Harley Cuts 2005 Outlook, Stock Tumbles

Reuters ^ | 4-13-2005

[MarkL]

Doing over 100 mph on two wheels is too dangerous. If you live through it, great.

Going more than 100mph on two wheels is easy... It's falling off at that speed that sucks

(been there, done that, on a track... Pocono)

Mark

[MarkL]

My second favorite bike... 74 750SS is #1!

Mark

(although I do have a soft spot in my heart - and maybe my head - for a Harley XR-750...)

[hinckley buzzard]

I can't believe that a "bad spring" is the reason for downsizing expected sales. There have to other underlying reasons.

Retail sales are down, and people are pulling in their horns, reducing debt, deferring optional expenses.

Five figures on a motorcycle is definitely a deferrable optional expense. A lot of money to spend on what for most people is a toy they don't need.

[Cogadh na Sith]

Why? I am comfortable on my v-twin. I can wrench my own V-twin & transmission. The bike has Harley written all over it, but it's a JSP1 creation.

That's pretty much the best reason I have ever heard for owning a particular brand....

FWIW I've never considered you in with the RUB herd in these discussions.

[JoeSixPack1]

Rofl!! Um,,, Thanks! :-)

37 years on 2 wheels and finally,..... RESPECT!!!! yeahbaby!!

[Cogadh na Sith]

After 3 hours, the idea of pointing it at a tressle under a bridge, opening the throttle and just ending it all seemed like a pretty good idea

LOL! I like the sport/touring bikes--FJR1300 and esp. the BMW KGT... For the way I ride--which is very similar to you, it looks like the way to go.

[taxed2death]

I owned a 91 900ss. I put over 50,000 on the origional engine and laugh at those who say Ducati's are unreliable. Aside from scheduled maintenance, I burned out 1 rectifier. That would have never had happened if I had cleaned the contacts.

I had a friend asemble a 980 big bore kit in mine. Falicon welded, lightened, balanced and knife edged crank. Pankle titanium Rods, Full titanium spagetti system, hand made intakes and one sidedraft and one downdraft carbs, Marchesini rims, Race tech forks, Fox Shock...... BCM did a bazillion hours of porting and head work on it as well as tuning it and Bruce said it was the highest HP he had seen in the "low port" head configuration.

This bike honked.....it was 385 pounds wet. I got a speeding ticket in NY for doing 152 in a 45 zone (long story).

I'm fixin' to buy an 888 for purely nostalgic reasons. I saw Polen race one at Daytona and will never forget his practice session on late Saturday afternoon... hearing that big V-Twin haul ass around the high banks is a sight and sound I'll never forget... it was "one of those moments" that define motorcycling for me. That was the day his tire manufacturer almost skinned him alive when he did three laps around the tri-oval and recorded a top speed of 203 miles an hour past the start / finish line. He pulled in the pits and the tech guys were throwing $hit at him they were so pissed. His tire was completely blistered on the left side and would not have even lasted another lap.

I'm lucky in my line of work I get to ride ALL of the exotic Itailian machinery. Bimotas... MV's... you name it, I've ridden 'em :)

"Jim Koenig, owner of Letko Competition Cycles in Kansas City, KS, rode a Ducati Elephant to a track day, and he pretty much ran circles around everyone else."

There is nothing more humbling (I know, it's happened to me) than to have some old dude blow by you in a turn...and then joke about it when you meet up later.

A friend of mine is 60+ years old and started road racing (louden) with his son at the age of about 50. He's got two hearing aids he has to crank up to full volume and can't see anything one foot from his face but my God he's fast! He's just off the pace of Eric Woods at NHIS on an EX-500.
He's blown by me on the outside of turns on the street...when I'm "thinking" I'm going fast. He pulls up to me a bit later and asks me "did plug wire fall off or something..."


heheheheheh

B*st*rd

(ps, I'll be 43 next month)

Ride fast... ride safe.

[taxed2death]

"I keep having to wipe this gooey foam from the bottom of my monitor; its the spittle of a hundred rabid anti-Harley 'motorcyclists' on this thread. Its kinda amusing"

I like HD's. I'll probably own one when I finally have that "last big scare" and gain a stronger sense of mortality and decide to take life in the slow lane. I just hate the "fake" people that I run into with ever increasing frequency who ride HD's and look like the flunkies from WWF...but... to each his own, it's still a (relitively) free country.
Why would one feel the urge to don a costume to ride a motorcycle is beyond me.

[MarkL]

I'm fixin' to buy an 888 for purely nostalgic reasons.

