Comparing apples to oranges… Where the Street Rod does lose out to other sporting cruisers such as Yamaha’s much larger engined Road Star Warrior and Honda’s VTX1800 is the ability to pull stumps out of the ground just off idle. The Japanese variations on the sporting cruiser theme focus their designs on big torque from huge engines that hit their rev-limiters at under 6000rpm.

In stark contrast the Street Rod engine has quite an appetite for revs and is really just starting to hit its stride at the same point as the others have signed off. I certainly prefer the quicker spinning Street Rod mill when out having fun as I like to be really involved while riding a motorcycle and enjoy shuffling up and down the gearbox and clambering all over it.

Those that prefer to just sit on their backsides and go along for the ride without putting in any effort would, I think, prefer the big capacity Japanese route. If plumping for the low revving Japanese options don’t expect to be able to stay with a Street Rod once the corners arrive as if up against a similarly skilled rider you will get comprehensively smoked while losing half of your undercarriage in the process.

I haven’t ridden the Rocket III as Triumph don’t deem us worthy of an invite to their model launches so can’t compare the bikes with any great authority but the Harley does roll on a chassis with less rake and substantially less trail than the Triumph. The Harley also offers more ground clearance so it is fairly safe to assume that Street Rod will have it covered in the corners even without taking the 40kg weight advantage the Harley enjoys into account.

I have also not ridden Kawasaki’s Vulcan 2000 which is reported to have good suspension but limited ground clearance and weighs even more than the Triumph so it is also fair to assume that the Harley will have no corner carving challenge coming from this quarter.

However, the Harley will not win too many roll on comparisons against the bigger bikes thanks to capacities up to twice that of the American machine. The Harley can be made to honk down a quarter mile very fast though as a V-Rod based machine in the United States last month became the first Pro Stock class motorcycle to do a 6 second quarter mile and become the new Pro Stock outright record holder with a 6.9 second pass at 196mph.

Continue on to page 6 for more detail images...