Harley-Davidson Ungratified Power

What is it with Harley owners and dealers, first I belief that you not buy a Harley for horsepower, but it seems that talking about horsepower is what the Harley lovers do. Not so long ago, a Harley owner, with a very nice bike, claimed that the private build bike had over 100bhp, and it could rival any other type of bike they've patently never ridden but care to mention.

A couple of months ago another Harley lover and Harley dealer in Germany, made the claim to have an over 110bhp for their modified hog which I naturally sneered at. They offered to proof it, but when we started to make arrangements to do some official testing, they quickly and conspicuously retracted the availability of the bike.

Anyway, as I still belief you not buy a Harley or any cruiser for its amount of horsepower, we can still see some Harley Davidson dealer advertising of some ungratified power claims, with assertions of 112bhp at 5,500rpm and 112lbs/ft of torque a grand lower from bored out Dyna Super Glide. Dubbed the FXDX XXL (Extra Extra Large) the 43 percent increase in torque and 65 percent rise in power are due to a quarter of a million Thai Baht worth of Screamin Eagle performance parts including a new stroker kit, big bore performance kit, performance cylinder heads, pushrod kit, performance cams, race module, Mikuni carburetor, flat top pistons, etc...

The performance figures are phenomenal for a Harley and show that cruiser bikes don't have to be slouches. As usual, and as seems to be the case with claims of this sort, there are no pictures of the bike outrunning anything in the same power range.

So why, are Harley owners so obsessed with horsepower, maybe it is the nickname "iron horse" which this American build motorcycles sometimes get.