Magnum Force

The Harris brothers have a reputation for building the finest aftermarket chassis for Japanese muscle bike engines. Chris Pearson clambers aboard a CB900F-engined Magnum 2, and finds it doesn't get much better than this.

It doesn’t get much better than this; a stonking engine wrapped up in a state of the art chassis. The Harris brothers, Steve and Lester, really know their stuff when it comes to harnessing power and getting it to behave on the tarmac. Miles of top level endurance racing in the mid-70s, where the demands placed upon both chassis and engines are never higher, have resulted in their cumulative knowledge being put to great use on the roads.

At first the extreme, racing rear-set seating position does take some adjusting to, your feet are way up behind you and all of your bodyweight is balancing somewhere just behind the wrist. Getting the first leg up and on to the high footrest at a standstill is hard enough, adding a second while on the move is near on impossible. This makes slow speed manoeuvring look clumsy for the first few metres as every input, be it intentional or otherwise, yields huge movements from the responsive steering. It’s a case of relaxing and enjoying the ride, and going with the bike.

The slightest thought of a change in direction has the lively Harris begging to be let loose, a willingness that gets keener by the bucketload the further around the dial the speedo needle goes.
Going faster gets a quicker response, it’s as if the chassis has a serious drug habit and it’s the kind that will only add points on to your licence. Compared to the donor machine the weight felt through the bars is noticeable by its absence. Even with the narrower bars required to match the image the Magnum can be moved around with ease once a few knots have been built up. 40 kilos have disappeared off the menu, leaving an addictive plateful of power and little mass to hold it back. Party on!

Adding to that party is a raucous, rock and roll soundtrack provided by the open, Harris designed and fabricated, exhaust system. It’s a total attack on the senses, the eyes can’t believe what they are seeing while the ears can’t take in the noises and somewhere deep inside your helmet the brain is trying to make sense of the whole lot and turn it into some form of useful information. On most occasions the bike is a few steps ahead of your own thinking and appears to be tipping into corners with stunning accuracy all by itself. The slightest whiff of throttle mid corner has the sharp end heading out and accelerating hard, the rear suspension getting tauter as the engine digs in, keeping the front wheel planted firmly on the tarmac.

Visually, at least, the Magnum takes a bit of getting used to. The frame dominates the proceedings, intertwined around the engine like a pair of newfound lovers. The act is indeed an intimate one with those sturdy frame tubes passing within millimetres of the engine, holding on to every movement of the cycle parts and power plant with a grip verging on overkill. The result is precision seldom seen in production motorcycles that have to pamper to many whims and needs. The Magnum has a single purpose, to carve a line into a series of corners, take it or leave it.

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