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Bump
and Grind I'm sorry. No, I mean it … I'm really, really sorry. I mean, you just don't do that to a new bike - and ten miles on the clock is as new as we're likely to get without recourse to a chequebook - and it wasn't intentional, honest. And so badly scratched, too - even a blind man on a galloping horse could see the damage … and from a distance.
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But then again, what a silly place to put a pair of footboards. Anyone could have told you that they'd get battered and bruised, and ground flat by the gentlest of cornering: clattering on the tarmac, sending up sparks at the slightest hint of a bend.
Great, isn't it?
I loved it. I loved every minute of it.
The
noise, the spectacle, the looks on the faces of passers-by ranging from
concern to blind panic. It isn't the reason why I'd buy a bike, but it's
one reason why I'd enjoy using it … and did half a dozen years ago
on my 4-speed Electra Glide. I got quite practiced at approaching a particular
ninety-degree bend in the middle of town, dropping it hard left at the
last minute to get the footboard down before powering it through the curve,
accompanied by a streak of sparks and a cacophony that drowned out even
the "silencers". Sure moved the unwary lemming-line pedestrians
pursuing their misguided right-of-way a mere fifty yards from a pedestrian
crossing. Ha! It runs a very close second though to drifting a slow, tatty-beyond-belief
Russian-built motorbike and sidecar round the hallowed, tourist-bogged
streets of York at the closing stages of my misspent youth … well,
literally speaking: I've not finished misspending my metaphoric youth
and have no intention of doing so any time soon.
But this isn't about a disintegrating, and inappropriate in this editorial context, Cossack, nor is it about the Electra Glide. This is about the Blubber Glide. This is about the Fat Boy.
For some inexplicable reason, the last time I swung a leg over an FLSTF (you didn't think I'd use its model name did you? Not in the leg swinging phrase, surely?) was ten years ago. That Evo-powered model benefited from a Mikuni smoothbore carb and the attentions of its very happy owner, who was at least as keen to try out the Dyna Sturgis that HOG International Magazine had bought from a grey importer, and the first Dyna that we'd seen in the flesh.
That FatBoy
was from the first year of production, and as such came complete with
orange accents about its engine, and a very plain silver finish lifted
from obscurity by a logo that bore more than a passing resemblance to
an American Air Force graphic. 
Needless
to say it wasn't, and nor was the bike named after an atomic bomb. More
than ten years before the V-Rod, Harley had introduced a silver-finish
stunner, and the similarities don't stop there for the big draw of the
Fat Boy was its wheels. Solid, if more industrial than the beautiful items
onthe V-Rod, they were the same as had been seen previously on the Disk
Glide, but never before had they been used front and back, and the impression
was of a substantial bike. Susbtantial though it undoubtedly is,however,
it still suffers a little from crosswinds as a consequence of the disk
front wheel - though nowhere near as badly as the V-Rod.
For 2002, you would be surprised how much of that original bike remains. Okay, so it's now running the Twin Cam 88B motor and has been for a couple of years now, but the distinct shape, the overall style, that logo and those wheels remain. And the model we got came in "Ice" or silver, to you and me. It brought it all back.
Okay, so Ice isn't actually silver: its pearlescent shine sees to that, and it has a more metallic look about it, but it's a better compromise than some and I happen to be of the view that the Fat Boy suits that shade, and black but little else. Its mudguards are too big to support such a massive expanse of yellow or white, or even the deeper primaries, and two-tone paint jobs disguise the line. A personal thing, and based as much on that first ride as anything - well, that and the fact that I haven't yet seen a Harley that doesn't look good in black.
It
really was a déjà vu moment when, having picked up the bikes
from Wayside, in Towcester, we pulled into the truckstop immediately north
of the town on the A5: Jack's Hill Café. This was the place where
I swapped bikes with the Fat Boy's owner and tentatively pulled away.
