It has to be said that the T-Sport wasn't the first choice: we'd have preferred the straight FXDX Sport because the T's screen and bags put it into a different bracket - and another £700 on the asking price makes it yet more expensive and potentially beyond the financial reach of many. It is this price differential that often gives people the impression that a Sportster is an entry-level Harley-Davidson, but that does the Sportster a disservice. The XL-series bikes are a wholly different ball-game when it comes to style, size, road manners and character to the Big Twins and share little more than a badge on the side of the tank, and the pre-V-Rod enduring preference for a 45-degree V-twin. While we're here, let's get the money bogeyman out of the way: £7,295 will put a Sportster Sport in your garage while you'd need to stump-up £10,495 for the straight Dyna Sport, or £11,195 for the T-Sport. Assuming the comparson with the Dyna Sport, that gives you an extra three grand, and that would buy a lot of additional performance tweaks, riding gear or accessories.

So why would you want to consider anything other than the Sportster?

Well, let's see.

In spite of the Sportster's bargain-basement price, in a normal world, the bigger bike is often seen as the best way to go: the proper Harley. There are more options for just about everything you'd care to do with it: the engine can be more easily bored, stroked, tuned and tweaked, and there are a wider range of styles that the motor lends itself to. Now that might sound odd because surely any motor can be put into any style, but experience suggests otherwise. Touring on a Sportster can be a trying experience,while the Big Twin starts to look less promising when confornted by high-speed bends when the ground clearance can run out alarmingly quickly. So what are the fundamental differences?

Weight:
A Big Twin engine is heavy: its separate gearbox is heavy and its separate primary drive is heavy. Its frame is heavy, being a development of a development of a frame that was built to last: dragging rider, passenger and full luggage everywhere, for ever. And the overall bike is - surprise surprise - heavy. Bloody heavy. The mainstream press have been poo-pooing the VR's that come in at 275kg, but the standard SuperGlide makes 290kg and that is the lightweight: add another 10kg for the Sport!

A Sportster powerplant is a self contained engine, gearbox and primary drive, and while heavy by modern standards is much lighter than the Big-Twin. The frame is also lighter-built because it wasn't designed as a full dress tourer and didn't need the same amount of ironmongery. Sportsters start at 235kg and the Sport tips the scales at 245kg … another 10kg. What weighs 10kg? Well, a second front brake disk and its calliper and associated gubbins make up a large part.

Weight distribution and size:
A Big Twin's separate engine and gearbox makes for a long engine. It also makes for a wide engine, because the primary drive is bolted to the side along lines established a long, long time ago. It isn't helped by the massive outboard clutch - matched on the other side by low-level silencers. Heavy metal will overpower the rider if it is positioned too high, so the heavy motor of the Big-Twin needs to be as low as possible if it is to be manageable. The length of the motor determines the wheelbase, the width affects the lean angles - and especially when the weight requires the massive width to be mounted low.

A Sportster's powerplant is short. Even though it has a separate chamber for the gearbox, it is cast within a single set of cases so one wall takes the place of two with an intermediate gap between them. It is also narrow because the primary drive is also integrated within the crank cases, and while the clutch is still in the same position relative to the engine and gearbox it is smaller. It is also closer to the engine's centre thanks partly to the fact that the Sportster's final drive belt runs from the "wrong" side of the motor.

The lighter Sportster motor can be positioned higher up without creating the same sort of problems. Its high, narrow engine scarcely extends beyond the width of its narrow frame. On a big twin, you can scrape the primary drive on the deck if you try, while the footrests and pipes are about as much as the Sportster will ever touch down.

The shorter engine allows a shorter wheelbase, and the narrower - and higher-mounted - engine affords much better leans angles. It is, in essence, a sportster as well as a Sportster.

Power Delivery:
The Big Twin engine drags massive amounts of torque from deep within its bowels at very low revs. It was originally designed to be an unstressed mile-eater and its characteristics run deep. Putting a Sports tag onto its model designation doesn't affect that. It must be said, however, that the easy-going torque of the Evo has been compromised a little in the Twin Cam's pursuit of power. The engine size has increased to keep good torque stats while Horsepower has been improved, but in both events the engine speed has increased to gain the benefits.

The Sportster compromises some of the bottomless torque reserves that aid effortless open road touring because it was designed as more of a short-hop hotrod. In place of low revving torque, it spins more freely and takes on a wholly new character. The motor spins up in a very much different manner although free-revving would be stretching the truth.

Engine mounting:
An odd heading to pick out perhaps, but not to be readily dismissed - and it needs to be considered in conjunction to the power delivery.

