Go Sportsters

I totally agree Randy. The 1200 low is my second Sporty, and even though I wouldn't mind having a Super Glide someday, I REALLY enjoy riding it!

I have gone through a Kawasaki Eliminator, Honda Shadow, and a V-Star 650 classic and I really like the feel of a Sporty with forward controls and the right kind of seat. It just feel right

My bike came with long pull back bars, which had me leaning backwards, 1st thing I changed on the sportster.
Rear sets would have been a great idea to go with the low bars, but might have crowded my wifes feet?
Most rearsets seem to move things far back, and the seat to peg distance was still short maybe.

I had a mustang seat, and a sundown seat, and the sundown was not too bad, what I really needed was to have a good seat made for the bike.

I used to use the passenger pegs on the interstate and the bike was very good that way.

One sure thing, if you have money, you can turn any Harley into anything you want!

Yeah. I am 6'3 250 and ride a XR1200. Plenty comfortable for me. Now. I might look like a monkey riding a coconut ....

Thanks man :) Exhaust is Supertrapp 2-1.

Bike is a '97 883 Hugger, looked like this last August when I brought it home:


Luckily there are plenty of aftermarket parts for Sportsters, riding Hugger like that was real punishment for me.

This is almost spooky- mine, sold in 1992

At the risk of getting slammed for not reading every thing posted hear I go.I have a 2013 iron that I want to us it for bike rallies and camping and so far looks it looks like being a good thing, but the suspension leves a bit to be desired. Can I fit the performance suspension kit listed in the 2013 motor parts accessories catalog. Getting any information out my local dealer is impossible. All they want is the easy big $ jobs (all show and shine no substance ) I realize that the triple clamp is an obvious extra, but what about wheels, axle, break, etc.

Do a search in this thread for my username and read what I did to upgrade the suspension on my 48. That'll give you some ideas at least. Of course what I've done so far has been a low budget, temporary solution until I can afford better shocks. But its already a HUGE improvement over stock. IMO, you can save a LOT of money and get a far better suspension from places other than the HD catalog. And you're generally right about talking to most HD dealers. If it isn't related to styling treatments most don't have a clue. Also recommend spending some time over on xlforum for much more info about what can be done.

Hey look, suspension travel and a real seat!

progressive suspension makes some very good cheap shocks for the sportster, the 712 heavy duty ones are not bad for the price.
I went from 12 inch shocks to 13.5 and got more suspension travel which improved the ride a LOT.
You can also get fork springs from them, and change the oil to get some damping.
You are still stuck with 3 inches of travel or whatever the forks have....

My forks now have just over 5 inches of travel. All it takes is installing the longer damper rods from the Roadster... 'bout 60 bucks for the pair... I also installed Ricor Intiminators which, while not really "cheap", makes a huge difference in the damping curves. So far I have about $200 in the forks, but I gained about 2 inches of travel and something similar to real cartridge fork damping. Well worth the money! I'm still leaning to going to a higher rate spring, but haven't ridden enough to decide for sure.

On the shocks, you can get Ohlins for between $500 and $600, which by all accounts are far and above anything Progressive has to offer. But, a lot of people are happy with their Progressives since they are still better than the stock HD units. I'm going Ohlins once funds allow.

Randy, I admire how much patience you have for that troll NJ-Brett.

And in case you missed it, I posted about my mods in THIS post, back a few pages ago...

Started with this...







And here's the result so far;;;







All told, I have about $250 in the suspension, and another $21 in the longer side stand to match the taller suspension.

I designed that custom leather seat because I wanted it that way, but for the same money I could have had Ed custom build it taller if I had wanted.

As I've said before, these bikes are very adaptable. Read through this thread to see tons of examples. Build it to suit your own individual needs or tastes... or just sell it and move on.... the choice is yours to make....

Of the seven bikes currently in my garage, only one of them (CB400F Supersport) is stock 'cause I restored it to that condition. I like making them mine.

That is a Mike Corbin before he got too big for his breaches...

It was hand made to order and didn't cost that much!

The Good Old Days

I put a new seat on mine, which is enough for me. I may do the suspension but it's really not that big of an issue for me. I did a 300 mile day and it was totally fine, could have gone more if I wasn't at my destination.

Here's the new seat. Also, I don't care about my plate being obscured.

<a href="http://imgur.com/hW7lwKn"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hW7lwKnl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com"/></a>

<a href="http://imgur.com/Xp71Fag"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Xp71Fagl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com"/></a>

I put Intiminators in my '04 1200, but the improvements did not come until I drained the fork oil and refilled with HALF the original amount.
Thanks for the hint re the Roadster damper rods. I will be doing that.
Next Year, the Ulysses AGM will be in Alice Springs NT, and it will be the 35th anniversary of my first journey ther in 1979.

So I'll be re riding the route that I took on my BMW R60/? that used its cylinder head as a pivot point to roll completely over and try to drown me in a muddy rain rut.

Yes the roads are better now, but longer travel is always good. The Northern Territory dirt roads still have those giant ruts, and if there is no rain they fill up with dust instead, looking like a solid surface. Hit them at speed and you will take two trips; first over the bars and then to hospital.

Rob

Yeah, I think the longer dampers are the real key since they add a lot of travel to the short forks that are coming stock on the current Sportsters. Of course it depends on which model Sportster you have. Not all of the Rubbermounts had short forks. I know that the XL1200C and the XL1200R had the longer travel suspension and use the same damper rods. The improved damping of the Intiminators would help by themselves I'm sure, but there's just so much you can do with the limited travel of the stock set-up on the newer lowered models. Put the two together and you have a really noticeable improvement.

You did switch to 5W fork oil with the Intiminators, right? Their damping is set specific to that oil viscosity, and they recommend sticking close to stock oil height after installation. The main purpose of a specific fork oil height is to create a specific quantity of trapped air in the forks. This trapped air gets compressed with fork compression and acts as a very progressive spring that helps prevent hard metal to metal fork bottoming. But if your current set-up is working for you...

Form trumps function on modern bikes. It's everywhere. If it looks cool, it's in, but forget how it affects long term comfort, performance or reliability...

Looks like a great set up. I never seen bags mounted like that before. How far do you get on a tank of gas?