The Harley Davidson Nightster 1200 Custom Cafe Racer is the private bike of the owner of Rewheeled Motorcycles. This is its fourth and final version. It started out as a standard Nightster 1200 , then the bars were changed and a special 2-2 exhaust was built. The fender struts were cut and also put on a swing mounted rear fender and a small soloseat. It rolled as a bobber for two seasons but this winter it was rebuilt into a dirt track version but he wasn’t satisfied with the looks. It was then Cafed up , and now he is happy! He said “Couldn’t see myself driving a bobber when I’m building café racers…”
What´s done? Rewheeled give us the build detailsStarting from the front; The stock forksprings are replaced with Wilbers linear racing springs and a thicker forkoil. The front brakeline is replaced with a steelbraided hose. Bars are replaced with LSL sportmatch clipons and the headlight is a 7” Lucas style aftermarket with new brackets. The indicators (front and rear) are extremly small (e-marked!) LED in alu housing. The multi instrument is a Motogadget Motoscope Mini , practically invisible with the ignition turned of. The fuel tank is a 17 litre Sportster Custom tank, painted black with lasercut stainless steel Rewheeled logos. The seat is an aftermarket XR-style seat widened to fit the 2003 up frame, for the moment with raceneoprene padding. The license plate arrangement is custom made with LED Bates style rear light.
The rear sets are custom made brackets with Tarozzi foot controls with rebuilt brake arrangement and custom made gear shift linkage. The rear hub is relaced with an 18” Morad rim and the rear shocks are Progressive Suspensions 413 Race Line 400 mm. Exhaust are headers from Supertrapp (-2003) paired with a custommade middle part ending with two 1,75” Supertrapp mufflers (2-1-2). Headers are wrapped and two custom made heat shields where fabricated. Airfilterbox is powdercoated black and airfilter is K&N high flow. A Power commander PCV is fitted. The changes has given a wonderful bike to drive with good punch in the lower revs, but mostly it has effected the handling and driveability. The rear is some 10 cm up compared to stock and this gives much quicker steering response. The more active position with low bars and rear sets makes it simply great fun to drive. In my opinion it is equally great too look at…
You don’t see that many cafe racer builds based on Sportsters out there, especially not based on the rubber mount 2003 up. In this one the aim was to combine classic cafe racer lines with the Harley heritage using the XR style seat and the twin mufflers. The longer shocks and bigger rear wheel were essential to create the correct stance and the stock gas tank is far to high in my opinion.
Images: Mattias Hallgren
Website: rewheeled.com