Dyna Glides - all DynaGlides - are rubber mounted. Their engines are bolted to a steel fork encased in rubber, and the rubber block has another fork inside it that is connected to the heavily-built frame. The two forks never touch, but are held close enough together by the rubber to make a reliable mounting. This has the effect - at tickover - of allowing the long-stroke motor to leap about in the frame almost unhindered to the casual observer. At modest speeds, the engine gets to make its presence felt though amplified, but damped vibration until such time as 2000rpm appears on the tacho, at which point it all starts to smooth out. Wonderful. By the time you're in mile-eating mode the vibes are non-existent unless you drop your hand down to the rocker covers and feel the engine slaving away, and vibrating with a harsher pitch than you ever experienced while getting there. The harder you ride the bike, the better the rubber-mounts absorb the vibes, which is fortunate because they get less pleasant as the needle sweeps towards the bloodline.

The Sportster's engine is unashamedly solidly mounted in a positively anorexic (by comparison) chassis. What the engine generates by way of vibrations are transmitted directly to the frame, and the frame is neither big enough to absorb them, nor far enough away from the rider's nether regions to prevent them being passed on to said rider. Bugger. It is a blast from the past and an area on which Rich and I will never agree, and it's all to do with compromise. I will compromise the bike to suit my requirements, Rich will compromise himself to suit the bike's style. But don't get me wrong: there's nothing intrinsically wrong with solid mount engines, just that you need to be aware of their exacting toll on rider and machine.

I mentioned at the beginning of this bit that engine mounting should be considered in conjunction with the power delivery and I meant it. Just as the Rubber Glides smooth out at 2k and up, the Sportster's vibes start to become intrusive. Below 2000rpm there's nothing much in it: the Dyna's rubber accentuates the vibes but dampens them while the Sporty's metal-on-metal doesn't attempt to, but scarcely needs to. Above 3000rpm and the Dyna's settling into its stride while the Sportster is starting to get uncomfortable. Every additional thousand revs serves to further underline the differences and I can only imagine what the 6800rpm option pack fitted to the Staged 1200S must feel like because I didn't go there. I wasn't inclined to go beyond the stock redline because there wasn't anything there that I was keen to experience. And that's sad, and it's sad because I've got a close relative of this motor sitting in a bike in my shed, and that bike is just shifting up into fourth when the 1200S is feeling as though it's reached its useful limit in top. I know that the 1200S has much more to offer than I coaxed out of it, but I'm a firm believer in riding a bike within the parameters that it sets itself, and the Sportster is wholly different to its Buell cousin - and a million miles away from its big-twin stablemate.

There another way of getting rid of vibrations, which is to add balance shafts, and I just hope that there isn't enough space within the tightly packed cases to incorporate balancers on the Sportster. Having seen the enormous character shift within the Softail range, I'd hate to see such an antiseptic Sportster and would even argue for the retention of the solid mount if there was ever a ballot, which there won't be. Others will be at least as vocal against rubber-mounting, but I'd seriously consider a rubber Sportster tomorrow if I could get the 1200S to release some of its ponies without its jackhammer vibration.

Running gear:
Ah. Yes. Twin disks on both. The same twin disks on both. They stop both bikes with admirable control and the faact that it will haul up the heavier bike easily must tell you something about the retardation offered on the Sportster. If only there was something to grip on to. Skinny tanks are all well and good for the aesthetic, but your knees having got a hope in hell of grasping it and while the brake stops the bike, you'd better brace your arms against the bars or else you're going to continue your progress up the tank. Don't worry, though. The bars will stop you before you eject, but think twice about that pikenut rear tank mount, and contemplate a flush fitting fuelcap.

Wheels are nothing special, and only the Sportsters tyres make a passing nod to performance trends with different compounds,. Low Profile tyres on bigger wheels would be a nice addition, but let's not hold our breath: the 2002 ranges have been announced and no sign there yet.

The Sportster does get a cute pair of remote reservoir shocks to aid long distance performance when normal shocks would fade through overheating of the damping fluids, which does put it into another category realistically. The forks too have been singled out for special treatment and are not just the cooking models from the rest of the XL range

On the road:
On rough roads, the Sportster has the edge over the Dyna with its lighter weight, consequentially better braking, trickier shocks and will ride over, rather than plough through the imperfections. But for all that, the Dyna does a good job of keeping up … and I would argue a far better job than the Sportster would do if confronted by its nemesis, the Buell. I keep banging on about the Buell, I know, but it is for good reason: why don't Harley just stick a Buell engine into a Sportster and have done with it. Better still, a rubber mounted Buell engine into a lightened Sportster chassis. Call it the XLCR and we can all go home happy. Maybe next year, eh Willie G?

