There was a time when Harley-Davidsons were all hideously expensive, and not even being the epicentre of a cultural phenomenon could offset the wallet-crushing figures
There are still top-end Harleys that will require the lion’s share of your savings. However, the American icon is now making bikes that cost much less than that. That said, motorbikes are usually purchases of the heart. You decide you want one and then the finances come second. If you really want one, you’ll mash the numbers into place in whatever way that justification demands. But the Street 750 is a bike designed for a new breed of Harley buyer; someone who’s almost certainly never owned one before and probably never thought they could.
It’s affordable, but it’s still a proper motorbike. The water-cooled 749cc V-twin ‘Revolution X’ lump is a proper engine, despite a modest 53bhp and 43.5lb/ft. For a few shekels you can even have it restricted to A2-level output, which is nice. It means new riders don’t have to settle for spindly little 125s and 250s.
Comfort, manoeuvrability and fuel economy are all checked straight off the list
The Street has a low, flat profile designed specifically to keep the centre of gravity as close to the floor as possible. It doesn’t have the glorious low seat, high-tank look of other Harleys but it serves a purpose. To find out what that is, it’s time to swing a leg over the low, 710mm-high saddle – perfect for shorter people and anyone who likes to get two feet firmly on the ground.
The bike feels wide and the pegs are spaced well apart in a way that makes you feel fully wrapped around the bike and in control. It’s an ideal, friendly riding position that stays comfy for a long while. Setting off you immediately get a sense that the Street’s centre of gravity is about the same as a mole’s. It’s instantly easy to manoeuvre at low speed, letting you balance the rear brake, clutch and throttle like you’ve ridden it before and darting through traffic like a sniffer dog through airport luggage.
The only pain is that there’s a specific trick to selecting neutral and it rarely goes in without it.The mirrors are fine and between them there’s a simple analogue speedometer, two trip meters and some warning lights but no rev counter or fuel gauge.
Fuel consumption is brilliant from the under-stressed twin beneath the tank. Commuters are a key target market for the Street 750, and you can see why. Comfort, manoeuvrability and fuel economy are all checked straight off the list.This is the 2016 version, with some much-appreciated upgrades against the initial production run that went to mainland Europe.
Better brakes co-developed with Brembo stop the bike with a strong two-fingered squeeze, and there’s good feel at the lever. Details here and there have been tidied up, too, giving it higher perceived quality than the 2015 version.
There’s plenty of grunt for urban scratching, but out of town the Street shows other talents. It has incredibly quick steering, and because all the bike’s weight is carried as low as a worm’s chest hair it turns in with surprisingly fast reactions, flicking side-to-side through S-bends like a much more serious two-wheeler.
The engine responds eagerly to revs, picking up pace as they rise and staying nice and smooth throughout. It lacks that Harley sound, but the Revolution X is smoother.
Other niggles? The finish on the forks and in one or two other places isn’t up to the usual standards. Otherwise, when the right-hand foot-peg grounds out, the exhaust very quickly follows it. And that, of course, is a good thing.