Perhaps they’re afraid to take a hand off of the grip on the twitchy bitch.
I mostly ride a Suzuki C90T that’s 4+ years old and 40K+ miles. If the road is dry, I ride it to work regardless of the temperature. I also have a 800cc Suzuki in the garage that has half the power, but it’s also much fun to ride. My first bike was as 1100cc Yamaha Virago that was so very fast and responsive that I still smile when I think about it. That’s not as broad and experience of motorcycles as many have. I’ve only been riding for a few years.
But I will say this - The best motorcycle is the one under your ass. Don’t worry about what someone else is riding. If you do, you’re missing the point.
If I could, I would have a whole garage full. My dream list:
A new Indian Chieftain in Indian Red,
A 2013-14 Gold Wing,
A older Triumph Speed Triple (with the dual round headlights),
A 2014 Honda CB1100 (retro bike) in cherry red,
A new Kawasaki Concourse,
A new BMW R1200.
My list is smaller: Street Triple for urban riding, Bonneville for everything else. Second choice: FZ-09 and Bolt R. Third Choice: Harley-Davidson Sportster, period.
Thing was, when Honda put out the Hawk in 88/89 they were wayy overpriced. Plus, folks didn’t know what to think of them. Not exactly a crotch rocket, not exactly a standard. And it had a V-twin rather than an inline 4. Super standard? So they didn’t sell very well when first introduced.
I had a blue one. Unknowingly hit a patch of radiator fluid that was on the ground while taking a curve. Bike just flew out from underneath me. I sold the bike for what it was worth minus the repair costs. I might get another one some day. I see some decent ones on Ebay/Craigs now and then.
My only issue with harley riders is the customization that many riders do. I know it’s your bike, but when you do things that actually make the bike perform worse, and make the bike less safe for the rider and for others on the road, that’s just dumb.
I also dislike riders who make the rest of us look bad. Not just harley riders here, but they do account for some of it. When you are a loud, obnoxious, pack of riders, you make other people not like motorcyclists. I don’t ride in packs, my bike has a relatively quiet exhaust, and I don’t ride aggressively in traffic. But I’m sure some people put me in the same category as the weekend asshole riders.
Yeah, that kind of sucked for Honda back in the 80s and 90s. The Hawk GT saw the naked sport bike/streetfighter trend coming and was ignored, then Ducati comes out with the Monster and everyone’s like “Oh! Cool idea!” They think a retro cafe racer would be cool and make the GB500 which tanks, and a decade later people are converting everything into them.
I dreamed of a NT650 when younger, but when I sold mine this past winter it was sorta meh. I liked it and it was a cool bike, but we never gelled. The guy that bought it already owned two and was more thrilled with it than I ever was.
I’ll go along with most of that. I was more tolerant when folks basically had to build their own (chopper of cafe racer) or know someone with the skills but now that its more a question or checkbook-ownership --------- not so much.
I will say in our (HDs) defense though that most of the accident stats I’ve seen make choppers look like “safety first” compared to factory sport (what I would call “cafe” and most folks “bullet bikes”) bikes. Unmodified those things kill people way to regularly. And as bad as some of those “loud pipes save lives” assholes annoy me, its the Ninja-ish at 8k+ RPM over the West End Bridge that wakes me up in the middle of the night. Harleys can be made loud but those bitches SCREAM.
(Totally most stupid and useless bike I ever rode – one of OCCs full custom jobs. I’m very experienced and have ridden some insane choppers over the years but this POS sucked from start to finish. After 3 miles I would have quit but I got to where I was going first. From what I’ve heard their “production versions” ain’t much better.)
You get that this is part of the problem, right? I can almost forgive BMW - the problem there is the bikes are on the bleeding edge of technology, and bugs are a part of that. Harley riders seem so caught up in the mystique of riding them that they’ll put up with anything, somewhat like Ferrari owners.
b) The overall situation is worse than you could dream. I’m not so sure it isn’t a sort of planned obsolescence by the MoCo. Most of the new stuff is fantastic ---- for about 5 years or 35,000 miles. Then they start to fall apart. Shops are encouraged not to support bikes over 10 years old and can refuse to work on them. They aren’t supposed to stock parts past 10 years. Gone are the days of basket cases being reborn and bikes going to their third (or fourth) owner. Now its strip it for parts to support the few of us who know what we are doing. Milwaukee isn’t what it was. They are less about motorcycles and bikers now than when they were AMF. One of the execs said at the training session for new officers that they figure Sons of Anarchy will make the company more profit than they will from the new lightweights.
