And "dt" loves his, I think.
There’s a used one for sale down at
Brandon Harley. Just like mine except it’s got some D&D slip-ons. I was down there getting another new rear tire…damaged it somehow, but don’t remember hitting anything. The XR has a pillion pad and passenger pegs, but I wouldn’t make anyone sit back there.
I’ve had two Sportsters; the one before was a 1974 XLH1000 Ironhead; candy apple red…very nice. I sold it in early 1991 to a dude who paid me way more than it was worth. I didn’t even have it up for sale. I had it down at the old Tampa Harley dealer (before Jim Ferman bought the Franchises) having them put one of those “new fangled oil coolers” on (
) back when they were down on Hillsborough and 50th in Tampa. One of their sales guys called up and said some dude from Europe wanted to buy it and what’ll I take. I said I’ll take $4,500 (it was worth maybe $3,000 back then, about what I paid for it back in 1982), and he said okay! So the dude that bought it then proceeded to ship it along with a bunch of other used Harleys he purchased on his trip to friggin’ Brussels, because there was a huge market over there for used Harleys…AND that was all right in the middle of “Desert Shield” when the Military was using every available shipping means to get tanks and Patriot Missile Batteries into Iraq and Kuwait…must have cost the guy a friggin’ fortune in shipping.
Anyway…back on topic…the Sporty is a very versatile bike. You can do a lot with them and there’s a ton of aftermarket support for all kinds of things from mods to services, even for the real old ones. Also, in the pricing area, I don’t think they’re too damaging on the wallet for what you get. Go back to the XR link ^^ and click “inventory” in the upper left hand corner. They’ve got a couple not too old XLs (1200s) in there for around $6,000…and this is a dealer! Think what you can do on eBay and CL. There’s XL1200C in the dealer’s inventory that has a real nice setup for 2up with a sissy bar…that’s what you can do. AND you should look at
Bones Sporty because that has a nice 2up Corbin seat arrangement with a bar. Anyway, that’s my two cents (maybe five) on Sportys.
Overall, there’s a ton of good used stuff out there; not just Harleys. I think there are a lot of people that buy these things (motorcycles) really thinking they’re going to get into it and then wind up tripping over them in their garages. If you’ve got some time, that’s good, because I think there’s some real deals to be had.
