HarleyDavidsonStreetDarkCustomReview()

2016 Harley Davidson Street 750 Review: Dark Canvas

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This month was all about relaxed cruise motorcycling for me. Not that I particularly enjoy this sort of riding style but there is something unexplainably satisfactory about cruiser motorcycles. Ironically, I rode the Harley-Davidson Street 750 and the Bajaj Avenger 220 Street in a matter of weeks – two conspicuously similar looking machines with a very different pedigree. While I have already penned down my thoughts about the new Bajaj Avenger 220 duo, this time around, I would take you through a detailed ride report of the new 2016 Harley Davidson Street 750.

I’ve had a couple of short stints with the previous iteration of the Street 750 and it does not take long to realise that the 2016 model is not much different. So in case you want to know the Street 750 in detail, you can read all about it through our detailed and exhaustive review here. In this specific article, we would be mainly concentrating on the changes that the 2016 model gets over its previous iteration.

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Harley is calling it’s new set of cruisers ‘Dark Customs’ for the year 2016. With the Dark Customs theme, the American motorcycle maker has stripped down the 2016 models – the Street 750, Iron-883 and Forty-Eight – to offer a motorcycle that can be customized to owner’s needs and style.

Before I get to the specifics, let me describe the pre-decided route through which the ride was planned by Harley-Davidson India. The ride that began from the Seven-Island Harley-Davidson showroom in Navi-Mumbai, took us through the picturesque roads of Lonavala before leading us to the sprawling Sahara Aamby Valley resort as our canvas to photograph the 2016 Street 750.

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Now Harley-Davidson pitches the Street 750 as a motorcycle for the “urban grid” and I was a bit sceptical about riding the product and understand its characteristics away from the soil that it was bred for. But then again, we live in a country where enthusiasts quench their occasional thirst for wanderlust with 150-200cc single-cylinder everyday motorcycles and the Street 750 is going to be no different.

Push the starter and bring that 749 cc V twin liquid cooled “Revolution X” engine to life and you are welcomed by a familiar exhaust note that has been filling the environment since the last two years. The hardware is no different than the previous model and you still get that juicy, well-spread torque with peak figure of 60 Nm kicking in at just 4,000 RPM. You can still go around the twisted roads, scraping the footpegs with utter ease, (precariously so, if you undermine or ignore those over extended bits) as the chassis continues to give you the same phenomenal response to tackle the canyons as the previous 750. The Street is a handler for its ilk, alas, Harley haven’t yet snipped those wide foot-pegs short for us to lean this beautiful machine fully into the corners.

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So while the basic setup on the 2016 model remains the same, it primarily works towards addressing minor niggles from the previous model. The biggest change that you would instantly notice is the braking system. Braking wasn’t particularly a USP for the previous model year Street 750 but things are commendably different with the MY2016 motorcycle. For 2016, the Street 750 employs an all new braking system which comes from Brembo and gets a slightly larger 300mm disc on both ends. The response is laudable, and even the slightest of taps on the brake lever results in a perceptibly sharper drop in speed. Put some more pressure on the lever and the wheels, especially the rear, easily gets locked, resulting in a slight screeching sound from those MRF tyres. Here, I could not wish enough for an ABS, at least as an option till it becomes a norm.

Another point for improvisation for the previous generation model was the fit and finish. Now it might be the most affordable Harley-Davidson motorcycle out there on the Indian roads but at Rs 4.52 lakh (ex-showroom), the Street 750 isn’t particularly cheap. The previous Street 750 did not receive high scores for its fit and finish, especially with the untidy and disturbingly visible wiring setup. For 2016, the fit and finishing has definitely improved to a certain extent. The wiring harness still remains a blot on the landscape though. If only Harley-Davidson could have packed the entire setup with covers and concealed those wires neatly as they do for their higher-spec machines.

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The Harley-Davidson Street 750 has been a hit and the motorcycle continues to be one of the highest selling products for the brand in India. It is still the same fun-to-ride machine that you would like to take out, especially at this time of the year when the fall season is almost over and winter has begun to make the climate pleasant.

With the 2016 model, the Street 750 has inched closer to be a true-blue, well finished Harley-Davidson motorcycle. That being said, the absence of ABS does not do justice to the remarkably improved braking system. The wiring harness also needs to go behind the scene and work abit more inconspicuously. There is, however, no way you can point a finger at that machine for the price it’s being offered at. With its amazing engine and sorted dynamics, the 2016 Street 750 remains one of the most desirably accessible machine across price catregories and genres. It’s just too good a deal for an H-D fan to be true.

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Here are some more images of the new 2016 Harley-Davidson Street 750. Do let us know your views about the 2016 model and the review with us through the comments section below.

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