I just love the way they look. The most beautiful 888 I ever saw was in a photo in a Club Desmo calendar. Man I miss those. I've still got a few, and some day, I'm going to get them matted and framed. Anyway, this one belonged to Mike Cheshini (sp?), and it was gorgeous, complete with the TI exaust off of (I believe) Foggy's 888 (I know it was from a WSB racer) and Carbon Fiber wheels.

I saw Polen race one at Daytona and will never forget his practice session on late Saturday afternoon... hearing that big V-Twin haul ass around the high banks is a sight and sound I'll never forget... it was "one of those moments" that define motorcycling for me. That was the day his tire manufacturer almost skinned him alive when he did three laps around the tri-oval and recorded a top speed of 203 miles an hour past the start / finish line. He pulled in the pits and the tech guys were throwing $hit at him they were so pissed. His tire was completely blistered on the left side and would not have even lasted another lap.

I had a chance to meet Doug Polen one year at Las Vegas speedway, at the last AMA race of the season. He was a privateer riding a Suzuki, and he was just hanging out, playing with his son. I just wanted to say "Hi," and tell him I was a fan, but I didn't want to intrude. He was really nice, and chatted with me for a few minutes. I had a great time that day... I nearly got run over my Miguel Duhamel on a pit bike, I got invited to lunch by Jason Pridmore, since he recognized me from his dad's riding school earlier that year, I got to meet Mat Mladin (he was riding for FBF Ducati then), Doug Chandler, and Rob Muzzy - I was thrilled to meet the guy behind Eddie Lawson's KZ1000!

That was also the first time I saw, and heard, the Ducati Supermono. WOW!

Mark

[BraveMan]

Fractured 3rd & 4th lumbar vertebra from breaking Cardinal Rule #13 (never haul ass down a road you've never been on before) was my own personal "last big scare". I swore off motorcycles completely. That lasted about a year . . .

After a steady diet of Rice Rockets ('75 Kawi H-2, '78 Kawi Z1-R, '80 Honda CB750F), I more or less came to the conclusion that I loved to ride but if I didn't slow down I'd end up taking myself out in spectacular fashion and earning a Darwin Award trophy. What to do?

I decided a Harley would probably slow me down enough to give me a fighting chance at survival. I'd read Cycle magazine's test of Harley's first post-AMF effort, the 1982 FXR. Cycle magazine (remember them?), ever critical of all things Harley-Davidson, gave the bike rave reviews. Such a stunning reversal of attitude by the magazine's editors captured my interest, so I decided to check the bike out for myself.

After a 60 minute test ride, more positive magazine reviews and some dealer to dealer price haggling I decided to take a chance on The Motor Company's product. I plunked down $5,800.00 of my hard-earned cash and rode away on my new 1982 FXRS (a higher trim level than the FXR). After all, the test ride had been pretty fun . . .

Around the 600th mile on that FXRS the realization finally hit me; everything else I'd previously owned was only enjoyable when I was riding at least 1.5 times the posted speed limit. All other times they were generally just a PITA. The cramped, humped-over confining seating position, the electric buzz in the handlebars, the mechanical thrashing of engines spinning 6000 rpm & higher, the nervous, twitchy handling, all conspired to dampen and quell my enjoyment of riding. Thus, the only time the rockets were really any fun was when I was riding at 7/10ths, 8/10ths, 9/10ths of my ability, breaking speed limits and pushing the laws of physics.

That 600th mile was an epiphany for me; here I was, lazily gliding down a twisty country road having the time of my life on a motorcycle specifically designed to be at all times enjoyable. Buckets O' Fun at the posted speed limit. Fun at the stoplight, with the rubber-mounted V-Twin shaking and dancing away in the frame causing kids and adults to stare wide-eyed at the stationary spectacle. Fun with my lovely wife on the back, camping gear bungied everywhere as we headed for parts unknown. Fun in the Smokey Mountains, teaching some kid on a Kawi 550 that in the twisties experience trumps hardware every time.

I still have that FXRS. It is still an absolute blast to ride 23 years later. I've turned down several offers from others to buy it for 1.5 times what I paid for it.

I finally added another bike to my stable last year (raising a family tends to limit your discretionary spending), an '05 Harley Dresser. I plan to ride that one as long as I can . . .

[John Lenin]

Ouch, I hit a jump one time in the grass, it was dark, didn't see it, took off flying than decided to let go of the handlebars, I was lucky it was in the grass.

