| | | | Road Test: 2007 Harley-Davidson VRSCX Night Rod Special-Black as night, mean as hell! |  Written: 12/09/2006 : 12:49. Read 22615 times (38/day). | | The integrality of this filed article is for Premium Members. | Harley-Davidson continues to develop its V-rod Revolution range and the latest addition is the Night Rod Special. It’s longer, lower and meaner looking than anything else out there. It’s the closest thing to a road legal drag bike without the wheelie bar fitted.
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Night Rod was launched in 2006 and the new Special is all dragged-out with a mega-wide 240mm rear tyre, drag handlebars and forward-mounted foot pegs. This doesn’t happen very often, but as soon as I first saw it in the flesh it was love at first sight. Both the Street Rod and Night Rod had to grow on me, but the Special is truly special. Some of the feelings from when I first sat my eyes on the original V-rod come back. Night Rod Special is just more of everything in a single minded, very black way.
I attended one of the many Euro launches, the best, as the one I attended included a rideout with Bill Davidson himself and partying in the Harley village at the European Bike week in Austria. This involved plenty of picturesque alpine roads in Austria, Slovenia and Italy. Not exactly the ideal environment for the low and long Night Rod Special.
I savoured my first ride on the Night Rod Special until the latter half of the day, and I made the right choice as it rained the first few hours we were out riding. And I got to sample the turbo-like acceleration above 6.000 rpm on the motorway just at the end of the long day.
Riding the brutal VRSCDX is neither easy nor difficult, but certainly not neutral. It is easy enough to have a sit and ride straight on as the jumbo rear tyre and mile-long wheelbase makes sure the Special is stable as a mountain in a straight line. The trouble comes in the corners, there’s no ground clearance and Harley did not intend it to be so either. But we are in the Alps now, remember? So the Night Rod Special felt a bit like a fish out of water, and I knew in advance to be cautious. So corner speed is sacrificed for fast ‘ish entries and early throttle openings. The double four pot Brembo brakes are reassuringly strong, but I had to remind myself that the 240mm rear tyre kept pushing the front so I could not go that fast entering the corners. What I could do however was to give it all it had as soon as I was halfway ‘round the corners. It does not matter what sort of lean you have, there are still a massive patch of black rubber touching the tarmac at all times. The rubbe ...
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