Bonneville America Forums Forums General Motorcycle Forums Other Bikes Not your average HD Sportster

A guy I work with owns this 1968 HD Sportster. It's 900cc, iron head motor, kickstart & magneto (or course) and has the rear brake and gear levers in the opposite positions to what you're used to (which makes for interesting riding if you forget what you're doing). He's actually just gotten it on the road again after having it fall off the back of a truck and was kick starting it at the gas station when the gearbox decided to lock up for some (as yet) unknown reason.

Still, it's pretty to look at.

That is one sweet Sportster, Matt.

I've had a soft spot for those old Iron Head XLs since the summer of 1970, when a friend who had a 1969 electric start XLH and I, riding my 1966 650 BSA Lightning, rode up to Yosemite National Park to party with a whole bunch of people there for a week.

Yep! At the time, the TV program "Then Came Bronson" had a whole lot of my friends wanting Sportsters, and I had to admit they looked awfully good to me too.

I'll never forget arriving at dusk at this little town called Fish Camp, which is at the southern entrance to the Park. We decided to camp there for the night and hit Yosemite Valley the next morning.

After we rolled up our sleeping bags and bungeed them to our bikes early the next day, and just before I gave my Beezer a kick to get her running, I looked over and watched as my friend put his key in his Sportster's ignition, pulled the choke out, and then hit that rare(for the time anyway) starter button on his handlebars. What a sweet sound that starter whine, and then that stacato "potato-potato-potato" was.

(epilogue: ran into the guy about 6 months later...his beautiful AMF Sportster had thrown a rod...he wasn't too happy about it, to say the least)

You just gotta love an old ironhead, especially when it has the Route 66 shield on it's itty bitty tank.

Yep, we all like to look at a sportster. And we all love that deep rupp, rupp, rupp. The reality kicks in when you have to ride it and keep the darn thing together. I had a friend with almost this exact same sporty ( I had a 72 Electra Glide at the time) He totally rebuilt it in a neighbors garage over the course of a couple of years and we all used to tease him about how slow he was doing the work because of how meticulas he was being. He finally got her done the summer of 81 and I spent a lot of the summer riding behind him, picking up pieces that kept falling off. It was a cool bike, but he just couldn't keep it together! Nickel and dime'd him to death. He finally sold it and has never had another bike to the best of my knowledge. He just only wanted to ride a harley, but couldn't get over that bike. Shame.

If you are going to buy a HD move beyond the Sportster. I really don't undersatand why anyone would buy a Sportster beyond saying "I own an Harley", but at a lower price. Hey, Size does matter with a Harley!

Where I grew up the only sportster was a 750 side valve owned by the local bad boy Larry i-forget-who-but-he`s-probably-in-prison.

I was shocked when I turned around and found they were really girls bikes. I can`t imagine what Larry thinks.

maybe because the 1200's out perform all the others accept a v rod

frank

What a classic. Great pics.

Reminds me a bit of the XLCH I rode for about 22 or 23 years. The nice thing about the older Sportsters is that there is so much iron in the middle of the bike that you can do a lot without changing the handling. But, considering that the Sporty is a "girls bike", and mine came from the factory with 61 cubic inches and 61 HP, I guess that makes all the 61 inch E model Knuckleheads and Panheads girls bikes as well. Also, since the 74 inch Knuckles and Pans never put out more than 60 HP from the factory with lots of them producing 55 or less, I suppose the FL and FLH models were little girls bikes.

You can call me girlie if you wish but I still like an old Ironhead.

It always struck me funny that they (myself included) call Sportsters girls bikes. If you look the big HP and fast bikes are Sportsters in most cases. Drag racing and such. That being said as a street design they stunk on ice. Trannys way over complicated with split shafts and stuff, 4 cams that ride in the outer case on one end, etc...

I'm going to be helping a friend refit a '73, & I'm kinda looking forward to it.
Get to tinker on somebody else's dime!

Nice looking bike, but it does strike me as funny that like all good Harleys, its on the back of a trailer (or in this case, truck).

Mark, I bet 40 years from now many of our Triumphs won't even make it to the truck.

I always wondered about old Hardly vs. old Triumph. Triumph outsold Harley in the late 50s and 60s in America. Old Harley vs. old Triumph at the rallies seem to be 20-1.

Even the AMF dark years seem to be put back on the street and make it down the road. I wonder where all those 1000s of Triumphs are now. Its like they evaporated.

Saw some pre71 on there from time to time but not in the numbers one would think. In the 60s they sold about 250,000 bikes.

Just look at the size and position of those shocks sure look better than the new original ones that they all complain about

Blessings

Man, those things got chopped up...every mother's brother had one of those in a hard tail Amen frame with those silly stepped "King and Queen" seats trying to look like a Dave Mann painting. I'll bet they're all in baskets now just waiting to be found "barn fresh"...

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I would trade all my old hondas for one old Triumph any condition, any day

A prime example of what happened:

I know, it is heartbreaking to say the least.

I found them, they're in Japan and they look great!

seems even the Japs know real class when they see it! Some really cool old bikes there!