[taxed2death]

We share a lot of similarities actually.

In 1990 I did 6 Vance & Hines replica paint jobs for a Dealer in NY that had sold out his allotment of 600cc replicas and needed more. After I was done...I walked up to the owner of the shop and told him...."Hmmmmmmmmmmmm instead of cash, why not drop that brand new Yamaha FZR 1000 off at my shop tomorrow. He agreed.
15 years ago, I would hop on any bike and go as fast as that bike would go, where ever and when ever possible. I had the FZR about two months and I thought... ok, lets see how fast this pig will go. It was early Sunday morning and I was making my weekly pilgrimage to a famous MC hangout in CT where on any given Sunday there would be about 4000 to 5000 bikes. I came in on I-84 and twisted the throttle as far as it would go in top gear I was doing at least 160 mph. All those big lazy sweepers on the highway became full on "pegs on the gorund" tight turns.
When I pulled into the bike hang out and hopped off...I just sat there for about 3 or 4 minutes without saying anything. my friends were all standing around and wondering why I had come unglued. I just mumbled something like......."anyone want to buy a bike...cheap"?

I wound up selling this bike a few days later for $6500.00 (dealer cost was $7200.00) to a friend of mine and it sits...to this day in his garage with 1100 miles on it.

Yo wrote: " everything else I'd previously owned was only enjoyable when I was riding at least 1.5 times the posted speed limit"

Bingo! we have a winner here!

This is why I loved my 1991 Ducati 900ss. It was air cooled, carburated, easy to work on...and an absolute BLAST at "real world" speeds of 40 to 100 mph. It was a light tourquey V-twin that the "average Joe" could ride all day (300 mile days)...at somewhat sane speeds. You could lope along at 4500 rpm all day...or make things a bit more interesting from 5500 to 7500 rpms.....in short... you could RIDE this bike in the tight twisties at 70 mph and FEEL like you were doing 110. I could wheelie this thing up through all the gears until the oil light shined brightly in the gauge cluster...and ride 2 up with my GF all day long.

I know what you mean about V-twins.... I don't think I could ever go back to a steady diet of inline fours again. I think that V-twins are where it's at for the street...HD, Ducati, Aprilia, Victory, Indian...all good road bikes.

[zipper]

Maybe you should be bitching about the lack of a level playing field instead of griping about the 80's tariffs . . .

Whatever. All I did was express resentment for being forced to help bail out a motorcycle company whose product sucked (under AMF for 12 years just prior to the bailout, as any Harley afficionado will tell you). So just show me the money.

I read today that Harley stock took another tumble: "Shares of Harley-Davidson weighed on the S&P 500 after the motorcycle maker cut its profit and production targets for the year. It lost nearly 17 percent, or $9.84, to $48.93." Guess I'd better rush out and buy that new Ducati before their CEO begs the government for another bailout.

You could have had a new Eddie Lawson Special for that 5800 bucks you paid for the '82 Harley and had an authentic performance bike, with lots of money left over. A bike which, by the way, is worth much more now, being a collector's item.

[BraveMan]

Guess I'd better rush out and buy that new Ducati before their CEO begs the government for another bailout.

You've got a little time yet. The next bailout won't happen until the boomer yuppie RUB poseurs start clamoring for their Social Security checks . . .

[gimme1ibertee]

That is certainly true.

[Melas]

Obviously no one remembers the real tarrif story. The truth is that the Japanese were dumping product, which prompted the call for tariff relief. Btw, BMW, Ducati, etc were exempt from the tariff.

Dumping has long been the Japanese keiretsu weapon of choice against foriegn competitors on foriegn markets. With a sweetheart deal with the Japanese government, the strategy was simple: Dump product, often below production costs on the foriegn market, exist on cash reserves and government subsidies until your competition has gone out of business, then raise your prices to a level previously unavailable to the market. The Japanese were infamous for using this tactic all through the 80's, especially in the consumer electronics and IC industry.

Among the proofs that were presented to the government in the quest for the tariff were subsidies in cash dollars given to the Japanese motor companies from the Japanese government. Harley rightfully argued that a company that is partially funded by the government, and not profits, has an unfair market advantage. HD was absolute correct.

[Fury]

Harley Davidson: Krispy Kreme with a muffler. Down she goes...

The market is down in many sectors. Being I am mostly a technicals type of investor for most stocks (use P&F charts), it's just part of the cycle of stocks. I just re-balanced some holdings. But HD will pick back up, if they have a good product to selel, and sell it well. That's what so great about the U.S.A.