That wasn't only my first Fat Boy, it was also my first Softail and I
was not enamoured. I'd been playing with my 1200 Shovel, FXRs, and had
just ridden up from Kent on the first of the Dynas and after those, the
vibration of the solid-mount Evo was a stark reminder of what lurked within
the cases. It is probably fair to say that the experience of that vibration
was a major reason why I was in no hurry to ride another Softail, but
we were informed that it was very much a conscious decision by The Motor
Company to mount it rigidly to give the traditionalists the feedback they
craved - and it was certainly true of that owner. It is a great shame
that that traditionalist cannot comment on the 88B because he is no longer
with us, except in spirit - and I suspect it was awareness of the memory
that caused me to notice the sheer number of Irish-registered vehicles
on the road bearing registration letters that read MAZ. It wasn't the
last bike that Maz had by any stretch of the imagination, but in spite
of his proliferation of vehicles, the Fat Boy will always be Maz's bike
to me.
I hadn't been quite so aware of the similarities between the Fat Boy and the late Shovelhead Electras from my first encounter, but this time they were impossible to miss. This is the Softail most likely to be fitted with the zinc-cast, chrome-plated headlamp nacelle that so transformed the Electra Glide Sport's fortunes and launched one of Harley's most successful models of recent years: the Road King. It's easy to see why. From the broad seat, and ample pillion, through the fatbob tanks and single, central speedo to the wide dresser bars, this is an Electra Glide in a softail frame. In fact, if you fitted slantbags to the rear to disguise the Softail's swing-arm, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a very subtle Electra custom, and I'd be very tempted indeed. Certainly if it had the two-tone paint that would disguise it's FatBoy heritage, and with the nacelle in place of the DuoGlide tins, but not just because of the way it looks: because of the way it rides.
It
rides like a proper Electra Glide - and I use the phrase advisely. It
retains some of its character in spite of all attempts to temper the vibes,
and while I'm not absolutely sure how, I suspect that the sheer amount
of metal covering the solid wheels introduce a vibration from the road
which counters the stillness of the 88B's motor. It feels like the solid-mount
engine that it is, but is still not as intrusive as the Evo was. It feels
right. It feels like a Harley-Davidson and having remained non-committal
as regards Softails for a decade or so, I can see why it has received
such applause from the most unlikely of places - although I'm not sure
why mainstream magazines rate it above the Deuce which I'd have thought
would've been more up their street: perhaps it is the inherent olde worlde
atmosphere it creates.
I'd love to say that the feeling stayed with me for the duration of the test, but the raw edge was just starting to either smooth out through bedding in, or my own familiarity, after five hundred miles. Did it make it a worse bike? No, not really, just a little more competent and a little less … less … "there". I hear good stories about the 1550cc versions and can't wait to see how the Fat Boy fares in Sumo trim, but no-one's queuing up to give us a go yet.
Still, that is only so small a part of the whole bike.
What gives
the Fat Boy its unique look is more than a pair of solid wheels, but a
lot of careful cropping down of the huge mudguards of the original dresser.
It
still carries a lot more than a Dyna, but it's a lot less than the Electra
and they are sculpted to produce a shape that flows from front to back.
Devoid of chrome trim, they give the bike a purposeful look that is as
practical in terms of dealing with the weather as it is stylised to produce
the underlying image. When you consider that it also allows one of Harley-Davidson's
strongest custom statements to give the pillion a bigger seat than a Sportster
rider has come to expect, and it does so without compromising the line,
and you see the practicality coming through again. Not only does it not
detract, but it positively adds to the style, and it would be a churlish
pillion indeed who was dismissive of the accommodation on offer. Quite
unexpectedly, the other point about the pillion is that it isn't six inches
higher than the rider's as is so often the case, keeping the passenger
out of the breeze, if interrupting their view with a close up of the back
of the rider's helmet.
Add to that
the handlebars that I didn't realise I'd missed so much, which have more
in common with a wheelbarrow than a modern Electra, and you are transported
back in time by at least twenty years to the days when the last of the
so-equipped FLHs ceased production. 
