Whenever I get that I usually respond with 'yeah, you're right, it's a chick bike. So what do you ride?' Usually get a I've been wanting to get one or something, and that's about the end of it.

 

Guys... hate to tell ya' this... but posts like this makes Sportster owners seem the ones who are insecure... always defending the the bikes...

Fukk a bunch of people...

We all know it's iether invy or thinking they have to bigger and more expensive to be better than the person next to them...

That's the way the world is today...

Back in the 60's when I got my first Harley, Sportster by the way, I rode with Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons and Harleys... none of them gave me any ****... well except for the fact I just turned 17 and baby-faced hell and got kidded about that a lot...

People are just different now and not for the better I might add... you either have to tolerate them or fight 'em... but you don't have to justify what you ride...

Charlie D.

 

About that time you should have whispered in his ear something like "come on outside and I'llteach ya about clownery". Ten bucks says he woulda' **** his pants on the spot, and since ya whispered it nobody can say ya threatened him. I love ultimatum's like that.

 

Exactly, and threads such as this seem to be all too common.

Besides, why should anyone care about what someone else thinks about their bike, and feel the need to constantly defend their choice of rides?

Just get out there and ride, and forget about the opinion of a few that are on some kind of a trip.

Some of these folks seem to think that the bigger and more expensive their bikes are the more important it makes them.

They seem to have forgotten that respect is earned by the rider, and it has nothing to do with what you are riding...

 

Well, maybe a Sporty is a girls bike, my OL has one. She also has a Lowrider, so I guess that means any HD smaller than a Tourglide is also a girls bike. No, wait, I've seen women ride those too, guess all HD's are girls bikes.
The XL1200L will certainly give my Triumph a run for its money, which is what the Sportster was originally designed to do and, until I opened up the intake and exhaust on my NightTrain, it was all I could do to keep up with her on it. If we had any crooked roads around here, I don't doubt that the Sporty would leave me in the dust there.
As for the 883, if they are still using the same cylinder castings as the 1200, you will be able to ride that bike hard for maybe 60 - 70 years. At that point, the next cleanup bore will make it a 1200 and you will have maybe 4 to 6 more rebuilds before you have to get new barrels. Let's see anything from Japan do that! For that matter, lets see you get parts for a Jap bike over 5 years old.

 

Wow, I must be one MEAN lookin sum bitch when I'm onmy bike. I don't recall anyone talking down about my Sporty. Yet we get reports on here about it all the time.

Oh yeah, there was one nasty comment from a total RUB, I just considered the source, and managed to insult him in front of all the people he was trying to impress.

 

I ride with a number of people with Sportsters, and none of them have mentioned being the blunt of negative comments.

In fact, when I was spending a lot of time on my 1200C I never had one negative comment dealing with the bike.

In fact, it seemed to get more attention, and draw more of a crowd than most of the big twins others were riding.

 

I'm 6'3" 240 and I look big sitting on a Sportster, Dyna, Softail or V-rod.
I don't think I would want to ride a motorcycle that was large enough to look like I fit on it.

 

I am the same height as you... your 100% right, we make any factory bike look small. The difference between you and I is that I have size 13.

I actually took pictures of myself on other bikes before I bought my Sportster. Then I thought for my first bike, it was fine. I was right.
Bikes with foot boards make my knees go up way too high.

 

That's interesting, as never having owned a bike with floorboards I thought the same thing until I got the FatBoy, and then found the 'legroom' much better than with the forward controls on my 1200C.

I'm not quite as heavy, but at 6'2", 180 pounds, and with a 33/34 inch inseam I thought the floorboards would be the first thing to go, but I was very wrong.

Kind of hard to tell from the below pictures, but the floorboards on the Softail are actually lower, and further forward, than the forward control pegs on the 1200C. Even before adding the Mark IV higway pegs the floorboards allowed much more room to move my feet around and my legs to stretch.