finish has something.
00:44:59It's a little nickel like, but not that much.
00:45:02And it's, it's very sharp.
00:45:05Like the finish is incredibly smooth.
00:45:07They struggled getting the finish right with PVD.
00:45:09They, the first experiments with it were like, as quote, quoting Brad Richards were like, uh, an orange dipped in chrome.
00:45:18You know, like it was just, but they figured it out.
00:45:21And it's very sharp.
00:45:22So it's a very crisp reflective finish, but it also has a tone to it that like helps express the shape.
00:45:32And we, you know, we wrote it around and did, um, we did photographs with it.
00:45:37And everywhere you walked around it, you, you really did operate with the shape.
00:45:43It's just, it's so interesting.
00:45:44This, this part of the Harley thing that, um,
00:45:51You know, that design, going back to Willie, that being spare, being disciplined, looking at the engine as they talk about the engine being the jewel and the rest of the motorcycle as a setting.
00:46:04Well, the goals of this merge were listed as to integrate the Milwaukee 8 into the product.
00:46:18It had to be able to fit under the backbone.
00:46:21The cruiser product, yeah.
00:46:23Yeah, and they wanted to give the motorcycle, they wanted to update the motorcycle's capabilities without interfering with, obviously, the look, the sound, etc.
00:46:36And they wanted to escape from the significant handicap of soft tails under the bike suspension and the case of the disappearing wheel travel.
00:46:53Because if you're carrying a passenger, you're not going to have much suspension travel to absorb crossing the railroad tracks, riding on the streets of certain cities today, which are having to decide whether to pay the police or the teachers or fix the potholes.
00:47:14And it's also important, the attitude of the motorcycle with proper preload, because, you know, the touring models, when they gave you the ability to pump up the rear suspension in the sort of, oh, I think that was the 08 model year when they really redid the touring chassis, which is basically what they're kind of using today.
00:47:40You know, if you took your road king and you just throw the passenger on the back and rode it around, it's all right.
00:47:46But if you actually set the preload properly, the bike's great.
00:47:50I mean, the steering is massively improved.
00:47:52So it's not just a comfort thing, it's a dynamics, right?
00:47:55You're setting the chassis and the attitude that it's meant to be, and it steers better.
00:47:59When they made the racing class for the 1200 Sportster, the first thing they did was to jack the back of the bike up about a foot to get that heavy steering head angle out of it and speed up the steering.
00:48:14And 17s.
00:48:15The last thing was that they wanted to lighten the motorcycle and give it a sportier feel and with the balanced Milwaukee 8 engine, which is such a big step forward from the previous two-valve stuff.
00:48:43It's a great motor, it really is.
00:48:45Yeah.
00:48:46So, and the whole thing is, this two-valves to four-valve changeover gives you a fresh set of choices.
00:48:56You can make a lot of horsepower with a two-valve by keeping the intake valve open long after bottom dead center.
00:49:03So the air, the intake air that you've finally got up to a high speed just keeps coasting in.
00:49:09Look out, here we come.
00:49:11And then close the valve, the piston is rising, air still rushing in.
00:49:17You get a good cylinder feeling that way.
00:49:19But at lower RPM, the air is moving more slowly.
00:49:24And when the piston starts up, the air says, oh, I guess there's no room in there.
00:49:31I'm going back this way.
00:49:32And you get back pumping of the charge with the result that torque dwindles away so that you've got this weak sport bike bottom end.
00:49:44And, uh, turn the throttle and nothing's happening.
00:49:46So, who knows?
00:49:52Only the customer can tell us whether Harley-Davidson achieved these goals of integrating the M8 engine, improving all the motorcycle qualities while retaining the Harley-Davidson qualities.
00:50:08And, uh, modernizing the road ability of the motorcycle with all these changes that we've discussed.
00:50:19So, uh, sounds good, but also we have to remember they mentioned an economic motivation because we're living in variable times.
00:50:33We have been for a number of years and watching the pennies is the responsibility of a responsible management.
