Posted on 02/10/2010 12:48:20 PM PST by martin_fierro
My commute is 22 miles round trip. My numbers aren’t impressive enough to you because (as I mentioned) I ride a bicycle a great deal of the time. It takes me 30 minutes by car or motorcycle, and only an additional 15 minutes by bicycle.
My math wasn’t off, since I clearly stated it was a guess. I don’t know how large a city you live in, or how close to the highway you are. For me, living in a major city with major traffic, and living some distance from the highway, I have plan on 90 minutes to travel 50 miles. I promise you won’t make it in an hour. It takes me 30 minutes to drive to work, and that’s only 11 miles.
That’s new then. If it’s true, you may well see me on an 8-Ball one day, as I love the look of that bike. I’m not married to Harley, and I love all motorcycles. My first cross country trip was from Denver to St. Louis on a Honda Twinstar 185, which was my first street bike. I just don’t get the constant antagonism towards Harley Davidson.
LOL! Only one HD ran the Ironbutt last year and it DNF. Also a whole shytload of those “superior” Japanese and German wonders DNF either.... 31 of them. Exploding rear hubs continue to plague BMW “superior” German engineering.
Maybe you should actually take a minute and find some real data before making stupid claims.
“””My experience has been that it’s the riders of Japanese bikes who have a total hard-on for Harley riders for some reason.””””
That is true to some extent on both ends of the aisle. Its the Harley rider in above post that said “can’t afford a real bike” when this poster knows in his heart of hearts that all bikes are real bikes and any Japanese bike will out-perform his harley in any test given for any spec. Its slower, heavier, less agile, more expensive.
He could simply say, “I like my bike, it suits me better” but he had to go and claim that a statistically superior bike is not a real man’s bike.
I am with you.. I support both. I ride Japanese bike because they perform better for me. I also ride choppers. I am not going to take a chopper to track day and I am not going to take a BMW to the bike rally.
I don’t like people who say I ride a pussy bike when in reality... if the bikes were placed side by side with all badges removed and all emotion removed... my bike would out-perform theirs across the board.
come on if you ain’t already here
I agree 100%.
But manufacturers don’t keep it in house. They make intial designs. But the prototypes are contracted.
“”””Victory offers (or at least did last year) kits to relocate the pegs forwards or backwards.””””
Harley does too.
They cost $2532 and weigh 90lbs each, can be ordered from China to be sent local HD lifestyle clothing center. You can drop your bike off at the Harley service dept and after 6 weeks of waiting they will install them for $680.
But hey... they are really shiny chrome and really badass!
And, of course, you haven’t looked at 07, 05, 03, 01.
07 had one Harley finishing in third as a fluke, true. But let’s see... two more Harleys, both DNF.
05? The only Harley that finished came in DEAD LAST. The other Harley DNFd on the first stage.
03? Highest HD came in 56th, then 74th, 78th and 83rd. 2 more DNFd.
If Harleys were as reliable as the HD fanatics here claim, they should have no more DNFs or low finishes due to mechanical failure, percentage wise, than any other brand. However, that simply isn’t the case.
LOL
“”””trip was from Denver to St. Louis on a Honda Twinstar 185””””
Beat me. But I did ride on a 1984 Yamaha RZ350 (two stroke deathtrap) from Ashville to Myrtle Beach. the oil pump never work so I had to keep stopping for twocycle oil. Left a smoke trail 400 miles.
remove all the badges and most harley riders can’t tell the difference between any two given V-twins anyway.
Ecxept some feel a strange feeling.
(we call it acceleration)
Well, if it doesn’t break down and actually idles smoothly, they know it’s not a Harley. :D
That's the first intelligent post I've seen on this thread. By all means, if performance is important to you, you need a sport bike. It's not to me. I want a bike that will accelerate to the speed limit. My Harley is much, much, much faster than I am.
The same holds true for automobiles. My wife has a sports car with a ludicrous 20psi of turbo boost. She cares about things like that. I drive a 6 cylinder Explorer, and it's also much faster than I am. The guys who like fast bikes, just can't seem to comprehend that speed doesn't mean much to a lot of us.
And when they pull the right-side hand lever, they discover a strange feeling the rest of us call ‘braking’ (yes, this is a jab at all the Harleys that only have a rear brake and/or riders that only use the rear/foot brake - which includes a lot of OCC products).
Do you also want a bike that turns and stops? You don’t mention that, and enquiring minds want to know...
So far, I’ve made every turn onto every street I’ve tried, and stopped at every light and stop sign. Do I want a bike that leans 45 degrees into turns? No. It would be as wasted on me as my wife’s car that I drive at 60mph (speed limit) on the highway here. All my recklessness is relegated to the bicycle world where I’ve had a mountain bike up to 50mph on the downhill run at Winter Park.
So, in other words, you don’t want a traction reserve for emergency use while commuting. Okay....
By the way, I have a non-sportbike V-twin, so I’m not exactly a sportbiker....
69-70 AMX!
One of my all-time favorites!!!
Gorgeous!!!
Are those carburetors mounted side by side?
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