Harley-Davidson will introduce an entry-level motorcycle next year, which is call for celebration.
For long-time readers of RideApart, you'll know that I've been absolutely on Harley to build something that's actually an entry-level motorcycle. Something that isn't a Sportster, really, as despite it being somewhat cheap among new motorcycles, and the brand's most inexpensive offering, it's still a heavy, high horsepower, $10,000 motorcycle. It takes skill a beginner doesn't have to ride one. That, my friends, isn't entry-level anything.
Yet, while Harley themselves will admit that most folks' entrant into the brand is the aftermarket, that doesn't help the struggling Motor Co. rescue itself from years of catering purely toward the old, monied Boomer crowd who ate up FX's Sons of Anarchy. It desperately needs to inject new blood to keep its 100-year history alive, which is something I want to see, too.
What it needs is something to challenge Triumph, Kawasaki, Honda, and most of all, Royal Enfield. Small-displacement motorcycles with low MSRPs, but ones that can carry on the Harley-Davidson tradition. And, apparently, that's exactly what's coming next year, according to outgoing CEO Jochen Zeitz.
And it's called the Sprint.
The soon-to-be-gone CEO told investors of the Sprint's existence on the latest earnings call, in which he stated that the group had been working on the motorcycle since 2021. Why it took five years to produce when Harley-Davidson already has a handful of small-displacement motorcycles in conjunction with Qianjiang Motors and Hero—i.e. the X350 and X440—I don't know.
But Zeitz hinted that not only would this new Sprint not be based on those two, but that it was a ground-up new architecture, telling investors, "We believe that how we've engineered this product, it will be profitable." The engineering of said motorcycle is the giveaway that it's a new thing, as Harley wouldn't have to do anything to engineer the X350 or X440 bikes as the company is already selling those, and using them as training motorcycles in its wildly successful new rider program.
As to what the motorcycle will be, Harley's remaining mum. The only hint Zeitz gave was that there'd be a future cruiser model based on the Sprint's architecture, which tells me that the motorcycle might resemble something more along the lines of the Pan-America or one of Royal Enfield's or Triumph's small-displacement motorcycles.
A miniaturized Fatboy, this ain't gonna be.
The Sprint will supposedly bow either late this year or early next if Harley-Davidson remains faithful to that 2026 debut, so we might want to start getting ready around EICMA. But after years of me harping on the brand, I'm stoked to see Harley-Davidson finally get with the times. Fingers crossed this works out better than LiveWire has...
