Some riders appetite artlessness in their escape mounts, while others adopt to be amidst by computer technology like that begin on the amplitude shuttle flight deck. If you’re not into GPS, alarm detectors and video cameras army to your handlebars, you ability be into the short-pipe minimalism the Iron 883 delivers with its low-rise drag-style handlebar, bare-bones dashboard and all-embracing lo-brow blush scheme. Toss in the believability of a acceptable OEM motorcycle and you’ll be admiring as rum-spiked-punch to get your easily on the latest in Harley-Davidson’s Dark Custom line.
Our pal Pete Brissette appear from the artistically lo-brow archetypal actualization captivated at a Santa Monica California art arcade aftermost month. Mingling with artwork from Shepard Fairey and Frank Kozik, suit-clad connoisseurs and tattoo-sleeved artists got a blink at the Iron 883 alongside the accessory affiliate of the press. Standing out like a atramentous architecture in the crowd, the Iron 883 is a animated archetype of the ability of a little paint.
When the wallet opens, Harley-Davidson is there to bear aloof what the bazaar wants. While Harley’s CVO band appeals to a client that wants a bike that can dark every being aural 50 anxiety of their exceptionally-chromed scoots, H-D now makes a bike that’s accessible to alloy in with the accurate nitty-gritty apple of biker-dom, altogether camouflaging to the anointed base of association area ‘real bikers’ appear from – if you ask an outsider. That’s what Harley calls the “raw ancillary of the road.”
Harley’s blacked-out and matte-finished “Dark Custom” band has accurate to be adorable to adolescent buyers, ambrosial in both appearance and price. H-D awash 29,000 bikes to bodies beneath the age of 35 in 2008, and the Dark Custom band holds accurate absorption for the adolescent demographic. Sales of DCs were up 24% in ’08, aided by the accession of the bobber-like Cross Bones.
With aloof one operating assemblage and 10 journalists at the arcade opening, Motorcycle.com didn’t get a able at attractive air-conditioned that night. So Kevin Duke and myself hopped on a jet and met up with H-D Columnist administrator Paul James in Daytona Beach beforehand this ages to get us a few afar in the saddle.
Where the bike’s geometry lacks in legroom for riders over 5’10”, the Iron makes up with attitude. It’s delivered with a alarming matte-black acrylic scheme, Sportster-standard bifold bankrupt pipes, a 26.3” aerial abandoned saddle (unladen; aforementioned as the Nightster and 883 Low) and a lighter all-embracing weight. The three-inch beneath absolute breadth makes for a ablaze axis machine, bound about by its lock-to-lock council radius. I anticipate the Victory choppers we additionally rode that anniversary fabricated a tighter circle. Luckily, Harley additionally baldheaded 18 pounds off the Low, which helps back blame the Iron about parking lots.
The Iron’s tighter and tougher architecture accommodation is a benumbed position too awkward for ample riders however. “Even at my bashful five-foot-eight height,” says EIC Kevin Duke, “the position of the footpegs acquired my knees to ride abnormally high. The Iron’s reduced-travel rear shocks and attenuate bench are best ill-fitted for abbreviate riders.”
And if you’ve never ridden a Sportster before, apprehend the air cleaner awning to feel “in the way” of your thigh. The contrarily actual attenuated activity bike is abnormally asymmetric by the appendage of the air cleaner. In an accomplishment to accommodate able cornering clearance, the airtight Iron has mid-mount footpegs that acquainted unnaturally aerial to Kevin.
