Depends on the Rider! .....

 

My first Harley was a 2002 Sportster. That bike would blow my buddies bikes (V-twin) away light to light so around town it was a lot of fun to ride. On long rides the sporty would beat me up. Going over 70 MPH the bike would vibrate so bad my hands would fall asleep and by the end of the ride I was tired.

I now have a '07 Fatboy and LOVE the bike. It's smooth on the highway at 80 MPH, easy to maneuver, looks great, bigger gas tank, etc.

I would take the Fatboy over the Sportster any day because of the type of riding I do. If I only road around town then I would consider a Sporty again.

 

If performance is your main concern the 1200 sportster has the advantage. The newer 1200's with the Buell style heads make almost a much horsepower as the TC96 and the sportster is around 150lbs lighter than the Fatboy.

 

Ive owned a 04 Sportster 1200R, a 04 RKC and my current 05 Fatboy with a stage 2 95 in it.

Hands down the Sportster was faster, power to weight is much better. But that being said it did not have the tq that the big tiwns have.

IMO the Sportster has a higher center of gravity and this makes it harder to ride at slow speeds but for performance riding on canyons, in and out of traffic the Sporty is much more agile than the fatboy. But the fatboy is a lot more comfortable over long rides and at cruising speed.

basicly they are very different bikes both good for what they were designed to do.

 

Having owned both....its like comparing apples to oranges. One is a smaller squirrly cheaper bike...and the other is a larger nearly 3x cost with a much better stable ride. I cannot imagine anyone who would consider shelling out 18k or so would compare a 7k Sporty.

 

Definitely 2 completely different bikes. At 6'2" I was happy to trade in my Sportster for my Fat Boy. I was too tall for the Sportster and was never really comfortable on it even with forward controls and mini-apes. Sportster is definitely more nimble but more top heavy too. I didn't need nimble for the type of riding I do but needed something comfortable for longer rides. I was pleasantly surprised how balanced the Fat Boy was during my first test drive. Absolutely love my Fat Boy.

 

Two totally different bikes. My girlfriend's 883 will blow away a lot of the V-Twins and her bike is just tuned well with a stage 1. It handles better than a big bike even though, or maybe because it is more top heavy. You can really throw it around in the turns. After fixing all the EPA's crap, it's really a fun bike to ride and I plan on doing a 1250 conversion to it probably within the next year.

The 2004 and up have rubber mounted motors so they are a lot more comfortable on the long haul. We took hers on a 3500 mile trip over two weeks riding two up and it wasn't bad at all. We would have been more comfortable on a big bike, but there were others in the group on big bikes that were worse off. I'm 6'2" and installed the forward controls on the bike before the trip.

Now that I've said all that, there's still a reason I went out and purchased an early 90's Heritage with an Evo motor in it.

 

In short, you sit on a sportster, and in a softtail.

I have both an 07 sporty and an 04 ST. Both Fuel Injected. The Sporty is a 1200 L. The sporty will leave the ST in the dust off the line but will need to slow drastically to make a tight turn, my heritage can just lay into a turn at speed. That is with me on it, my 100 LB 5'0" wife is happier on the sporty in turns. Being under 500#, I can see why she would be happier on it, but for me and my 250# butt, I rather sit a bit lower and on something with a bit more than 80% weight advantage.

I can only guess that you are coming from a sport bike or dirt bike experience asking about speed. That's not what Harley is about man.

 

U didn't ask the real question.

The FB is bout $7k more..

 

+1, well said.