On smooth roads, the Dyna romps home with the honours. The torque pulls it through, the screen of the T-Sport does a fair job of keeping the wind off you, although it might've been nicer looking. When the Sportster runs out of breath, the T-Sport just carries on, and that presupposes that the Sportster has ever managed to edge ahead in reaching highly illegal speeds in the first place. It does so without fuss or excessive demands on its rider, and the experience couldn't be more different in view of a common heritage. A good example of this is that Rich seemed convinced of some sort of rivalry heading back north from HDUK's Brackley base, and well-pleased with the XL1200S's ability to keep with the Dyna … except I wasn't aware of any such competition and was just rolling on the power, enjoying the torque.

On the road you are reminded that there is an attitude thing about some bikes and these two bikes especially personify the differences, and at the expense of the Dyna. A sports tag should signify a sports bike, and a sports bike engenders its rider with a competitive spirit. The XL1200S does but the T-Sport doesn't. The Dyna is just too good a regular bike: it rides easily and you can bimble along happily keeping pace with Sunday traffic in a way that the Sportster rider would lose patience with. It will give you an adrenalin rush if you choose to use what's available, but its not quite the same "big dog straining on a lead" feeling that you get with the XL. It does mean that you're more likely to retain your license on the Dyna if you restrain yourself and go with the flow, but restraint isn't the first thing that crosses your mind when you swing a leg over the Sportster.

So …

I remain unconvinced about Sportsters: they're so far behind the Buell in the Sports stakes, and too far behind the Big Twins in terms of flexibility to make me really want one in the way that I fancy a Dyna Low Rider or love my Cyclone. I do see their appeal, even if I don't fully understand it. I'd have been more tempted if the Buell wasn't an option, and certainly if I lived in a city and had to live with the congestion they bring when even the Buell might take second place depending on how my wrists held up.

And it is a shame that we didn't get the FXDX because in the straight contest between the two, I'd stump-up the extra for the big-twin. The T-Sport? Not for me, thanks, but then I don't want a BMW either and that's the market sector where I feel the T-Sport is aimed. The fairing is functionally very good, and the variable angle is clever but it really isn't attractive enough to be a truly classic Harley design. The panniers are in Nylon, which makes them very modern but - in our case - missing because they caught fire last time out. Exactly how you torch panniers accidentally is a mystery to me, but leather wouldn't have gone up as readily and would've looked better on this style of bike which, even tucked away behind the modern "european-style" screen is classic American.

I sincerely hope that one day I will find a Sportster that will sway me, but I can't help feeling that rubber-mounting would be a pre-requisite and far from compromising the Sportster principles, I feel it would give them a new lease of life. Until that time, the Dyna comes away with the honours everytime.

Specifications        

Make and Model:	Harley-Davidson XLH1200 Sportster	Harley-Davidson FXDX-T Dyna T-Sport
Engine:	OHV V2 Evolution Sportster	OHV Twin Cam 88
Displacement:	1203cc	1449cc
Compression Ratio:	10:1	8.8:1
Bore & Stroke:	88.8 x 96.8mm	95.3x101.6mm
Torque:	96NM @ 3,000rpm	106NM @ 2900rpm
Fuel System:	Single Keihin 40mm Carburettor	Single Keihin 40mm Carburettor
Exhaust System:	Staggered shorty duals with balance pipe	Staggered shorty duals with low-level balance pipe
Oil Capacity:	2.8 litres	2.8 litres
Fuel Capacity:	12.5l	18.6l
Primary Drive:	Triple-row (triplex) chain	Double-row (duplex) chain
Final Drive:	Kevlar belt	Kevlar belt
Front Suspension	Showa forks with adjustable rebound damping and preload	Showa forks with adjustable rebound damping and preload
Seat Height:	740mm	755mm
Ground clearance:	170mm	149.2mm
Rake/Trail:	29.6 degrees/116.7mm	28 degrees/104.1mm
Wheelbase:	1527.9mm	1603.5mm
Dry Weight:	240kg	310Kg
Instruments:	Electronic speedo with odometer and resettable trip meter. Electronic Tacho. Oil pressure light.	Electronic speedo with odometer and resettable trip meter. Electronic Tacho. Oil pressure light. Engine diagnostic light.
Colour:	Vivid black, diamond ice pearl, jade sunglo pearl, white pearl, luxury rich red pearl, chrome yellow pearl.	Vivid black, luxury blue pearl, diamond ice pearl, jade sunglo pearl, luxury rich red pearl, concord purple pearl, suede green pearl.
Price:	£7,295 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	£11,195 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
Test bike kindly supplied by:	Harley-Davidson UK. Oxford Business Park, 6000 Garsington Road, Oxford, England OX4 2DQ Tel: 0870 850 1903 (UK)