Harley Brand Bullshit

[Zsofia]

@Vinyl Turnip

They say loud pipes save lives. Pity it’s those lives.

Mostly, loud pipes make me think, “What a jerk. It would be so easy to just run that guy over with my car.”

[Muffin]

Harley Davidson — one-hundred and six years, and still doesn’t know how to make a muffler.

[Santo_Rugger]

@Muffin

Harley Davidson — one-hundred and six years, and still doesn’t know how to make a muffler.

Actually, quite the opposite is true. Many, if not most, Harleys sold are modified by the dealer with either performance exhaust, or simply an exhaust designed to be loud. In fact, according to the below quoted article, Harley was the first company to solve exhaust noise on bikes, which is more difficult than on cars due to space constraints:

These days, the loud motorcycle you hear roaring past is likely to be a modified Harley-Davidson. This is somewhat ironic because Harley was among the first motorcycle makers to tackle exhaust noise a century ago. In the early days of internal-combustion vehicles, many vehicles were annoyingly loud as delivered, but the threat of anti-motor-vehicle legislation soon had automakers fitting mufflers to their vehicles. As McCaslin’s message points out, quieting motorcycle exhaust pipes posed greater difficulties because there is no room for a bulky muffler on a bike. However, Harley engineered an effective silencer, and the resulting bike became known as The Silent Gray fellow. Its relative quiet contributed to its reputation as an elegant, advanced machine and helped distinguish Harley-Davidson Motor Company from dozens of rival American motorcycle makers.

Bolding mine, excerpted from here.

ETA: So featherlou would be more correct (and come across less abrasive) if she said, " I think Harley riders with modified pipes are assholes."

[Dinsdale]

@Santo Rugger

Not all Harleys have loud pipes.

Okay. I guess I don’t notice the quiet ones.
But I’ll certainly go along with the sentiment that the riders of Harleys with loud pipes ARE assholes.

[control-z]

Harleys and Apples. Decent machines, indecent prices.

I’ll stick with Hondas and PCs.

[brewha]

I am not a big fan of Harleys. Not that I think all the riders are assholes, but anyone who thinks that their Harley is better than any other bike is fooling themselves. The engine is a horrible design. An air-cooled inline v-twin? (the VRod is exempt of course). The mechanical engineer in me just screams in protest. Yes, the engines do run, but in order to allow for such drastic changes in engine temp, the tolerances can’t be nearly as close. Which means, you can have a 1200cc air-cooled engine that puts out the power of a 700cc liquid cooled engine.

Harley has nothing on any other bike. They are under-powered, over-weight, over-priced, dinosaurs of technology. The real bitch of it is that I love cruisers. I’m a tall guy and the riding position of a cruiser suits me best. I’m from Wisconsin - I’d love to support a local company. But, Harleys are just crap. I’m sticking with my Shadow.

[enipla]

@brewha

I am not a big fan of Harleys. Not that I think all the riders are assholes, but anyone who thinks that their Harley is better than any other bike is fooling themselves. The engine is a horrible design. An air-cooled inline v-twin? (the VRod is exempt of course). The mechanical engineer in me just screams in protest. Yes, the engines do run, but in order to allow for such drastic changes in engine temp, the tolerances can’t be nearly as close. Which means, you can have a 1200cc air-cooled engine that puts out the power of a 700cc liquid cooled engine.

The rear head is just under your crotch. And it gets hotter because air flow is blocked by the front cylinder.

My brother bought a 1200 sportster. That stunned me. Then he bought a 1300cc whatever glide. He had to put a bit of concrete down so he could get it over the California curb and get it up the drive and into his garage.

IMHO, that’s not a motocycle. It’s a two wheeled car that can’t get over a curb.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Santo Rugger

<snip>
ETA: So featherlou would be more correct (and come across less abrasive) if she said, " I think Harley riders with modified pipes are assholes."

I wasn’t too worried about being abrasive, since Harley riders don’t care what we think.

Vinyl Turnip, I think that’s the best summary of the “loud pipes save lives” debate I’ve ever seen.

[Scumpup]

Don’t get me started on straight pipe jerk-offs. I appear to be one of very few cruiser riders in western PA who isn’t running straight pipes. I have three such as neighbors. The town is full of them. The weather here finally warmed up over the weekend, and now all you can hear in the evenings is straight pipe bikes blatting and farting and roaring.
When the rider sits at a light or stop sign blipping the throttle on a loud bike it makes me want to knock the bike over on him to see if his screams of pain and outrage are loud enough to drown out the bike.
I will always treasure the memory of the day some fellow MBA candidates and I tried to set another candidate’s loud Harley on fire.