18 Harley-Davidson Springer Softail FXSTS
When the Japanese copy the hardtail look.
Harley reinvents the Springer front end.
38 Yamaha FZR400
See ya later: I hear my 14,000-rpm redline calling.
58 Honda NX250
Despite its looks, the most dirt this dual/sport bike
can stand is the dust on your camera lens.
FEATURES
71 Racers’ Hands
Small vignettes in body language caught
by a keen-eyed camera.
By John Owens
83 Aluminum Frames: A Close-Up Look
Extrusions, Forgings, Castings: It 's amazing
what you see when you really look.
90 Blood On The Sand
Paris-Dakar: A grand setting, a bloody race, a fiery aftermath.
101 Product Evaluation: Conspicuity Vests
/ see by your glowing stripes . .
TECHNICAL
31 The Springer Fork
A rethink of an old idea—which also happens
to be a good one.
By Kevin Cameron
47 The Next Step In Exhaust Tuning:
Yamaha EXUP
How Yamaha s ‘ ‘Exhaust Ultimate Powervalve'' helps
manage wave activity to produce a more tractable
high-output four- stroke street bike.
By Kevin Cameron
DEPARTMENTS
1 Editorial/Hosto/P/7/7 Schilling
8 Head On/Fast As Louis/Marlon J. Cook
12 Letters/w/mps.'
14 B'AslSpares/Tim Caruthers
37 Newsline/SZiopp/np Maul/Tim Carrithers
111 Road Test Index
112 Pipeline/A/o Joke?/Jim Greening
□It was supposed to be a secret—confidential, under
wraps. Harley’s most radical fusion of past and present,
code name FXSTS, was going to be real dead-of-night,
eyes-only stuff. But leaving the anonymity of Cycle's garage
under cover of darkness, our man
looked in his rear-view mirror and saw
trouble: Six pumped-up, raked-out, tri-
ple-chromed, lacquer-dipped
chopperbikes had fallen in behind.
The FXSTS is that kind of motor-
cycle—it will draw the Harley faithful
in its wake for blocks, trying for a
look. Even in the canyons, riding the
Springer with its great chromium fork
thrust out in front is like touring with
Grace Jones hanging on the pillion—
people notice.
The bikers we eluded with some
dark alleys and a deft right turn. For
the rest, the FXSTS remained just
another chrome-custom wonder. But
this Springer—officially designated as
a 1988 1/2 model—is brand new and
stone stock.
The first "S” in FXSTS stands for
“Softail.” That you knew. The second
means "Springer," as in "Factory Springer," something
unseen on stock H-Ds since 1949, when the last springer, or
Kinematic front end, gave way to progress and the Hydra-
Glide telescopic fork.
Scanning forward from the rakish, hot-rod flip of the rear
fender, the FXSTS looks much like the standard Softail
FXST: 16-inch tire and wire rear wheel suspended by a
triangulated steel swing arm and twin shocks running par-
allel under the engine, creating the illusion of a hardtail rear
end. Like the ST, the STS features a lowboy seating
position—the saddle hovers barely two feet off the street.
From the steering head back, the FXSTS is pure Softail: the
Fat Bob fuel tank spreads in a pool of pinstriped paint above
the 80-inch Evolution V-twin engine.
Up front, it’s all Springer; or, more accurately, the FXSTS
steers through a leading-link front end. And if you think the
ornate, chromed-plated fork looks like something out of a
old-timey Harley catalog, then pat yourself once for parts
recognition—Vice-President and chief stylist Willie G. David-
son charged both engineering and design departments with
re-creating an exact replica of the 1948 H-D fork that
measured up to contemporary cruiser standards. That’s no
mean feat. After computer-aided-design studies, finite ele-
ment analyses and miles of testing, Harley engineers found
themselves close to where their predecessors had left off,
which is not as unbelievable as it sounds, considering that
the original fork development began in 1908 and evolved
into final form in 1948 (plus a few 1949 units)...