00:50:42Yeah, I mean, it made sense.
00:50:43I mean, you know, from a rational perspective, doing two big twin cruiser lines, a Dyna and a Softail, kind of competing, like, is that fracturing of the market necessary now versus then, you know, now versus 1995?
00:51:02I mean, in the 90s, the only problem that really Harley had, or the, let's say, that's not the right way to say that.
00:51:08The, the, the greatest focus through the 90s for Harley-Davidson was capacity.
00:51:13How do we make more?
00:51:16Enough.
00:51:17Yeah.
00:51:17How can we make enough?
00:51:18That was it.
00:51:20Um, and.
00:51:21Because what they had accomplished with their, uh, the buyback, uh, the new, um, Evo engine and the adoption of, um, just in time manufacturing.
00:51:37And the acceptance of a third stream of enthusiasm in motorcycles, namely the so-called cruiser, the, um, custom motorcycle look, they became the most profitable motorcycle manufacturer in the world.
00:51:59Uh, so this is not some old dudes up in Milwaukee, uh, staring at their navels.
00:52:09This is a progressive company that is taking care of business so that they're not falling behind in important wishes and feelings of their, uh, of their riders.
00:52:26So, uh, this is, this is important stuff.
00:52:33Not just, oh, well, we'll make a little change.
00:52:36Oh, we plan to make that change, but we can't because we don't have any money.
00:52:40They, they made this really massive program to achieve this, this, this result, the elements of which I've now read you twice, but, um, it, this is, this is admirable American initiative and action.
00:53:00So, I want to, I want to, I want to applaud that.
00:53:14Yeah, I think, um, you know, it, it made, it made economic sense, uh, to combine the lines, uh, from a, from the spiritual perspective you spent, you know, how long did Harley tell us they were different?
00:53:30Um, and now they're the same, but I, I think, you know, as, as we were all, so many people were kind of religiously offended that the Dinah was going away and like, why would you kill the Dinah?
00:53:43Cause that's where all the kids are.
00:53:45And, um, um, you know, looking at it now, I mean, I, I would say bulk of the audience didn't care that much.
00:53:56And the number of modified low rider S type West coast style, high performance air quote Dinah's, um, has not diminished.
00:54:06They're, they're up there at the, at the bar, they're at cook's corner.
00:54:10And, and it can't be 1995 forever.
00:54:13I guess not.
00:54:15Uh, it's, uh, there are economic ups and downs and they have to be respected.
00:54:21Indian failed to respect them.
00:54:22And in 1953, they ceased production.
00:54:25They designed a motorcycle and did not do adequate product testing such that the rocker box, cantilevered rocker boxes broke off of the cylinder head.
00:54:37No, no point in saying we'll warranty it.
00:54:42The replacement head is no different.
00:54:44Yeah.
00:54:45And that kind of failure to attend to your business.
00:54:51It won't go in this, in this operation because people don't buy motorcycles if they can't afford them.
00:54:59So the motorcycle business is very dependent on how well people feel they're doing.
00:55:06Uh, and does the product, our triumph dealership, we would have, we would see two of our regular customers coming in with a young guy.
00:55:17We hadn't seen before.
00:55:19This was a ritual.
00:55:22The two experienced triumph owners bring their friend who wants to buy a triumph into the store.
00:55:28And they're saying to him, go ahead, sit on it.
00:55:33And of course, we learned that this was why all the bikes had the mirrors adjusted so you could see yourself.
00:55:39And eventually the young kid would go over to the counter and say, I want to, I want to buy that bike over there.
00:55:49And he'd start fetching cash out of his pocket.
00:55:52He'd worked as a supermarket bag boy, or he'd, he'd had a, some kind of a little business in some way.
00:55:58He, he worked, he got money, was all his.
00:56:03Now he was going to turn it into a motorcycle, the fruits of his labor.
00:56:10And, uh, I had to, uh, I very much enjoyed that because, um, I sort of crept into motorcycling, not on my own, but not as formally as that.
