#harley-davidson

How’s this for a no-pressure assignment? Completely redesign the Harley-Davidson Sportster, the best-selling Harley that’s been around since 1957. Start with a clean sheet. Make a motorcycle that appeals to people who’ve never considered a Sportster. Whatever you do, don’t offend the Base. On the other hand, it’s okay and even preferable that it offends some people – the ones who’d never consider a Harley under any circumstances.

Listen, you know how it is. When you gotta hear Free Bird, you gotta hear Free Bird. Or Coltrane. Or Bach. Or Keith Urban, or whatever music you roll to. When you’re rolling on your bagger at freeway speed, you’ll need a little volume. Correction: You’ll need a lot of volume. Since you’re the kind of rider that insists on high performance from anything that touches your bike, that sound had better be super-clean, tight and accurate.

If you’re curious what technology you might expect to see on motorcycles of the future, look no further than the cars of today. From anti-lock braking systems to traction control and variable valve timing, nearly all the tech we’re ogling over on today’s motorcycles originated on cars 20 years ago. Or more. By now the trickle-down effect of that technology is such that even your basic commuter car already incorporates it.

Harley-Davidson sent out a press release making the bold claim that the Pan America 1250 Special is the best-selling adventure-touring motorcycle in North America. Unfortunately, the press release (included in full below) doesn’t provide any specific data to back up the claim.

I learned about a new-to-me thing this week in a fun Facebook discussion: Oppositional Defiance Disorder. This affects lots of kids who are so fed up and angry about being criticized for a thing, that they keep on doing that thing just to own the criticizer, even though they know the thing they’re doing is wrong and bad for them. Before psychology, ODD was probably best expressed as cutting off your nose to spite your face.

With the official launch of the 2021 Harley-Davidson Sportster S, we now have an understanding of where The Motor Company is taking the Sportster family. Powered by the liquid-cooled Revolution Max 1250T engine, the Sportster S offers a significant step forward, claiming 121 hp, or nearly twice the horsepower of the air-cooled Evolution engine.

The new 2021 Harley-Davidson Sportster S that was unveiled this morning looks so much like the earlier prototype we dubbed Custom 1250 and already closely examined, most of the conjecture is already over except for the how much and when. And that’s $14,999 and this fall.

Harley-Davidson officially revealed the LiveWire ONE, the first model from its recently-established standalone electric motorcycle brand. Apart from the lack of any Bar-and-Shield branding, the 2021 LiveWire ONE comes with some subtle changes from the original Harley-Davidson LiveWire motorcycle, and one not-so-subtle change: a drop in price from $29,799 to $21,999.

Harley-Davidson released information on its first LiveWire-branded model today, but as important as the newly-renamed LiveWire One is, we all know it’s not the most significant model the Motor Company will announce this month.

Earlier this week, Harley-Davidson teased a new Revolution Max-powered model that will be revealed July 13. The announcement called it a new model for the “sport segment,” and included a glimpse of the bike, which bears a striking resemblance to the Custom 1250 concept first shown in 2018.

Motorcycle.com can confirm that the first LiveWire-branded electric motorcycle from Harley-Davidson will be called the LiveWire One. The information comes to us via Vehicle Identification Number deciphering information Harley-Davidson submitted to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. We expect the 2021 LiveWire One will be revealed on July 8. [Updated with some clarity about the claimed horsepower output]

Last month, Harley-Davidson announced it was launching LiveWire as a separate brand dedicated to electric motorcycles, with the first LiveWire-branded model to be revealed July 8. Now that we’re about halfway there, we thought we’d take a look at recent developments from the LiveWire brand, and what we can expect at next month’s launch.

Harley-Davidson announced it is launching LiveWire as its own brand dedicated to electric motorcycles. Moving forward, LiveWire won’t just be the name of Harley-Davidson’s first EV, but a brand to itself covering a number of models. The first LiveWire branded model will be launched July 8 ahead of a public debut the next day at the International Motorcycle Show in Irvine, Calif.

Our full-length 2021 Harley-Davidson Pan America 1250 Special review spanned more than 4,000 words to fully describe Harley’s new adventure bike. That’s a lot of words, but there is a lot to cover with a brand new motorcycle in a hot category like the adventure segment – and even moreso when a manufacturer, whose entire line exists of cruisers, builds a bike outside its wheelhouse. 

Harley’s been teasing us with this one since the end of its 2021 model launch presentation and now the dream is real – a limited edition Electra Glide Revival model will be the first in Harley’s new “Icons Collection.” And the Motor Co. says it will build one or two more Icons based on historic models annually in the years to come. The first celebrates the 1969 Electra Glide, which was the first Hog to wear the now iconic batwing fairing. The Electra Glide Revival model will be limited to a one-time build of 1,500 serialized examples, scheduled to reach dealers in late April, and floating an MSRP of $29,199.