well said but I have to be honest here, I remember buying my first electric start Harley and all the kicker dudes booed me... Needless to say with age they soon swallowed their words. Especially the guys like me that have stroked motors and stuff... lol.

Btw... wasn't the Honda Goldwing the first successful shaft driven bike? Not trying to deny your post just confused if I am mixing up on my memory or not.

 

Hey Schu! I've got 2 of those Rapido's (bottom pic and made in Italy Harley/Aermacchi btw) in my garage that I am in the process of rebuilding. When I get them done you should come on over and we can race them!

 

sounds like a plan

 

Off the top of your head, can you name another motorcycle manufacturer whose entire lineup of street-legal bikes was all either shaft-driven or Kevlar/Aramid/carbon-fiber belt driven before Harley?
BMW

and yer missing my point 357. Harley regularly introduced new models that were much more than adding some chrome or lowering an existing model. Big difference from whats being done today.
I'm not knocking Harley in this thread. I'm defending their history, and pointing out the majority of Harley riders today don't want change or new models, and that attitude ends up hurting Harley. Moco becomes the victim because of limited thinking, something the company has never had to deal with before.

 

this thread is wonderful..If only Black and Decker,IBM, and a few other manufactures had "kept the illusion of made in America"
Harley has done a great job of waving the Flag..

My 1991 sportie has a frame designed ,made in America..
However the evolution engine is designed in Japan
Has a Kehin carb (japanese)
the electrics are all Japanese, as is the suspension. (,I/E showa) Most of the parts are made in Mexico ,as are the mercury outboard(american outboard)
point is , nothing is totaly made in america anymore , so get over that crap.
I own two HD's (91 sportie,03 Fatboy) because they re-sell good .
But my favorite bike is a old Honda CX500 , cause it dont break, or make me spend foolish money to make it custom ,( if you put lipstick on a pig , it is still a pig) go figgure.

back in the fifties, the good bikes were " limey bikes"
BSA,Triump,Areial..
If you wanted to ride , then that's what you bought.

The HD's were oil leaking( on the showroom floor) ,heavy and only old guy's/ and police bought them . .
.
Now to the future!!!
HD has done a outstanding job of advertising, supported by dyed in the wool loyalest bikers..( I am one of them )

IT does have a mystic about it
Where else can you get 50 year old suspension design , vibrating engine that has to be rubber-mounted, and a unbalanced engine(fires both cylinders on the same crank revolution?
(think they added counterbalance"bandaid" on some) way too heavy to flick around corners, wobbles in curves, and has marginal brakes?

All This said , I do like to feel the vibes , and only have owned them since 1956
I cant explain it !!!!

 

If you didn't, I bet you wish now you would've kept that first one around. Be real nice to have to bee bop to the local waterin' hole or coffee shop.

 

True but you can thanks world trade for that and the need to compete but none the less the roots are in America and so is the mystique so I still support it with pride.

As for too heavy, they are lighter or equal to most comparable models I read about. Never had a problem with wobble in the curves and as for marginal brakes .... well that's what skill, a wrench and after market parts are for and you should still be ahead of the game in comparison to what the other bike's depreciation will cost you in the long run.

 

Yeah, those "kicker purists" sure shut up after a few times of not gettin' 'er turned over right away, and getting left behind.

Same fuss when points ignition went to electronic. "I can't fix it on the side of the road!" fussed the old-timers. "I don't have to fix it at all, ever" said those who understood that "change for an obvious improvement only" is good.

As for Honda, yes, they used shaft-drives before Harley used belts, but Honda still has chains in its lineup, for some reason. They should take a hint from Suzuki, whose cruiser line is mostly shaft-drive, but they finally added a belt drive to their smallest models (the S40, I think they're called?) So now Suzuki has caught up to Harley in maintenance-free final drive on everything. I was all happy with Honda when I saw that they'd finally added shaft drive to their VFR Interceptor... but then they added a new 600cc-class replacement, the Varadero, that's chain-driven again! Now there's a company that's stuck in the past. Hel-lo Honda! Try to keep up, please!

 

Ha!!!! I do not miss points at all. Think I still have the feel-a-gauge in my tool bag though for some reason... lol. I got ya on the shaft drive thing and great info as well. Sorry about that, I just remember I had an Uncle with a 78 Goldwing and remember it as the first time I ever saw shaft drive on a bike, so when you posted that I thought I was having a brain fart.

 

Well you can delude yourself into believing your Sportster is going to outrun the 113ci Yamaha that's in the Raider, and the Stratoliner, but the reality is those bikes are putting out much greater power than your Sportster, even if it is a 1200. The facts as proven on the dyno show the Yamaha 113ci engine and Victory 100ci engine put the TC96 to shame. Believe what you want, but the facts show you are just flat out wrong.That crap is tired. The most American thing someone can do is spend their money however they choose. The most American thing a US company can do is put out a product that competes well in the marketplace on it's merits and doesn't rely on someone choosing the product because it's made in America rather than choosing it based on it's merits.Well H-D can continue to rely on brand loyalty and false patriotism, or they can advance technology and put out a product that can compete on it's merits. Dependence on brand loyalty and false patriotism is losing strategy, and history shows that innovation and producing a quality product are what have actually helped H-D compete in the past.

The V-twin itself when put into production in 1907 and re-introduced in 1911, is an example of H-D using innovation and actually competing in the market to beat the competition. The introduction of the Evolution engine in 1984 is another example of H-D innovating to compete in the market.

Also, before you lecture me about supporting American products, and pushing false patriotism, you should learn a little about the history of H-D. The company did one of the most un-American things possible in 1983 when they begged the government to impose tariffs on motorcycle imports with a displacement greater than 700cc. Rather than actually compete in the market on the merits of the bikes, H-D asked the government to hamstring the competition.

Again, I really like my H-D, but unlike you I refuse blindly support one brand and ignore the merits of other brands/models.