00:56:25Um, and it was nice to see.
00:56:28It was inevitable for me.
00:56:29I just, um, I love transportation and I, when I saw motorcycles, you know, that was it.
00:56:38There was no question it was going to work out.
00:56:41I was going to be on one.
00:56:43And I, I did get, you know, I got my RD 400 and that was my first street bike, possibly not the greatest choice, but Hey, you know, it's, that's why we're 16.
00:56:53Um, and yeah, totaled that bike should have bought it back from the insurance company.
00:56:58Uh, but my parents said water, uh, motorcycles are water under the bridge.
00:57:03Look at me now.
00:57:05They came around, they understood.
00:57:07At that time when I was 16, you know, they were like, nah, you got to do something else.
00:57:11So I bought, I bought a car.
00:57:14Uh-oh.
00:57:17Yeah.
00:57:18Um, so we don't know.
00:57:23What's next.
00:57:23Well, that's part of the delight of being alive.
00:57:27Yeah.
00:57:27I think, uh, I think, um, you know, at the core, my feeling has always been in my observation in business, the motorcycle business all this time is that the primary motivation is love.
00:57:38So when you want a motorcycle, it's love.
00:57:40Everything else is a secondary justification or tertiary, or it's a supporting justification.
00:57:47So it gets good mileage.
00:57:49It's economical.
00:57:51I can, in California, I can lane split and save time.
00:57:54It's all there to support the love.
00:57:57And I think, you know, I would just start there in product planning.
00:58:04You know, I would start there and say, okay, motorcycle, this evokes love these things.
00:58:10This looks sound and feel for Harley, uh, for sport bikes, you know, 200 horsepower, 210 horsepower.
00:58:17Uh, significant rider aids, functional arrow.
00:58:22We're getting truly functional arrow on street bikes, BMW M 1000 double R.
00:58:27You feel, you feel it working.
00:58:29It's real.
00:58:29This is not some decoration.
00:58:31It's not like supersonic streaks on your, on your sport bike.
00:58:37It's actual functional arrow.
00:58:38And, um, but it's still, what's, what's the kernel of the product that evokes love?
00:58:44And I think if we start with that, motorcycles turn out pretty good and, and more people like
00:58:50them.
00:58:52Yeah.
00:58:52I used to like, uh, uh, uh, before putting the tank on, uh, I liked to look in the three
00:59:08carburetors and operate the throttle and see those mouths open, ready for the air.
00:59:16And that's part of my relationship with motorcycle is to enjoy all the details and stylists all
00:59:29say that each detail of the motorcycle must in some way reward you.
00:59:37Gary's dipstick.
00:59:39And I told this on the Indian podcast we did, uh, recently Gary, Gary gray was part of the
00:59:44team that, you know, he'd been with victory and, uh, he'd been with Polaris, you know,
00:59:49for the 15 years since victory was, um, born and was charged, you know, as part of the team
00:59:56to make Indian come to life.
00:59:57And they, he, he insisted that the dipstick be a beautiful, I mean, it was a pound.
01:00:03But there was this really nice metal piece and it had the Indian head on it and was shiny
01:00:07and it was Gary's dipstick because he, he fought so hard for it.
01:00:11And, uh, it's those details matter.
01:00:14Looking up the carburetor throw, like I, you know, uh, the first time I was able to look
01:00:18up a carburetor while the engine was running, I'm like, Oh, I wonder what's going on in there
01:00:22anyways.
01:00:23And you whip the thing open and you watch all of this mist pulling out of the jet, all the
01:00:29droplets.
01:00:30You think, how does that even work?
01:00:32You know, how does that even work?
01:00:34It's fascinating.
01:00:35Wonderful.
01:00:36Yeah.
01:00:38All the way back to Oscar Hedstrom and before that to, uh, Maybach before 1900.
01:00:46Maybach is widely credited with inventing the spray carburetor as opposed to passing the intake
01:00:53air through a damp rag.
