ALL TORQUE (AND PLENTY OF ACTION!)

MERLIN ANSON JACKET

I’m wearing Merlin’s ‘Anson’ heritage wax cotton jacket. A lighter alternative to leather jackets, the Anson is made from genuine Halley Stevensons Scottish waxed cotton, with a Reissa waterproof breathable membrane as standard, as well as shoulder and elbow armour.

I’m wearing the blue version, but black is also available, with S-3XL sizing for both colours.

$349.95 RRP.

After much speculation over its fate in recent years, Harley-Davidson’s Sportster is nether dying nor fading away. It’s been reborn as a high-performance street brawler that puts “sport” back into the model name. I was on hand for the Australian launch of the all-new ‘Sportster S’ and can attest to the fact that the Sportster is not only alive, but very, very healthy.

What do you do with an aged model that has such a long and storied history as the Sportster? It’s an interesting question and one that head honchos at The Motor Company no doubt thought long and hard over.

Kill it? It certainly would have been an option. The V-Rod and Street, to name a couple, have been given the chop in recent years, while the dismemberment of the entire Dyna range showed Harley-Davidson can be ruthless with their established models. But the Sportster is something of a sacred cow, isn’t it?

To put some history into the equation, the Sportster name dates back to 1957 and has been