Resident Evil 2 was released in 1998. A remake also came out in 2019. Let’s talk about the remake. It’s a great game and all but I just need to talk about this bike for a minute.
The game begins with Claire riding into town on a brand new Harley Davidson FXSTB also knows as a Night Train. She pulls up to a shitty gas station to use a pay phone and parks the bike in the rain for some reason. Look at these gas prices! Man those were the days. Anyway you are supposed to go inside and see what that noise was but I just wanted to get back on the bike and leave. Who cares what that noise was? Literally no reason to go see! Just leave! Anyway I noticed in the cut scenes that the risers looked very accurate. Looking at the bike closer and man, they did a REALLY great job with this model. Apparently it was officially licensed. I happen to be a certified Harley tech so I know pretty well what I am looking at. Even the oil lines appear to be routed correctly! It’s not perfect though, so lets take a closer look together.
The good.
At first glance, the bike appears to be bone stock. The game takes place in 1998 and this was supposedly a brand new bike in the story. This is an evolution engine which is correct. Looks like a 5 speed trans. The night train had a blacked out engine and primary which is correct. The front triple trees and fork lowers are not black which is actually how they used to come. They did a good job on the oil pump. Voltage regulator and oil filter look right. Shift linkage looks good. Turn signals and headlight looks correct. Front wheel looks good. Front brake caliper and disk look ok. Throttle cables look right… But wait a min.
The bad.
There is an extra brake line coming out of the front master cylinder for some reason. The rear brakes use their own master cylinder. I’ve only ever seen this modification for people who are missing their right leg and even then they both use the same banjo bolt. This extra line is just coming out of the side of the reservoir somehow. OK that’s not right at all. That’s just not how it works. The rear brake caliper looks correct but its not even hooked up! The rear master cyl is missing completely so… you tell me. WTF.
Looks like there is also an extra 3rd throttle cable coming out of the left switch housing? That’s not supposed to be there. It’s not the clutch cable because the clutch cable can be seen further forward and connected to the clutch lever perch where it is supposed to be. This looks like it comes out of the bottom of the housing like a kawasaki throttle or something. This is not correct. Old knucklehead and panheads used to have a left side cable used for ignition timing advance but this is not that either. Those were internal cables and this is just wrong. It’s bad and whoever did it should feel bad.
The rear wheel and rear fender are way too fat. This tire is supposed to be a 130/90B16 or maybe even an MT90B16. Harley didn’t come out with the fatter rear softail wheel until 2007. Aftermarket wide tire kits were available but I just can’t see Clair doing all of that work while leaving the stock exhaust and stock air breather. No fuckin way. She would have installed an S&S Super E at the very least. You can see the drive belt does not exist and the pulley is flat like paper. This is because the wheel was too damned fat and because no one but me cares at all.
Either Claire is skilled in motorcycle customization and has some really dumb ideas, or the art directors thought MEH GOOD ENOUGH.
The seat doesn’t even have a mounting screw or fender tab. Rookie mistake.
Someone once mentioned how she must have left the key in the ignition since its not in your inventory. (that person also thought this bike was a dyna lol) I am here to tell you that she likely didn’t even bring the key with her at all. You never see it in the cut scenes, and you don’t even need it as long as the ignition is unlocked. Just turn the knob on the dash and hit the start button. This is before the days of the FOB. No security modules of any kind. You don’t need the key at all. This means anyone could have jumped on this bike and left at any time assuming there was fuel. Why would she leave it to get into a car with some weirdo she just met? Makes for a good story I guess but what the hell happened to the damned bike?! She just leaves it?! Clearly she didn’t pay for it, or she has way too much money. Idiot.
If she made these modifications, I say Claire doesn’t know shit about Harleys. Or maybe she DID KNOW and that’s why she left that death trap in the rain at the gas station with no rear brakes.
I still wouldn’t have left it.
Did I miss anything? Probably. Does it ruin the game? No. I’m sure no one else even noticed.
