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First Ride Harley Street 500

14K views 24 replies 17 participants last post by  bbally 
#1 ·
They arrived on Saturday, I had to wait til today to ride one, they have to have more than 25 miles on them before the Riders Edge bikes can be rode.

FYI I am riding this before all the drop protection is on it, and before the rev limiter on first through third is flashed into it.

I am riding it at 4750 ASL, so this will derate the horsepower to 0.94. So 33.5 times 0.94 to reach approx. 31.5 HP.

I was riding in 72 F weather so no derate for temp.

I am 5'6" and 169 Pounds.

These are my opinions, they are always correct. If you have a different opinion then yours is correct for you, mine are always correct for me.

The bike is small. Sits on a 1982 GS1100 Kick Stand as far as I can tell. And the kick stand is switched so it must be up to go into gear.

My dealer turns me loose on bikes I want to ride because he knows my interest is the design function of the bike, not tearing up the equipment.

I tossed my Cor Tech Magnetic on the tank and started the ride.





For me the riding in the beginning is a lot of parking lot work just to see what the engineers did and did not do.

First I check the rear wheel to front wheel tracking in the slow tight turn radius. There is about a 12 percent crabbing of the rear tire in the tight turn lean. This bike goes over further than any Harley I have ridden. (Never been on a street Rod but I hear they go over well too, my VRSCA does not I am always dragging radiator shrouds)

Then the lock to lock turn. This is one of the few mistakes I found in the engineering. The steering turn locks allow for the bike to go over the trail and contact patch creating a situation where a low speed a tight turn will want to through the bike to the ground on the forward axle axis. This can be fixed it desired by adding in 5/8 of an inch to each turn stop.

Turn at speed, at 12 miles per hour the bike can do a 34 foot turn leaned over pretty far. Switching direction of the 12 MPH turn requires 14 feet for a comfortable figure 8 with no tear drop shape to it. (this indicates a gear dragging turn should be about 28 feet, but I am a pussyy so I did not push it to chicken strips of the tires)

Low speed control is very nice, all slow speed maneuvers I performed are with the clutch plates closed up. I do not play in friction zones except start and stop. The rest of my riding is clutch open clutch closed. The loops and figure eights are easily performed with a completely closed clutch. The tightest turns possible do require one to sit more on the higher elevated part of the seat (the side edge of the seat pointed towards the sky in the turn) for best response, failure to reposition does cause a slightly large circle. There is a torque fight bucking at 0.5 MPH when really letting it lug. No one rides in this range, but I wanted to know.

Panic stops are excellent from 45 MPH to O. Not much more than 25 feet on average. When I was doing them I locked the back up twice, this did add 3 feet to the stopping distance. I do lean up on the handle bars when performing a panic stop distance test. So sometimes I get a lot of weight off the rear wheel which is why I think it locked a couple times.

Twisty performance is very good. Lean angle is real good. Please don't respond that your Ducati can take it, it makes you look very stupid. The point is the bike drives very nice in S turns and sweepers, two closing radius turns were tested, excellent machine for these turns. While many push forward on the inner bar, I am a push the inner while curling the wrist up on the outer bar lifting it. The bike will drop right into the new radius with no problem. The bike did allow me to scrape a knee in one of the tighter turns. Though this is due to my flopping the inside knee towards the curbing and riding the outside knee up to the tank line on purpose.

Acceleration is fantastic to 55 MPH. No problem playing in traffic, no problem catching up or passing.

Highway speed.... Acceleration from 55 MPH to 70 MPH is very acceptable, however, 70 to the 87 MPH limit it had with me on it is very slow. 75 MPH is hit fairly easily, but from there above is a crap shoot. Grade and wind play with the 31 HP available and it shows. That said we are talking about a 31 HP machine. So it is what it is, two hour trip, probably OK, 4 I don't think so at highway speeds. I do not think the 750 will be a problem in this area.

