It is almost exactly 402km in a straight line from New Hampton, Iowa, where Rich Christoph grew up, east to Milwaukee, home of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, where he now works. But Christoph, 27, designer of the Harley XL 1200N Nightster, did not get there by following a straight line.
The 2007 Nightster, a back-to-basics road bike, is pitched as something of a rowdy sibling to the Sportster, the entry-level Harley whose 50th anniversary the company is observing this year. Harley rolled out the new Nightster for test rides by the crowds that gathered in Daytona Beach, Florida, this month for Bike Week, a raucous event that coincides with the start of the racing season.
Christoph calls the Nightster "a no-frills, bare-bones bike" and "an accessible bike with attitude."
The company is hoping the bike has enough attitude to lure younger riders — closer to the age of its designer than that of the average Harley buyer, now about 46. With matte or black finishes replacing much of the chrome plating and gleaming paint that is traditional to Harleys, the appeal of the US$9,855 Nightster lies more in its gritty toughness than as a nostalgic throwback.
The company's chief styling officer, Willie G. Davidson, and Harley signaled their desire to move beyond familiar themes — though in measured steps — by choosing a young designer.
"Willie G. was literally looking over my shoulder while I designed it," said Christoph, referring to Davidson, who is a grandson of one of the company's founders.
"The Nightster is a cool new interpretation of the Sportster theme that embodies the original essence of a bike that's been part of the Harley family for 50 years," Davidson said in an e-mail message.
Christoph grew up on a farm near New Hampton where, he said, "you can either work in the barn or at the feed mill." His unconventional resume suggests that he departed from the straight and narrow.
He left Iowa State University after a year, he said: "Flunked out basically — partying." He liked to draw cars, so he loaded up his battered Dodge Aries K-car and drove to Detroit, where he found a job in the clay modeling studio at Ford Motor while attending classes at the College for Creative Studies.
Then he moved on to the industrial design program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
Christoph, who had owned a succession of Kawasakis, began to draw motorcycles. "When I started doing that, I realized it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life," he said. For a class, he built his own custom bike, using welding and metal-bending skills he learned fixing his father's old Oliver tractors.
He took his bike down to Harley's headquarters in Milwaukee. "I came riding my portfolio to the interview," he said. Even the Harley design staff was impressed.
He was hired — his title was Industrial Designer 2 — and assigned the task of dreaming up a no-frills version of the Sportster. For what became the Nightster, Christoph took off all the chrome and ordered up a cover for the drive belt drilled for weight reduction in what sales materials call a bullet hole pattern. He gave the bike a very low seat and specified fork gaiters, those old-fashioned bellows on the front suspension that he says protect the seals from the exoskeletons of bugs.
"I went back to the immediate post-World War II period when GIs came back and rode used Army bikes," he said. "They took off everything they could for speed — front fender, a lot of the back fender."
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