It
could be as much as seventy years except that it was only when they dropped
the buddy seat and sat the rider in the angle betwixt rear mudguard and
frame rails that the pullback bars became distant; until that point pilots
of stockers would have sat a couple of inches above the rear of the tank
on a seat that was sprung and damped by a hydraulic seat post that was
fitted into the frame tube that separated the engine from the gearbox.
If you've never ridden a buddy seat, you'd be astonished as to how much it changes the bike's layout: you're much more on top of the job, your feet are beneath you and the leverage on the bars is incredible, but while it may be practical, and supremely comfortable, it ain't cool among the current set, and it certainly does look odd without slant-bags to bulk up the back end of the bike. I replaced mine with a Corbin Nostalgia seat and rode low most of the time, but now and again the buddy was refitted. I was not alone, and I was certainly not original because I did it in the nineties while the first people to do it could have been role models for my father.
If you've
not ridden a buddy seat, you won't have the opportunity to do so with
the Fat Boy, unless someone comes up with a seat post that fits into the
new Softail frame because while they were putting together the 88B, 
Softail
frames for the use of, they fixed the engine and gearbox together to produce
a more rigid power train. This means that while the line of the seat tube
remains - and brings to mind the original motorised bicycle concept of
the earliest motorcycles - it is truncated above the bridging piece that
unites the pre-unit components. I have to admit that I don't know whether
the original Softails had the provision to use the seat tube to hold the
hydraulic post, but I'd like to think that some enterprising soul would
be able to adapt it if the need arose.
So, there you are: chugging around on your fifties throwback, back-side low, arms wide and straight ahead, one eye on the huge, centrally mounted speedo to keep you within the confines of the law and the other on your own reflection and the panorama of the sky in the massive fish-eye lens that is the back of the headlamp. You snick gently through the box … sorry, I'll try that again. You grab the merest whiff of clutch and prod the heel-toe gearchange to select a higher gear (not quite as straight-forward coming down, what with matching engine and road-speeds, but it's an art you acquire or learn to live with) without moving your boot from a sensibly proportioned running board way out in front, and move your butt around the ample proportions of the seat to ease the ache that accompanies your own weight distribution. You've got a pillion aboard but, to be honest, you're barely aware of their presence because in the world of the Fat Boy it is a modest addition.
You're always aware that you're steering a lot of metalwork around, and while its gravitational pull is disguised as soon as the wheels are rolling, you're best off accounting for it and the braking forces it will require in an emergency.
Apart from
the shape and colours of the cars you could be anywhere, any time until
you check the speedo again and find you're hustling along at speeds that
would have the lawman reaching for his Gatso, and you're grateful for
the improvements in modern braking, although you question the 
fitment
of a single disk up front: never mind that it is infinitely better than
twin disks of ten years ago - you've got a lot of weight to stop, and
this is one fat boy that doesn't break into a sweat by sustained high-speed
running.
God is in his heaven, and all is well with the world.
And then you see the corner looming.
Never mind, it is a tight frame - you can sense that much at your first encounter - it'll whistle round that no probl … what the hell was that? Should it really do that? Stop the bike, get off and look for tell-tale signs of what touched down.
If it's a new bike you might not spot it at first, but you'll check the pipes and make sure they're not scuffed - not that it much matters because you'll be sticking some slip-ons onto it after its first service - but you're not likely to grind out the over/under shotgun duals fitted to the Fat Boy. If it's a used one, you'll see it straight away, the ragged trailing edge of the finest Milwaukee chrome-plated floorboards that would snag a pair of stockings in no time: make a mental note not to wear stilettos - a very mental note if your six-foot two and more hair round your chin that most modern members of society have on their whole head. Ooops, you think, but you think back and remember that it didn't upset the line round the bend, and that sensation underfoot must have been the footboard hinging up to prevent anything more serious happening. The next time it happens you're half-expecting it and the concerned look is replaced by a grin, the third time and you're trying to gauge when it's going to touch down.
