Harley-Davidson has just launched two new Sportsters: the Iron 1200 and the Forty-Eight Special. Both have throwback styling and graphics to commemorate the Motor Company’s 115th anniversary, but don?t offer anything mechanically different.
We’re betting that there’s a completely new Sportster model in the Milwaukee engineering pipeline right now. But we’ve also had 14 years to appreciate the current Sportster’s strength: it’s been customized in so many ways, there’s a ton of parts?and inspiration?out there. Which was the premise for one of the strangest gigs I’ve ever attended as a moto journalist.

Harley-Davidson know this well. So they invited a select bunch of journalists and web celebs to their hometown to participate in the ?Brewtown Throwdown.? Four teams would be given three weeks to plan and two days to build up different Sportster models, with the finished bikes displayed at the Mama Tried show. My team was given the new Iron 1200 to customize. Out the box it’s a chopper-esque mash up; high in front, low in the back, with mini-ape bars, a nose fairing, and a gorgeous period-correct AMF graphic on the tank.

H-D’s marketing crew obviously has a sense of humor, because they asked us to turn the Iron 1200 into a cafe racer. So we had to radically change not only the Iron’s trim, but also its stance. And we weren’t allowed to swap or modify the new tank in any way.
We were also given a budge...