sportsters

[hci]

Murph, can you tell me the difference between Laconia bars and speedster bars? I would like laconia, but good originals seem rare and priced accordingly. I passed on a set on ebay recently because I wasn't sure (still brought $250). Side by side pic would be x-tra cool. By the way, I enjoy your post's, early sportys are my bag. I think I should just bring you my pickup load of parts and have you put them all together, nice work. Donn

[murph]

If you look at the bars that were on the 69 before these, they are laconia. If you look close enough to my avatar they are speedsters. Or look at some of my posts on the 59, under projects, that has speedsters

[epinut]

If you look at the bars that were on the 69 before these, they are laconia. If you look close enough to my avatar they are speedsters. Or look at some of my posts on the 59, under projects, that has speedsters

Murph I've been searching for info about those bars before & what I came up with is that that the bars you have on your -62 & the -59 are actually the 68-69 "XL bar". I was really dissapointed by this cause these are the absolutely best looking & most comfortable Harley bars ever! If you could prove me wrong I would be really happy though, the Laconia bars feels a little too much "wheel barrow" for my liking...

[murph]

Well I won't attempt to prove you wrong because someone always seems too know more than I do. I know that there are several variations to speedster bars that I have seen. I cant tell you what years were what but this is the first I've heard of your findings. If the bars I have been using are not conciderd speedsters I would like to see an actual set that are. I am always for educating myself, that's why I am here. Can anyone shed some light on this for us?

[epinut]

Well I won't attempt to prove you wrong because someone always seems too know more than I do. I know that there are several variations to speedster bars that I have seen. I cant tell you what years were what but this is the first I've heard of your findings. If the bars I have been using are not conciderd speedsters I would like to see an actual set that are. I am always for educating myself, that's why I am here. Can anyone shed some light on this for us?

Yeah, some more input would be nice! Meanwhile here is what I'd say is Laconia vs Speedster:

And here are the so called XL-bars:


A buddy of mine picked up a set of these (XL) bars a couple of years ago & was told they were "early XLCH bars". We figured this made sense, since we found the left side was available both with & without throttle, pre & post -65 we thought...
But after looking at all the factory CH pics we could find, all of them had Laconias, we asked around & got pointed out that they actually were the 68-69 "XL-bars". When searching for pics of 1968-69 CH's & most of them seem to have these bars, so I figured "case closed"... The fixed left side would for the "non mag bikes".

[murph]

The old photo does appear to be laconia bars. I've never really read into the parts book about it until now. I always assumed there were several variations meaning what the parts book is calling speedsters and xl bars. One just appears to be a shorter version of the other to me but someone here will clarify I'm sure. I have to say I don't know, but if you have a set of what I'm calling speedsters and feel they are not correct for your 62 send them to me and I will throw them out for you.

[hci]

Wow- Cool pic of the sportys a '63-4 & '57-8 vintage. I'd like to hang that on the wall. Thats what I mean, parts books are not clear at all and I get various opinions. There are later xl bars, I have several, mostly bought on e-bay by me because the seller insisted they were laconia or speedsters. My impression is the speedsters are lower and and stick outward more while laconia are higher and grips are angled more back. I think the later bars are kind of in the middle as far as height and angle. But under stand I'm trying to learn something here too and might be wrong. Donn

[magneto sportster]

The bars on the '58 in the photo above (next to the '64) are definitely speedsters. He has them pushed forward kind of far, but they are certainly speedsters. So are these:

[Black KH]

These are the 'speedster' bars for my '55 I bought from Faber Cycle

[epinut]

but if you have a set of what I'm calling speedsters and feel they are not correct for your 62 send them to me and I will throw them out for you.

Murph, I don't think they are correct... But I really wish they were cause like I said before, beautiful bend, a real narrow center, hardly no straight part between the "splines" & the bend. Feels great & look great! So I'm keeping them... But I can't find a single pic before -68 showing these bars... Here's my bike as it looked when I bought it, not much of it left now, might aswell just bought the engine & the frame... Speedsters right?