Hertfordshire’s most famous sons are now involved in developing new Royal Enfields, yet they’re still right in the thick of old school tubework and their stainless steel paddock stands are still the industry standard.
When Lester Harris and his brother Steve decided to make bike parts to fund their own racing back in the early 1970s, they had no idea that Harris Performance would become one of the most celebrated names in motorcycling.
The brothers were both trained engineers, Steve working on F1 car space-frame chassis and Lester on karts. “Bikes were the first love of both of us. Within six months our racing aspirations as riders were over as customer jobs took precedence over our own bikes,” says Lester. “Back then the market was exploding and it was still possible for the little guys to make massive improvements to what the major manufacturers were doing.
“This was the era of Bimota, Egli, Moto Martin and the like. It’s not so easy today; you couldn’t really imagine a guy in a shed using hand tools to build a better Ducati Panigale. We were ambitious and that meant lots of possibilities.”
This story is from the January 2018 edition of Practical Sportsbikes.
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This story is from the January 2018 edition of Practical Sportsbikes.
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