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1969 Harley-Davidson XLCH Sportster -5-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, vintage magazine articlePage Size: Approx. 8\" x 11\" (21 cm x 28 cm) each pageCondition: Good
HARLEY-DAVIDSON XLCHOur Good Friend Charlie Is BetterBehaved These Days, But Still HoldsHis Own With The Superbike Gang.IN THIS AGE of superbikes, Harley-Davidson’s XLCHSportster occupies the venerable position of having beenaround longer than any of the others.Seniority is a disadvantage, in one respect. Some of thenewer designs can outdo it in terms of sheer performance,comfort and efficiency. On the other hand, Harley’s “hottest”has had the advantage of continual yearly refinement. The ohvSportster wasn’t exactly the tamest of animals when itsuperseded the 45-cubic-inch flathead K model, but the 1970version is. It fires up, all throbbing 883 cc of it, for the man instreet shoes as well as the strapping buck in engineer’s boots.Even without that XLH electric starter. It runs and runs, withoverhaul periods of a length more appropriate to an auto-mobile than to a bike.Yet the Sportster has lost none of its fire. It is still thatman’s machine of man’s machines. It has more “cubes” thanany of the current sports oriented big bores, and there is nomistaking the result when you twist the loud handle. It justrears up and goes. A blistering cighth-niile time lets you knowyou’re on The Original TT Bike. The T’s stand for Tavern toTavern. And a rider needs absolutely no class at all to do90-mph quarter-miles with this beast.Drop in for the usual teacup full (2.25 gal.)of gas requiredabout every 80 miles, and gas station attendants will trip allover their hoses to get a better look at this magnificent thingthat goes “rumpety-rump.” The XLCH styling-neolithicAmerican-would put off a purist, but so do Superbees,Chargers, and Shelby GTs. It is awesome. Metal slab on metalslab, cut with a blunt chisel. Nothing seems to go withanything else. The psychology of fear and ambivalence isepitomized in an XLCH: both emotions arise in the presenceof something not easily understood or comprehended. Thepieces only fall into place when the bike is in motion. Lopingeasily up a boulevard, or charging up a piece of freeway, itlooks, feels and sounds just right.There is nothing overwhelmingly new on the Sportster ofthe 70s. Newest was the electric starter on the Sportster XLHtested by CYCLE WORLD last year. XLCH stylists havecreated an optional fiberglass seat/rear fender unit. If you likeyour Sportster the good old way, you don’t have to buy it.But we think it is rather racer-ly.The factor that has most served to tame the Sportster’slegendary tendency to kick back or refuse to start at all is the...
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