01:00:55Surface carburetors.
01:00:56Um, which works, you just wouldn't prefer it.
01:01:01So yes, that's true.
01:01:03You look in when you, when you flip the throttle and you see that, that sheet of mist come from
01:01:10the needle jet.
01:01:12It's, it's wonderful.
01:01:14Yeah.
01:01:15Well, it's, it's, it's, I mean, predict now we have it so easy with, uh, with fuel injection.
01:01:20You don't have to rely on signal.
01:01:22You can, you can do so many different things with fuel injection that you couldn't do with
01:01:26a carburetor.
01:01:27But I'm, I'm always delighted when a carburetor, a motorcycle will idle and it will idle at
01:01:33the same speed every time.
01:01:34The meaning that your mechanical spark advance is working and your points are working and
01:01:40you're, you're metering the fuel properly.
01:01:42It's just, uh, as you said, there's many different ways to enjoy the motorcycle.
01:01:46And some of us get a little bit further into the details.
01:01:50Some people take idle for granted, which is great.
01:01:52And you should be able to, right?
01:01:54Like you should be able to mass, mass market people.
01:01:57Like I, I, I got to get to work.
01:01:59I got to do whatever.
01:02:00I don't, I don't need this other fuss.
01:02:02I'm, you know, they're enjoying it in their own way, right?
01:02:06We're just, there were people who, when they pulled the clutch in to, after having started
01:02:12their triumphant, they're going to go to work and they tried to tap it into first, the engine
01:02:18died.
01:02:19Oh damn.
01:02:20Clutch plates are stuck together.
01:02:22So what do you do?
01:02:24You put it in first or you, you pull a clutch in, in neutral, roll down the hill, clunk it into
01:02:31gear.
01:02:32Oh, it does my, my mechanical sensibilities.
01:02:36No good to see this, but it starts the engine and then you're on your way.
01:02:42By the time you arrive, the clutch plates are warm and they separate nicely.
01:02:47But in modern times, they're clutch disc separating springs.
01:02:54So that, uh, little by little motorcycles have become more civilized and easier to enjoy.
01:03:01Well, you mentioned, uh, the gearbox, how you make gearbox work.
01:03:06I'm going to need your consultation on my 1972 Yamaha XS 650.
01:03:10When I pull that apart, we're going to, if we make the race motor, we're going to have
01:03:14to, uh, we're going to have to get all the secrets on shimming that and making sure the
01:03:19dogs are what they should be.
01:03:21Well, the reason that they're secrets is that nobody wants to mess with transmissions because
01:03:28if you get it wrong and something locks up, pulling the clutch has no effect.
01:03:34Yeah, that's, uh, that's, and I thought about that when we were having shifting trouble with
01:03:40that, uh, 500 triple and I decided, um, well, old Matt McConney, who lived to be 99 years
01:03:51of age, he said, I have seen some young fellows kick a motorcycle 50 or 100 times, never stopping
01:04:02to think something is wrong.
01:04:06Just as a human mind can make a, can create a motorcycle.
01:04:12Well, another human mind can comprehend it and fix it.
01:04:17So I went ahead and learned a lot.
01:04:20Look at you now.
01:04:22Never had a lockup.
01:04:24Oh, that's good.
01:04:25Yeah.
01:04:26Well, we've wandered off of, uh, Dinah and you can't have, uh, soft tail without Dinah.
01:04:32So, uh, we, we did an entire program on the Harley Davidson Sportster and that's, uh, that's
01:04:39a few episodes back and, um, there are 68 or seven, 69, 70 of these in the back catalog.
01:04:48Um, check them out if you haven't, share them with your friends, et cetera.
01:04:50Um, Kevin and I could certainly talk, uh, talk through, uh, as we do on many topics.
01:04:58The excellence of butter was one we spent some time on years ago and gearbox rebuilds and
01:05:05MotoGP and aerodynamics and you name it.
01:05:09So, um, we appreciate you guys spending the time with us and, uh, we'll catch you next time.
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