By the time
you get home you've consciously decided that the best way to stop the
newly exposed bare steel from rusting is to 
keep
it in check with a bit of wet and dry, and the best wet and dry to use
will be Her Majesty's highway.
If you're like me, you might just wonder whether anyone has yet harnessed the material beloved of sportsbike riders that they attach to their knee-sliders to create bigger, better sparks.
Liked it?
Loved it!
But I think I might already have mentioned that.
I've always liked the lines of the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy, I remember at one of the first ever Bulldog Bash's near Stratford Upon Avon and seeing a guy riding a (gasp) fully matt-blacked example, not long after Fat Boys had first been launched. Fat Boys then were unbelievably exotic, to a culture still not used to having many Harleys around and that this icon of expense and exclusivity had been sprayed head to toe with matt-black paint was both way-cool and appalling in equal measure.
However, the owner cared not a jot. He explained that he'd waited all his life for a bike to come along that looked like this, and that it had begged for him to spray it matt-black because it would look the absolute business. He had a point, rarely have I seen a motorcycle that looked so monumentally cool as that matt-black Fat Boy. It seemed even more massive than the standard example, brooding too and altogether nasty. Nice.
It would be some years before I actually got to ride an Evolution Fat Boy for myself, by which time the aura of exclusivity had become a slight smell of something else. The Fat Boy was now generally perceived by the biking brotherhood as perhaps the epitome of the RUB rider's choice machine, the machine least likely to actually go anywhere, except perhaps the local wine bar on a sunny Sunday … blah, blah, blah … what the hell, you know the script.
So,
being bad-ass to the bone (yeah, I know) I finally got my mid-nineties
ride on the Fat Boy, and you know what, I didn't really like it very much.
How bizarre. I got to ride one or two other Evo Fat Boys afterwards and
still couldn't really get my head around liking the looks of it but not
enjoying the ride too much. A few years on, I'm not all that surprised,
the stock 1340 Evo was a fairly raw experience and didn't much suit the
slight-compromise chopped FL stance. The ride should either have been
smooth as silk and incredibly comfortable like a 'true' FL or more OTT
bad-to-the-bone nasty which the Night Train does quite well, but it was
neither and I didn't like it. It took another term with a quite different
motored Fat Boy to put me straight.
This year's 2002 Fat Boy was of course fitted with an 88B 1450 Twin Cam and what's more, it had fuel injection, so while I hadn't expected it to, that made a whole lot of difference. The revvier stock Twin Cam is noticeably faster up at the top of the midrange than a stock Evo for starters, but the real difference is the balanced 88 now fitted to all H-D Softail framed motorcycles. That shaft does an incredibly good job of cancelling out the natural vibration caused by the pair of huge pistons slamming up and down the long length of those twin 725cc barrels.
The
result is a silky smooth ride - just like an 'FL' should be in fact. But
faster too, so the Fat Boy can be ridden with a bit more spirit - just
like a stripped bad-to-the-bone mo-fo. Foot boards regularly scraping
either side around corners and roundabouts, easily thrown around with
the wide handlebars. This is fun. And the security of the now excellent
brakes front and rear ensuring the rider doesn't get too ahead of his
or herself. That's good. And then accelerating smoothly up to speed out
of the bend, to lay back into the wide FL bars and take in the terrified
or awe-struck gawps of lesser beings. Marvellous fun … and now the
big wide but actually quite thin and hard seat makes sense too, it's actually
comfortable. Not like the Evo Fat Boy, with that you were having to constantly
adjust your position to find the bit that might be comfortable. This was
because you were being battered by this and that, wrestling the machine
to make it stop and go and generally not enjoying yourself too much, especially
on a long trip.
So strangely,
the new civility of the 88B Fat Boy actually allowed the machine to be
ridden more in keeping with its bad boy looks. For me now riding it was
so much more fun. While town work and traffic could be taken with more
élan, it was also fun to be comfortable too while blatting across
the countryside at a sedate 55 to 70mph, relaxed and with plenty of time
to spot trouble looming. With the Twin Cam's reserve of power at those
speeds, 
it
also meant that trucks and cars could be overtaken more readily, not such
a heart in the mouth experience as the stock Evo, and therefore more open
road could be ridden and that equalled an even bigger grin.
