Yes I’ve been starting some big picture state of the industry or our hobby threads lately. It’s a nice distraction to talk about motorcycles for me. Seems I spend more and more time in waiting rooms due to medical issues spread across parents, wife and myself. Currently wife’s under knife getting her gallbladder removed.

Anywho,

In many threads folks come around with negative Nancy attitudes about Harley performance.

First there is the ultra grouchy knowledgeable guys who want everything STOCK and make derogative comments when people seek information or help and parts that are not stock and require outside of stock set up, tuning or installation.

Next there are the guys who tried aftermarket goodies, did it wrong or didn’t understand the compromises… So in their opinions they have proved everything must be stock or only stage 1/2 for any successes.

Last there are the grouchy negative guys who truly don’t even like Harley but do own or did own one.. and they wanna come into HD forums and put Harley down… kinda an Eeyore. (Eeyore was what? A donkey)

So here is a modern perspective.
In 2024 Harley’s ARE fast.. or can be with the help of aftermarket or add on options

On You-Tube I’m starting to see a lot of guys running mid ten seconds with street bikes. This with aftermarket help could happen as far back as Shovelheads. I personally know of two street ridden fairly reliable while high maintenance 10 second street shovel bikes.

It became much easier with EVO because big inches became available through after market.

Twinkies it was sorta a parallel move except the factory dipped its toes into a format with big cubes but still needed heavy help from the aftermarket.

Now with M8 it’s possible with mostly factory offered formats.

This is more maintenance than stock. But it’s relatively reliable.

So as a wake up to the Grouchy Negative Nancy’s.. Harley’s are fast and can have a measure of reliability.

So the next time in a thread where Nancy or Mary whine and tell you to buy a crotch rocket or try to tell you you’ll turn your bike into junk if you modify it… you do personal research. Look around Facebook, YouTube and other places… go to a drag strip. There is NOTHING unrealistic or foolish about desiring a high performance fast Harley.

The compromises are it will cost more
It will require more maintenance
There will still be faster bikes out there

But that said, even among those foreign crotch rockets you no longer have to be the slowest. In fact you may end up as one of the fastest.

There are street Harley’s with 150-170 rwhp out there that can do 1000 mile trips at 36-42 miles per gallon. Look at the Sportster S and Nightster. In there class they are extremely competitive against any brand.

Me I’m on the cusp of fine tuning my hopefully 10 second ride. And as soon as I’m done this motor goes to my Road King and I start over going even bigger.
Already got cases and crank.. it’s all secrets moving forward, so this extrovert is gonna go rouge lol.

 

One more...Grouchy old guys who, for years, have corrected shortcomings in each successive engine release.
Grouchy, because in addition to improving on the latest offering, we have to wade through the aftermarket for the right pieces. without trading one issue for another.
Base gaskets, cam bearings, cam chain tensioners, compensators, ABS...Hell, they even adopted the Andrews hydraulic tensioner conversion as there own.
Not shy about letting the Moco know when they screw up.
Still worth it though.

 

At the hospital while my brother gets a brand-new shiny knee, so I have too much spare time. One can certainly argue against corporate H-D, prices, and dealers, but it is hard to fault the H-D 45-degree V-Twin. No other manufacturer can match the sound, feel, and style. Not to mention, dealer network, after markets parts, and shop manuals.

Once you move past the M8 and PA, the offerings are pretty bad. The S and Nightster are unexciting and poorly designed while manufactures like RE, Triumph, and BSA offer some really nice cruisers, retros, and scramblers.

 

must resist.....must resist......

 

Good grief, another trolling editorial from this OP...

 

i don't know the fella from Adam, but he seems to cry a lot....he must have sensitive feelings

 

Why come into a thread when you hate the person who started it. Just love being negative I guess.

 

Hope he had a speedy recovery. Lots of positives about Harley.

Now as to the S & Nightster.. man couldn’t disagree more. I’m around three. They are killer combinations. The S & Nightster out performs all the bikes you mentioned. I see this first hand weekly in the groups I ride with. They are awesome blends of power and handling.

Ive ridden all of them. The Scrambler is the most intuitive, easy to control bike I’ve ever ridden. But lacks power in a big way. The Thuxton1200R is an awesome bike but the S is gonna take it in a straight away. sorry wifes out of surgery, I’ll finish up my comment later

 

My comments were in regard to styling. If you want to argue the merits of S and Nightster performance, you will need to include KTM, Ducati, BMW. Good luck with that.

 

I've tinkered with EVO's, Twinkies and a few Jap and Brit bikes along the way....always tried to make them run faster/smoother.

On previous bikes it was ALWAYS put on a bigger intake, throttle body, Mikuni HSR, and bigger bores and Woods Cams.

Maybe I'm getting older, but with my 22FLHRXS, the only mod I;ve done is replaced the POS intake manifold.......the doggone thing runs pretty good, for me. I'm eyeballing a '99 FXSTS to play with, just to make sure I haven't lost my carb rebuilding abilities, and for the joy of just having an EVO again