“I’m gonna hit the highway like a battering ram
On a silver black phantom bike
When the metal is hot and the engine is hungry
And we’re all about to see the light…”
Jim Steinman
Damn, that song spoke to me.
It’s almost like Jim knew, and Meatloaf certainly sang it like HE knew. Harley-Davidson for sure knows. And I certainly know. So, I guess I better tell you so you’ll know too.
The Breakout is bad for me. Bad in the same way a crazy girlfriend who refuses to wear undies and wants you to do her on a traffic island is bad.
The Breakout speed-activates the bits of my brain that are best left undisturbed. No social good comes of stirring those vile old synapses up. Best leave those nasty dogs sleeping.
That’s the silver-black phantom bike they were singing about.You see, to my mind, the Breakout is carved from pure outlaw evil. The kind of evil no longer permitted in Australia, so move on along, citizen. You got no business with this motorcycle. Society is obviously better off without it and without you. Anti-social fiends thundering about on such bikes destroy the very fabric of our society. And too much time, money, and police resources have been spent removing such wretched fiends from our gaze, and there’s no going back. So, keep moving, citizen. Stop even looking at it. Tell your girl to put her panties back on. It’s best that way.
Once upon a time, Harley had a double-page advertisement that pictured one of their bikes parked at dusk outside a pretty little farmhouse on some backroad. The lights were on in that farmhouse. There were only four words at the bottom of this picture. Powerful, unequivocal words, written by an ad manager at the very peak of his game for a company that knew exactly how to sell motorcycles to people like me.
Those words? “Lock up your daughters.”
No farmhouses here. Sadly.If Harley-Davidson would attempt an ad like this today, the outrage would bury it. The feminist pile-on would be apocalyptic. So, Harley doesn’t do ads like this anymore. It just can’t.
But what it can do, is build Breakouts. And I am instantly transported back to a world I liked and enjoyed much more than I like and enjoy this one. A world where daughters do indeed need to be locked up. Just ask my father-in-law.
Not loving that air filter. It works beaut, but it looks less than “appropriate”.In that world the moon is always full and I am always howling at it. Like the Breakout, the moon and I were invented for just that Goddamn reason.
In that world, the metal is certainly hot and the engine is ravenously hungry, and I am drag-racing my idiot mates along night-deserted streets lined with nameless factories. Our straight-through pipes barking like vast howitzers set to full auto, like our fearless, madly-hammering hearts.
I liked the seat. And it’s cute Harley still puts that silly pillion-strap on there. No-one I have ever pillioned has ever used it. There must be a million of them lying abandoned in sheds all over the world. In that world, I am rumbling into country towns on stinking hot summer days, wind-burned, sun-fried, and wild-eyed. Alone or in a group, I know shit’s gonna get crazy. I want it to. I have expectations. We are all about to see the light, bitches.
And I know when I park that Breakout in front of the pub, it’s going to look fantastic, and I will drink beer and look at it, even though I’ve seen it a thousand times before, and I will love the Hell out of it, and how it makes me feel. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
I love the simplicity of it all. The dash gives you the info you need, and no more. The engine modes are all changeable on the fly via the right-hand blinker switch. Just push it the other way.I love it so much I spend stupid amounts of money on it making it even more beautiful and more mine. I know and I love the effect it has on people. Pretty she-people with long legs, frilly bad-girl bras and wild hair, who smell like exotic fruit, and hold me really tight when I take them for a ride. We really are gonna make the most of our one night together.
What a world that was – full of deep flavour, vast passion, and primal meaning.
The wheels are gorgeous.I may long for it, but that’s not a world I live in anymore. But the Breakout does. And when I ride it, I want to shit on the bonnets of police cars again.
Look at it. Look closely and you can see the flames painted into its Hades-black paint. Look how it flows demonically from its 21-inch front, to its sassy fat-bottomed rear hoop – the wheels themselves utter works of art – pure, raked anti-socialism in chrome, alloy, and steel. It’s like Harley understood it HAD to look like this, then set about making sure it could still be ridden.
It’s what the Highway Patrol sees when it pulls you over.Because it sure can be ridden. The Breakout, unlike the fat-tyred Fat Boy, isn’t unreasonably vague in the corners. Sure, you might grind your boot-heels some if you’re trying, but so what? You didn’t buy a Panigale, did you? Quit your bitchin’. There’s no point to it, and I ain’t listening. What kinda fool buys a bike like this then complains about how it goes around corners?
Harley has moved light years away from where it was even ten years ago. Its bikes are better, faster, and way more enjoyable to ride, especially if you wanna push on a bit.
Great-looking headlight, which does quite well at night.For 2025, Harley has re-imagined and re-designed its Softail range, and among the many improvements it’s made (reverse-cut gears for smoother changes, traction control, and constant-rate suspension springs), the most arousing is the engine-mode button. I don’t give a shit about Rain mode, and Road mode is a solid, normal-feeling 117-cube Big-Twin going about its torquey business. But put it in Sport, pilgrim. Put the damn thing in Sport and leave it there. She, bless her pierced belly-button, is gonna hang on all that much tighter, and so will you.
Flames, baby. Flames.I’d spent a lot of money back in the day trying to make a Harley go like this. And rev like this. And respond like this. There were explosions along the way. Hateful words abounded. Success was never assured and always elusive.
In 2025, that success is here. Try it. Tell me I’m lying.
Even the woods have wood.You want more tech stuff, go look at the website. I truly don’t give a rat’s red rude-bit about any of it. The Breakout is transcendent in that regard. It’s a statement. And statements aren’t about numbers. They’re about far more important things.
Good ol’ Wollombi. Stay away from the Jungle Juice. DAMHIK.Sure, the air filter looks like a Chinese toaster, and I think it’s meant to, because mine wouldn’t leave the showroom with it on anyway. I’d also be loading in the High Output cams the 117-cube FXLRS comes with, just so the whole Breakout experience is all that much more meaty. But that’s just me. You don’t have to walk down that road. Just put some pipes on so Jesus can hear you coming and she can hear you leaving, and rock on.
This is a pretty part of the world.The Breakout is a magnificent and masterful conjuring. It effortlessly invokes that old world I was getting all misty-eyed about. But it does it without the mechanical angst that came with them old raked and stroked Shovelheads. So, it’s not an illusion. It’s real. Its DNA is pure old-school righteousness, but without the mechanical price-tags you just had to pay back then.
It sure isn’t for everyone. That’s cool. That old world never was. And that is how just we liked it.
The Breakout? It’s so bad for me. Hell, I love the bastard.
