Heavy Duty – July-August 2019

and springs at the top by the steering

head for suspension. In a nutshell, with

girder forks everything hanging from the

steering neck moves up-and-down.

By 1916, the Harley-Davidson front

fork had concealed springs and boasted

over 41 feet of tempered spring steel to

provide state-of-the-art dampening.

Then along came the radically different

1919 Sport Model, which had a unique,

leading link girder-style front suspension,

with the first use of an external fork

spring on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

New in 1922, were two centre springs,

located between the fork tubes, assisting

the concealed helical springs which you

can just see if you look carefully at the

photo below.

In 1926 the single cylinder models use

six exposed springs to control cushioning

and rebound instead of concealed springs.

In 1930, I-beam front forks are used on

the V-twin models.

The Knucklehead was released in 1936

and sported a stronger, tubular-style

front fork assembly, similar to that used

on recent Springer models, instead of

1916

1919 Sport

Girder^1926 1936 Knucklehead

1930 VL

1922