I’m a cowboy, on this steel horse I ride… and I’m wanted, dead or alive...  Yes indeed... URBAN COWBOY baby! The Harley Davidson Marque really does bring to the fore mental images of bleached desert, big blue sky and tarmac that runs in a straight line for miles (an Eagles album cover springs to mind). The perception has always been of a lumbering sort of beast that would balk at any sort of corner.

That straight line, cruiser culture is still present… but there is also a variation that lends itself to a more powerful, marginally sportier bike. This was the original V Rod, and thanks to the powers that be I was to pilot the latest incarnation, the V Rod “Muscle” which is essentially a factory customized version of the V Rod.

The first thing that strikes you walking around the bike is the rear tyre… which appears to have been sourced from a 747… it is WIDE! Ridiculously wide, it suggests that when you turn the throttle the bike isn’t propelled forward as much as the earth is spun backward on its axis! Then you start noticing things like the missing filler cap on the “tank” and interesting mesh intake type things. When you arrive at the front you find something that doesn’t really seem to fit with the rest of the bike. The muscle moniker really does fit the bike, it is wide, long low and aggressive… except for the front which is just a bit too… Japanese looking… I don’t know what it is, the headlight just isn’t quite right.