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Could Harley-Davidson Please Stop Cutting Corners?

This editorial might attract some hatemail and I am ready for it, especially because I have the proof to back my words with. I had a face-to-face meeting with the new Harley-Davidson Street 750 at EICMA 2014 and it’s really hard to find the right words to express my disappointment.
I’m not a Harley basher, and neither am I a fan of the MoCo, simply because I believe that everybody is free to like any brand. Even more, judging a brand in absoluter terms of right or wrong is silly, because there’s no way one could say that Yamaha is right and Harley is wrong, or the other way around, for what’s worth. This sounds stupid, because it IS stupid.

However, when it comes to the way a bike is made, we can definitely play this game. Unfortunately, Harley’s Street 750 fails big time at the “how it’s made” game. I already told you that the bike felt utterly disappointing and I’ll probably say this more than once below.

All the carefully manipulated photos and the videos which surfaced after the Street 750 was introduced showed a really neat bike, some sort of a smaller brother of the little Sportster. All in all a really neat bike from afar. Adding in the lighter build, low seat and affordable price, this looks like the ideal first Harley for pretty much everybody, especially for the H-D fans in the emerging markets.

While all these features are the right ingredients for a truly successful bike, reality is a bit different. I haven’t got the chance to ride the Street 750, so I can’t say how it feels on the street. However, I thoroughly inspected the bike visually and I can definitely say it looks cheap. The bad, wrong way.

If I were a Harley purist (as many bar and shield traditional customers are), I’d even say that Milwaukee should better put up a new brand for these entry-level machines as they’re not worthy to be called Harleys. It may sound a bit harsh to some, but a guy spending big money on a top-drawer H-D “for the ultimate quality the brand promotes” would agree with me, unless he or she is a consummate hypocrite.

That is because the Street 750 feels like a third-world Harley, if you want. Some of the materials used literally feel like dirt-cheap. The grips are foamy and honestly, they don’t seem like they’ll last you a full season of hard riding. The levers look and are definitely some of the cheapest pieces of crap one can find, and even the calipers look the same.

Even some of the cast metal parts have slightly rough edges, a thing which we thought was a long-gone “feature” for a leading bike manufacturer. The way the brake lines are clamped to the metal connectors is yet again far from what Harley got us used to, and the bar and shield on the cast piece which clamps the handlebar is not different, either.

The plastic used to mold the buttons of the bar controls just doesn’t feel right, and if you jump from a serious Harley on the Street 750, this impression is only stronger. Finally, the swingarm looks like Harley just sourced it from a cheap Indian bike, while the turn signals are also probably costing H-D 10 dollars a full truckload.

All in all, the Harley-Davidson doesn’t really belong to the family, at least not in the shape it is now. Riders dying to get their first H-D would most likely overlook all these details (in which there is no beauty whatsoever), but after the initial enthusiasm dies away or the customer will maybe get to ride other Harleys, things might change. Even more, I am not even sure how this bike will stand the passing of several thousands of miles… The roads in the markets this bike it aimed at are not exactly top-notch and with all the dust and debris, this bike might (just might) get an antiqued finish fairly quickly.

We cheered when Harley decided to open up for the new riders and deliver the two new Street bikes, but we honestly expected the MoCo to deliver a bike to stand in line with the rest of its sisters. So far the Street 750 is like Cinderella, but there will be no fairy coming in to change rags into ball gowns. Here are some live photos of the Harley-Davidson Street 750 from EICMA 2014.

The only thing which remains consistent with the story is that the Street 750 looks better at night, when you can’t see all the details. We know that cruisers aren’t the best machines for corners, but cutting them this way is not nice, Harley. Not nice at all!
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