The fuel injection was nothing short of excellent, each time the starter was pressed, hand well away from the throttle, whether hot or cold the management system sussed it out and the motor instantly caught. It would settle down to whatever it figured was the right tickover speed for it and the danger was that you might be tempted to ride the Fat Boy away from cold immediately. Not such a great idea. It's definitely better to wait for the oil to circulate around, warm up and thin a bit first to coat all those big lumps of stone-cold metal whirring around inside.
If you're
the kind of tourer that prefers to travel with just a credit and AA card
and a mini mobile phone then I reckon touring with the Fat Boy is not
only possible, but potentially really great fun. Again, if you don't mind
throw-over panniers and your tent bungied to the 'bars, again the new
2002 Fat Boy could actually be a sensible choice as it is no longer such
an altogether daunting prospect to ride it some distance. So inclined,
I suppose an owner could completely FLH it out with screen and more permanent
luggage - and I've heard it does get done - and alarmingly, quite a lot.
But
really you would be re-creating Harley's own Softail answer to their own
FLH's which is the Heritage Softail … and what would be the point
in that when you consider that Heritage Softails actually cost significantly
less than their more fashionable brother the Fat Boy? And that's even
before you've started to source the expensive after-market luggage and
found a screen to fit! Would it not be cheaper to buy the Heritage and
the money you've saved can go towards the set of solid wheels? Just a
thought.
Ah the unwelcome ice cold wind of logic cuts through a nice warm and cosy road test. Be-gone foul demon, I consign thee to thine own corrupt and noisome Jake's pitte.
So yeah,
in conclusion, to me at least the 2002 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy is quite
a world away from its earlier Evo incarnations. So much so I was allowed
to like it again, which is pretty amazing if only from my point of view.
The 88B Fat Boy, like the 1340 Fat Boy, has always looked right, no argument
there, but now it also rides right, goes quickly, comfortably and stops
well. All reason to dislike the 2002 Fat Boy firmly binned, it's now a
proper motorcycle - and that's some real praise coming from me!
Specifications
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Make & Model: |
Harley-Davidson FLSTF (FTSTFI) Fat Boy |
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Engine: |
Twin Cam 88B (balanced). Air-cooled 45° V-twin. |
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Displacement: |
1449cc (88 ci) |
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Compression Ratio: |
8.8:1 |
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Bore & Stroke: |
95.3 x 101.6 |
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Torque: |
105NM @ 3000rpm |
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Fuel System: |
Fuel Injected |
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Exhaust System: |
Over/under shotgun duals |
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Oil Capacity: |
3.3litres |
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Fuel Capacity: |
18.9 litres (includes reserve on carb version) |
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Primary Drive: |
Double-row (duplex) chain |
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Final Drive: |
Kevlar belt |
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Overall Length: |
2396mm |
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Seat Height: |
647mm |
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Ground clearance: |
123mm |
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Rake/Trail: |
32/147.3mm |
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Wheelbase: |
1630mm |
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Dry Weight: |
320kg |
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Lean Angles: |
28.7° left / 28.9° right |
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Instruments: |
Electronic speedo with odometer and resettable trip meter. Fuel gauge, oil pressure light, engine diagnostic light (injection model). |
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Colour Options: |
Vivid black, diamond ice pearl, jade sunglo pearl, real teal pearl, white pearl, luxury rich red pearl, concord purple pearl, real red pearl, impact blue pearl. Two Tone schemes: Luxury blue and diamond ice, real teal and diamond ice, luxury rich red and black |
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Price: |
£13,295
single colour Prices include usual otr inc. PDI, full tank of fuel, 12-months tax, first service, 12 months membership of Harley Owners Group (HOG) including their European roadside recovery |
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Test bike kindly supplied by: |
Harley-Davidson
UK. |