One from the archives...

Lucky number seven and all that...
When I was a child growing up in Dublin one of the highlights of the winter season was the annual trip to the purer air of the Southside and our very own posh peoples neighbourhood, Ballsbridge. Here we spent the day at the epic adventure that was Funderland. Funderland was, and still is I presume, a travelling fun park. It rolled in for ten days just after Christmas and proved to be highly effective at depleting our pocket money while simultaneously causing us to form the most intense crushes on girls we’d never in our wildest dreams actually talk to.Â

All those years of doing track days finally pay off
Emotional torture and financial ruin aside the rides were somewhat modest. I don’t know about now but back then the whole thing took place inside one very large exhibition hall so nothing was very big and nothing was very fast. What it offered, was an enormous amount of fun. This exotica was somewhere for us to loose ourselves, live in the moment and occasionally get somewhat of a start.Â
Riding Harley Davidsons latest incarnation of the Sportster brings back that emotional memory. They may not be the biggest or the fastest but they provide a whole world of fun and involvement for the rider. As a motorcycling experience they are a totally immersive one in a wonderfully warm and positive way.

Surprisingly agile
While the bike has been around for a while now it has been reworked and redesigned as part of the ‘Motor Companies’ new Dark Custom philosophy. This new outlook on motorcycling sees the factory producing bikes that, from a styling perspective, are offered as a blank canvas. A place for the styling to start rather than an end point. There is a lot of black with matt bodywork and very subtle touches of chrome such as the machined wheel spokes and exhaust shields. The rest is black with frame, most of the engine, bodywork and even detail pieces such as the belt guard being at the cooler end of the colour spectrum. Yes indeed, Dark Custom is blacker than a Jonny Cash album.

Just like riding in Donegal, only much, much different
To emphasise the customisation possibilities the good people at Harley Davidson have been running a competition called ‘Battle Of The Kings’ within the dealer network across Europe to build the coolest Dark Custom using the smaller 883 as a template.

The possibilities are the same with the 48. Indeed, over 90 percent of Harley riders can’t help themselves when it comes to altering their bikes, so big is the custom scene in the market globally. Traditionally to have a one of a kind machine from HD one really needed to buy something from the Custom Vehicles Operations people within Harley. This was and still is a relatively expensive way of doing the custom thing and the Dark Custom concept brings the same options to the other 99%.
Talk to Mo at Waterford H-D about a taking a perfect used 48 for a spin...
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