I paid $6000 for my brand-new Honda Shadow VT750. It has taken me over 12,000 trouble-free miles. All I’ve done is change the oil once and buy 2 new tires. It gets 65 MPG.
I’m all for buy American but if Harley owners don’t like it they can kiss my ass.
12K isn’t anything. I had a Sportster I bought new and put over 100K on it. With the exception of basic maintenance I never had to do anything to it. I sold that bike to my brother and he still rides it with no problems. At 100K the digital odometer went blank. But I think that’s because I had put Screaming Eagle spark plug cables on that didn’t fit right. Some sparks arched onto the engine and caused some electrical problems. I swapped the original cables back on and everything was okay again, except the odometer. My brother has no idea how many miles are on that bike now as he, like me, hasn’t bothered to get it fixed.
I also had a '76 Goldwing that I bought with 27K on it. I put an additional 60K on it and sold it to my cousin. He currently has 220,000 on it. It did need brakes and such over the years, but nothing that was a manufacturers defect.
One thing I like is one can buy a used Japanese bike for next to nothing. Last year I bought a Ninja 500 for $600. Beat the shit out of it all summer. Then I put it on Craigs and a guy gave me $750 for it.
My favorite Harley is, imo, the best one they make, and the least-loved by Harley fans - the Sportster. And even then, it’s 3rd on my list because most of my dreams of Sportster ownership involve thousands in mods to make it a practical daily rider, like the model originally started.
To clarify, my statement earlier, I have nothing against Harleys in general. They are not my cup-o-tea, but so what? My bike is not exactly the most beloved in the world either.
So this I have no problem with. It’s probably, like most bikes, good at some things, and not so good at others. Its probably owned by some really righteous dudes, and also by a few pricks, like most bikes.
Now this one is absolutely ridiculous. Unsafe, has to ride and steer like shit. It’s the equivalent of this. I’m going to estimate a 97.5% dickhead demographic for the owners of bikes like this.
Some of those bikes are made just as art pieces and “dream projects” and not to be ridden. So are a lot of antique bikes you see displayed different places. I can’t say about this year but in the past some show bikes were basically hollow - no internal engine parts. I can remember helping a guy load a twin engined “show bike” into his truck - the two of us picked it up pretty easily. I’ll admit they carry a high dickhead factor but far lower than your estimate.
actually handle well enough and were made reliable enough to be daily riders. I wouldn’t do 500 mile days on either (but then again neither was built for me) but for basic hundred mile trips, either would be fine.
(Cleaning would suck ------ but that’s a different issue)
The 883R and 1200R are the best Sportsters. I could have sworn they were back for next year, but I’m hearing that’s for outside markets, which is just weird.
I ride the Kawasaki Vulcan 2000. At 125 cubic inches, it’s the biggest production v-twin on the market. It’s a blast to ride at higher speeds, it’ll accelerate from 50 to 80 as easily as it goes from zero to sixty. Want more? Just twist. Add to that its big frame size that carries my big self around and it’s very comfortable for me. Many bikes seem cramped.
I paid $7000 for it with 6000 miles on the clock three years ago and I’ve put about 20,000 on it since.
Price for performance, I don’t think anything with an HD badge can come close.
I do get tired of seeing those HD guys. The ones with every add-on only from the HD store. There’s a logo on their seat, their Screamin’ Eagle pipes, their shoes, gloves, and jacket. If HD sells socks, and I’m sure they do, they’ll be wearing them. They bought the Harley to be part of the club that comes with it and they’ll poo-poo anybody not riding one as if we’re mere posers.
They can pose as they ride from bar to bar and I’ll keep riding from state to state.
I’ve seen the same decked out in brand gear with Kawasaki guys, KTM guys, BMW guys, Goldwing guys, Ducati guys, etc. Do you get tired of them too? I think it’s because there are so many more HD guys that you notice but it exists for all of them. Are you calling all of them posers? Where does the line from poser to real rider start and stop? One piece of branded gear = not poser while two pieces = poser?
We’re all riders. Can’t we get along?
And I don’t get this bar to bar thing. Maybe that’s a big city thing but I’ve never known any rider that does that. Maybe from Starbucks to Starbucks.
One of my favorite rides is from Chicago to Milwaukee for Starbucks. But the bar-to-bar thing does exist here, just like you see it in the Sportster and Bolt ads. Twenty-somethings riding to small neighborhood joints on low-riding cruisers. One bar near me has a bunch out front almost every night during riding season, as they have outside seating so you can keep an eye on/sit on/stand around your bike.
Huh?
