Harley Davidson Question

I am still happy with my 1989 Softail Custom with 145K miles.

 

I also have a touring bike which is a nice complement to the old Softail. I thoroughly enjoy riding both. I admit the 600-mile days are a -lot- easier on the touring bike than they were on the Softail. I rode the Softail from NC to Milwaukee and a couple times to Daytona.

I have done two cross country trips from NC to the west coast. In both cases I rode the touring bike cross country. In one case I then rode 2 weeks in CA. In the other case I rode 2 weeks in OR. In both cases I had the motorcycle shipped back home due to time constraints.

 

Its what they are for.
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My touring bike is a 2010 Harley Ultra.

 

harley could do something like this easily. Its the Harley version of a Triumph Bonneville/thruxton, BMW r9T

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It should be based on the XR750. They make killer street bikes.
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I kind of want a Harley XLCR, actually. They could do a modern version, but I don't know that it would sell any better than the original did.


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yep, classic harley style, they already make all the bits, not that complicated. Hard to do when management are MBA's following a willie g formula, and are not bike people.

my son who does video game design says you can always tell a game developed by someone who doesn't play that game, they kind of miss the real picture, thats what were seeing at Harley. Its why they skewered buell, and lost the plot with Mv. Professional managers who Don't know bikes, have no vision.

I think the designer of the FT tracker bike at Indian was a frustrated young designer at Harley before.

id be all over an XR750 style bike,
Also a fan of the new sportster S, but they crippled it with near zero suspension travel in the rear, single disk brake, and forward controls all of which are ridiculous omissions for any sort of performance bike. Yeah you can pay $7000 to convert to mid controls, yet you cant get it hat way from the factory. Looks great, plenty fast, doesn't know what it wants to be. A camel is ahorse designed by a committee.

So frustrating as Harley has all the great bits for excellent liquid and air-cooled bikes. there's also an issue of dealer style/image for anything other than classic cruisers. But my local harley dealer who does a massive turnover, is a real bike guy and could certainly do both.

meanwhile we read here the management solution is to put cheap bits on bikes, i guess they're from the Boeing school of management, pity, there is a great brand there and some awesome pieces.

 

Had a friend with one. Had all the weight, poor handling and bad brakes of the Sportster. A real let down.

Even the XR1000 had the same issues.

 

XR is very light and has a great power to weight ratio and is very nimble. Just add brakes, lights, and a starter.

 

Here mine, elemental bike. Love it, there is some incredible machining on it, Stage 1 mtor with power commander and the screaming eagle pipes so it has a tuned exhaust that breathes properly not overly loud. most Harleys are just loud slow.
The brakes are crap, the frame is bendy, and suspension travel poor, ,and when you brake hard you can feel the forks bending.
Ina perfect world i would have bought a Vincent from Patrick godot in france for 1000k. The harley is sorta the same experience with turn key injected starting.
That kinda says it all, the bike is liek a Morgan plus 8, a modern reliable antique bike with some upgrades. If one is into that and understands that, its truly awesome.

Harly can and should also build modern elemental bikes classically evocative of old, just as BMW an triumph do. That xr750 posted above is an ideal template. They should also do a range of modern bikes. range of


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Not to high jack this thread but as of today , I decided to let my 2 Harleys go (Fat Bob, Fat Boy both 2020, 114's)

I loved riding both. However I just can't get enough seat time . They are in RI that's one problem for me in NY and I'm not interested in bringing them to NY , I'd be flatened in a NY minute.

So if anyone is interested lmk. As soon as I get better pictures I will post them in Cycle trader

Best
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I have said it before. Sportster used to be the 1/4 mile king. It could be again. Or at least make the Japs work for it. And make them stop.

 

My sportster outdrags my freind fj1300 to 60 ish easily. it also weaves terribly past 100. Its those fat tires, all part of the charm.

 

I had a 1200S that was slightly modified and in a straight line it was pretty quick but it would not stop and handled so bad it was laughable. They just din't even try.
And every single time it saw 7000 rpm I had to stop (seriously) and tighten stuff. One quick blast to 7000 and stuff was literally falling off. The mirrors were just twirling around. It was made for someone to just cruise around acting like Michael Parks. But it looked cool. The thought of trying for V Max is pretty scary.

