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."
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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."
The bobbed (shortened) rear fender became the keynote of a whole bobber tradition, a Harley motif that in recent years has been overshadowed by the elaborate custom choppers produced for television shows.
"Willie G.'s own bobber — a '47 knuckler — sits 6m from my desk," Christoph said. (For aficionados, the knucklehead engine is a landmark of Harley history.) Bobbers contributed to the outlaw image of Harleys and bikers in general.
Aiming for what he calls "the clean bobber look," Christoph devoted considerable effort to the bike's rear view. Instead of hanging a stoplight from the fender, he combined its function with the turn signal lamps, as is typical on cars, and placed the license plate on the left side of the bike. That side-mounted plate is the signature of the Nightster's outlaw theme of rebellion.
"I wanted people to wonder if it was legal," Christoph said. Among the first to wonder was Harley's legal department. The design sent them digging through motor vehicle statutes; even after assurances that it was in compliance, many in the company were nervous and wanted to change the arrangement. "We organized project "save the license plate,'" Christoph said.
Davidson added: "The clean rear fender is the key to the styling of the Nightster. It's a look that couldn't have been achieved without the stop-turn taillights and the side-mount plate."
Even with Davidson backing the idea, according to Christoph, it took weeks to get the configuration approved.
That process may suggest why the personality of the finished product contrasts with the mood of Christoph's jagged original sketches and enthusiastic descriptions of the bike. As produced, the Nightster is awfully well housebroken for a machine with aspirations of grit and grunge.
It comes with elegant details: a classy orange pinstripe on the fuel tank, and light stitching on the seat that emphasizes its handmade quality.
"I also wanted it to have a rat-rod quality," Christoph said, referring to the revival of interest in historically authentic finishes among hot rodders. He thought of matte black, like the repainted 1961 Chrysler Imperial he once drove. The wheel rims and hubs, handlebar and front suspension legs are black. Most of the chrome is gone, to be sure, except on the exhaust pipes, whose length and cut was specified by Davidson.
The engine, the same rubber-mounted, fuel-injected V-Twin used in other 1,200cc Sportsters, is done up in a matte finish called Medium Gray, a hue also found on the transmission and airbox cover. All that gray mutes the bike's rebel black, a reminder that for all its overtones of rebellion, Harley-Davidson is quite a conservative company.
And why shouldn't it be, given its record of success?
The company reached its 100th birthday in 2003 and during the decade preceding, the average age of its riders had increased by roughly 10 years. It has since held roughly steady. Luring 20-somethings will require squaring respectability with rebellion.
Is the Nightster different enough to appeal to younger riders? "I expect it to be highly customized," Christoph said of the bike. The company's huge accessory catalog may be the true masterpiece of Harley design today. The success of Harley has always been in the ability of riders to imprint the bikes with their own personalities.
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