Harley-Davidson gave the sports star S for model year 2025 a first update. The Americans say they have improved comfort by adjusting the suspension.
We thought it was absolutely a ‘mission successful’, when in 2021 Harley-Davidson introduced the new sports star S at our eastern neighbors in the heart of Ruhr area in an old coal mine. Harley had shown guts to take the sports star out of production after six decades to launch a completely new concept a year later.
The new sports star S was powered by the same Revolution Max 1250 V-twin as the Pan America 1250, but in another configuration, good for a top capacity of 121 hp at 7,500 rpm and a maximum torque of 127 Nm at 6,000 rpm. That was perhaps small beer compared to the 159 hp that the Diavel 1260 spit out at the time, who really saw Harley as a competitor, but the bike turned out to be a damn good alternative to the V-Rod during that presentation.
“If you have set out a test route for the presentation of a completely new model in which all the negatives are highlighted, instead of coming up with a route that emphasizes all the plus points and obscured all the negatives, and you are nevertheless enthusiastic at the end of the day Made, that indicates that the bike is promising, “our judgment was at the time.
“The suspension behind is downright cunt, the warmth of the exhaust will make the blood cook in your right leg on a warm summer day, longer than an hour’s drive in city traffic is super tiring, the tank capacity is with 11.35 liters (the more figures behind The comma, the less it is) retarded small and with forward controls you have a seat that makes you a human parachute above 130. ”
“But now the big one comes: as soon as you can give it the traces, everything is forgiving the sports star S within 5 minutes. Nothing that gives a bigger kick than with something that you don’t expect at all something that you do Expect to give it on a nice winding road. “
That was our judgment in the summer of 2021 and based on the adjustments that Harley-Davidson has now implemented to the Sportster S for model year 2025, the Americans seem to have taken part of our criticism seriously. Harley says that both the 43 mm Showa Upside Down fork and the Showa Monoshock with Piggyback reservoir have taken up, to improve comfort.
What Harley has adjusted internally remains unmentioned, except that the rear shock now has a significantly larger (60%) spring road of today 82 mm. That’s still not really spacious, but really a huge improvement compared to the 51 mm of its predecessor. Just assume that the 2025 version will really be a lot more comfortable.
– Thanks for information from Motorfreaks.