 

Yes. To contextualize I have a 1986 Yamaha 600 4cyl which is dynamicaly in every measure a better bike.
The forks on the harley literally bend inwards with hard braking, and the brakes are crap. There is minimal suspension travel and you need to stand on the pegs for certain bumps in the road. How someone is supposed to ride it with stock forward controlls, maybe as you say slow.

it is to me a push button starting 1930's bike, and in that context its great. Mine(2010) is also certainly well built and made from what appear to be good chunky bits of metal. A 1930s Bugatti T35 is by any objective measure deeply flawed, but its fun, so is a morgan 3 wheeler. I view the harley in the same light, a really cool visceral machine.

As to speed, a friend said to me years ago, if youre on a japanese bike tapping out the throttle the only thing that comes next is the accident. On the harley for any sort of pace you really have to hustle and manhadle it, and you're still not going that fast really. Kinda like the idea of driving a slow car fast. More than anything it really wants to go straight, the flywheel effect from the motor wants to twist it to one side, and there is not a whole lot of clearance before the pipes touch down. Getting ti to shift from right to left or visa versa requires a whole lot of heft, and given the dynamics there's not much margin when hustling along, similar to a BBi then.

Its party trick is roll on power. Its basically a mechanical horse with links to steam trains, pre war Bentlys etc, those chunky shifts are part of the charm. Love it for what it is, but its conetxt.
Im guessing most riders are buying a bike like mine do so for the pose, but these bikes can be a whole lotta riding fun in a reliable vintage bike context.

I literally just change oil at the end of each season, otherwise leave it attached to the battery tender, and it just works. With the intake exhaust and tune, it does way prefer 100 octane, just so much more crisp sharp and Revy, so much so that thats how i run it. But I can say the same for my BBi and remapped M3 which prefer a 50/50 mix of 100 and 93.

going off subject, but pretty much all moderns are imo lazy at the throttle, its not the drive by wire opening rate(whic can be a con) so much as fueling and timing. Nothing like a crisp responding motor with accurate throttle, and Im trying to think of a modern that has it stock.

If the new sportster S had some suspension and brakes, id be all over it. And yeah if Harley made a roadable xr750 style bike Id be all over that too, but I just know their committee design attempt would be a heavy heavy handed bike. Liked the look of the indian FTR in photos, in the flesh it underwhelmed and didnt really seem quality.

harley has so many good prices to work with, from the air-cooled motors to the new liquid cooled ones, they just imo lack inspiration. Its a company run by MBA,s, bikes are things of passion.
John Bloor did magic resurrecting Triumph, but it's his company and he hired the talent and gave good guidance. No comitee came up with the rocket, thats just passion and being out there. They could have rested on their laurels with the Bonneville, but did the speed twin which is really the thing.

Mv was a company with brilliant inspiration and harley bought it. Harley could have provided manufacturing logistics and efficiency. Buel, inspired too, could have been a road going Britten v1000 type of bike.
Harley management managed to take those two great brands, with followings, and drive them into the ground pretty quickly, only then to bail and double down on choppers. You can just see the board meetings with the latest genius PowerPoint presentation. Upscale, Bikes are things of passion, bought by people for reasons of passion, they are amongst other things motive art both in style feel and sound, similar to ferrari then.

Harley management imo has harvested the classic Harly vibe as far as it can go, they have no inspiration beyond that. Buying MV and Buell was their recognition of such, but they didnt have a "formula" there. Harley is probably run by excellent managers, what they need is some inspired leaders.

 

Harley's biggest problem is they ignored young people. It is now a legacy company.

 

Damn, that’s a dream of mine!

Went from CA to Banff on my 2005 Roadking several years ago. My buddy and I bought a 6 pack and sat on the edge of Lake Louise waiting for the sun to go down. Yea it never went down lol.


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Its still there.

 

The only picture I can find of my old 1200S. Still think its a great look.
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My riding partner and I still regret not going all the way to Prudoe Bay. Long story but at the time we could not. On our Rt66 ride last year he asked if Id do it again and go all the way. I said "Right now? In a heart beat". But before my schedule will allow it I'll be 70. Its not a trip for beginners but thats stretching it. We did have lunch with a guy who was on his way home from there on a Ural with a side car. He was probably 70 and he had been up there several times.

