2016 Harley-Davidson® VRSCF - V-Rod Muscle®

The Harley-Davidson V-Rod American cruiser has been about since 2001, and the new Muscle is… is just another styling exercise to bolster what is arguably a tired range. The Muscle is essentially a reworked V-Rod with design touches (muscular, flowing lines) to front it up as a serious boulevard traffic light blaster. Except it isn’t that muscular – 12.25sec standing quarters anyone? For the uninitiated, muscle bikes are large capacity machines dressed in street cruiser clothing and producing serious amounts of torque and power. The mixture of chrome, wide bars and tyres bolted to a long wheelbase chassis command huge road presence even though bold styling means they are often mistaken for asthmatic two-wheeled handbags. Big mistake! The Porsche-designed 1246cc engine had a little work to ramp up the bottom end for this version but, even so, its claimed 85ftlb is down on competition from the Yamaha VMAX and Triumph Rocket III. Actual power delivery is a mystery. Investigate the bike’s spec and you’ll end up with zero because Harley doesn’t quote a bhp figure.