Mistake #2: Don’t Buy A Sportster

Why not? I like the Harley Sportster. It's relatively inexpensive and it has all of the Harley good stuff. Power, hot looks and the Harley sound. Potato, Potato, Po-ta-to, I can hear it now, I love it!

Hey, I'm with you, I bought a Sportster and I loved it, for the first couple of months. But after about three or four thousand miles I started to focus in on the shortcomings.

Now, I could pick apart any motorcycle and list the shortcomings but that is true for most things. Everything has some pros and cons it's just that the Sportster cons just stay there and don't go away. You experience them each and every time you go for a ride.

For me, the ride was too high. By that I mean that the seat was just too far from the ground. I am a 5'9", 185 lb guy with no abnormal body characteristics (well, maybe a larger nose than most) and I like to have my feet flat on the ground when I am stopped at the traffic light.

2007 Model	XL 1200C Sportster	FXDB Dyna Street Bob	FLSTC Heritage Softail
Seat Height	26.5	25.8	25.5

One inch doesn't seem like much but it makes a difference. You can always replace the seat with a lower profile seat and get right down to the Softail height. Of course you can do the same with the Softail seat and get right on down to some serious lowrider height.

But it is more than the physical height of the seat. The Sportster has a higher center of gravity than the Dyna or the Softail. When I ride a Sportster, I feel like I am sitting on top of the motorcycle (Well, that's because you are sitting on top of the motorcycle, idiot), not part of the motorcycle, kinda just hanging on. When I am on other motorcycles, with lower seats and lower center of gravity, I feel like I am part of the motorcycle. I feel more in control, safer somehow. I like that feeling a lot.

This high ride is also a consideration at low speed, maneuvering into a parking spot or just walking your bike from here to there. It always felt like it was ready to tip over and with my feet not really flat on the ground, I was always ready for the worst.

The other thing that I did not like about the Sportster was riding two-up with my wife Irina. Now Irina is only 105 lbs so there was not a lot two-up impact. We would have a great ride in the city on surface streets for an hour or two and everything felt great. But when we got out on the Freeway (or Highway to most of you), the ride dynamics changed. After 100 miles, we were ready to stop and flop onto the ground. It just seemed like work at the higher speeds.

The lighter weight contributed to this feeling.

2007 Model	XL 1200C Sportster	FXDB Dyna Street Bob	FLSTC Heritage Softail
Dry Weight (lbs)	589	634	725

But the real deal was the vibration. My experience was on a new 2003 Sportster and since then Harley has added rubber and made significant vibration reduction improvements to the newer models. My 2003 vibrated so that using the rear view mirrors for anything other than looking for big stuff (cars) unusable. But that was OK. It was at around sixty mph when the vibration started causing problems. I was always keeping my hands and arms tense on the handlebars. If I got up to around eighty mph, it leveled out and ran well. However, then I was always looking in my (unusable) rearview mirrors for the CHP (California Highway Patrol). That didn't work either.

The small gas tank started out being a concern. My 2003 has a 3.3 gal fuel capacity. Which translated roughly into 100 miles. You can see that Harley has fixed this with the newer models.

2007 Model	XL 1200C Sportster	FXDB Dyna Street Bob	FLSTC Heritage Softail
Fuel Capacity (gal)	4.5	4.8	5.0

So, my concern about only having a 100 mile range disappeared when I realized that I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 100 mile fuel stop so I could get off the Sportster and flop onto the ground. Whew! Thank you for the small gas tank.

Height, weight and vibration were the three biggest things that turned me off to the Sportster after I had some serious riding experience on it. But hey, that's just me. There are a ton of Sportster enthusiasts who will ride forever on their beloved Sportster (the cafe racer) forever.

As it turned out, I put 12,000 miles on my Sportster before I made a change. Before I bought the Sportster, everyone told me that I would be looking for a bigger Harley in about six months, and you know what, they were right.

Even so, if I had a good deal on a Sportster, and I could get it right now, versus saving my money for the big bike, who knows, it's always still better to be riding that to be watching.

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