Shocks and forks, I took some of the biggest gulley washer dips I know of, never bottomed out and never tried to launch me.

I think they have got something here, I can see these buzzing around town and what not. I can see these being used as a learner bike easy. I can see the 750 as a daily driver and weekender bike pretty easy too.

My ride was 24 miles. I like the thing, but then I bought one so my opinion started the ride as positive.

I will answer questions if I can///
 
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#6 ·
I've put the required 25 miles on a few of them before the safety equipment. They are nice bikes for their intended market, just not my thing. They are miles above the Blasts Riders Edge was using. They sound pretty good in my opinion, but not as good as a Sportster for example. Nice report.
 
#8 ·
To me they do not. Now that I have spent a couple different days with them it does not appear to be related to the vrod save for the fact it is liquid cooled. And the fact Harley is planning on branding liquid cooled as revolution engines.

Has a pretty good whine to it while riding. Comes from the tranny.

Might live in up a bit with pipes.
 
#12 ·
Looking at it I can see kits to 1200 done pretty easy.

I am sure Area 51 already has the 1000 ready along with maps.

If not the jugs are cheap enough a winter over mod can be performed.

Gearing seemed good to me. I rode it 85 mph with no screaming engine feeling.

But I ride a vrod as well so I am used to keep an engine rapped up while riding.
 
#17 ·
I found dealers (at least by me) were almost not even willing to show me the streets. Was immediately pushed towards the sportsters and told that the street 750 wouldn't be powerful enough for me (coming from a Suzuki c50t). I am a shorter guy (5 foot 8 ) and about 165 pounds.

Made me not want to even try and deal with them. Ended up getting a honda ctx700n for 700 below msrp and no set up fees.

I really wanted this Harley, but Harley didn't want me
 
#18 ·
I rode both a couple of weeks ago. Although lite, they are very easy to ride. The 500 is a dog and the 750 will skoot. Mirrors are too close together and the back brake really requires some effort to apply. The 500 is a good beginners bike or for a kid in college while the 750 is more advanced from a performance point of view. All in all not too bad.


Sent from Motorcycle.com Free App
 
#19 ·
Excellent review! A good magazine needs you.

I swung a leg over it and the GM at my dealership said "they won't sell, it is for an urban market" (in a very congested suburban area).

Second trip a salesperson said "you don't want that (as a second bike to my RK), you want a Sportser".
 
#20 ·
I swung a leg over it and the GM at my dealership said "they won't sell, it is for an urban market" (in a very congested suburban area).



Second trip a salesperson said "you don't want that (as a second bike to my RK), you want a Sportser".

Quite a few dealers have trouble like that. Mainly the margin. And the amount of people who are not going to pay the 970 bucks many add on as prep. Hard to imagine an 18 percent prep charge.

The push for the sportster because many people won't bitch about the set up fee on a 10K bike. Plus the margin is higher on the sportster.

Some of the dealers, like my local, figured it out early and adjusted the fees right away. The word will spread fast on who sells at what pricing.

I have rode both and own the XG750 for a week now. In my opinion it is an excellent machine for the money. The it is a younger generation bike, as evidenced by my putting on 50 miles before my son absconded with it and put 300 miles on it. His friends like it too.

Dealers are strange, you have to shop around til you find one you like.
 
#21 ·
I had one dealer tell me they have some incentive to sell Sportsters. The 500 / 750 are close enough that they may want to move you into that incentive bike for there own selfish reason. I would imagine it varies with independent dealers.
 
#25 ·
Yes, if you look at the neck you will see two stops. One on the left and one on the right.

The way they are set at this time in slow speed maneuvers it is possible to turn the front wheel far enough for forward motion to stop and the energy rotate the bike to the ground. Crossing the T is what we used to call it.

If you build those stops up from 3/8 to 5/8 of an inch it will not allow that to happen. Just until a new rider gets some experience.
 
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