 

I agree theyre a legacy company
they made the buel blast to after young. Part of the issue is define young. The youth who ride start with mode rice bikes, they're not spending 10K+ on a bike.
But Ducati has not wavered selling bikes in the 10-50K range. BMW also does just fine bringing i the riders once they get into their 30s and are looking for something more.4

What Harley misses is the 30+ and 40+ rider who has the $ for an upscale bike. ia agree their ridership seems to be 60+ dentists living some sort of Walter mitty brando biker fantasy. Plus there are also a lot of crsty old farts touring on the big bikes, which we read are great tourers.

They bought bell and Mv to try do what Ducati did. So those MBA's had the right idea to broadens the customer base, theyre just clueless about bikes and what appeals, so ruined what they had, esp buell. they're still great at their core buyer, but as you say thats a legacy customer.

IMO its so easily fixable, all the pieces are there, except the leadership/vision. Unfortunately there just another large public copr run by finance types. And while finance peopel have acritical role to play in efficiency an running things well, they also tend to ruin the rest of left in charge because they dotn get he art/[passion side of things at all.

MBA typs think they can analyze any business and understand it, that philosophy has clearly worked for P&G , its been an abject failure at GM ford Harley etc.
Then you have the bean counter/finance guys, they can run things efficiently in a way an Italain exec at Mv cannot. However the finance types if left unfettered will end up denuding a product, look at any 80s Gm car. Each person getting a promotion or switched to anew department needs to show better results by squeezing somewhere so as to get noticed and promoted. Sometimes, actually all to often the legions of bean counter/efficiency predecessors has already been there and there is no real inefficacy/waste left to squeeze by the next guy so product integrity rakes the hit, look at Boeing.

Now if a compoany has a real elader, passionate about the rpduct, then efficiency is also held to a products integrity standard. If the elader really is passionate about their business and knows it, you get great inspired product. We dontm have leaders these days though, we have very qualified managers, and thats the fundamental problem.

Harley really had the genius idea buying buell which was a boutique company Harley powered with a following. To boot they got Erik Buell who was the genius chef, but then they totally stifled him and ruined it all, because beyond analyzing they needed a wider audience and the fit with buell they had no clue. Why they then bought Mv which essential competed with where Buel should have gone is not a mystery, Buell was not workie out so they figured to buy MV and repeat ducatis success. they spent fortunes redeveloping MVs factory bringing much needed good manufacturing processes, stuff they're good at. Alas they had no clue about product, the customer of who to sell it to.

To harley leadership should be bike fanatics, the MVA and Finance types job is to execute the vison, but without vision they're toast. Vision for something that is a passion product, cannot be deduced by empirical types from studies etc, in fat the empirical types cannot even understand what vision is.

Ducati and Ferrai are two well run companies, but they are still guided and run by peopel who has passionate vision and inspiration for the product. Same can be said for porche. More on point is triumph who essentially have mined a classic catalogue with otherwise modern performing products as well as inventing the streetfighter and building some great sportbikes for cred. Were talking about a company that existed only in name and historic catalog 30 years ago.

imo Harley was doing a great job of serving the legacy customer and should not abandon them. Now the newer bikes are half one half the other, they dot know what they want to be. I think harley would be nuts to abandon the air-cooled v twin. They should make some really inspired modern handling classic style bikes as we've discussed around this formula, it is their usp and brand heritage. An XR 750 style bike you'd think is an absolute no brainer, storz lives off that market, it saved Indian but harley is mute.

We also all recognize they need modern bikes. They ere smart going into adventure tourers, but thats entering an existing category. Now how do they use that platform to make some appealing modern bikes. t The sportster S looks great, but then no rear suspension, forward controls and a single disk, can you imagine the arguments in committee here. If you're making a modern bike make a modern bike, or at elast by eyar 2 evolve the sportster S. Instead they made the 975 which looks like a Japanese Harley clone from the 80s.

Their "Bronx" concept looked like a really bice naked, except for the absolutely stupid name which would alienate most, yet they didn't build it.

So theyre sorta flubbing their liquid cooled range, and will then be stuck in legacy again.

Seriously I dont thin harley is that hard to fix, their problem is management. All the bits are already there whats needed is great bikes peopel will want to buy. ill bet the talent even exists in the compony to create them. probably not gonna happen, cause management is entrenched and they will slowly wither with their customer base. .

 

And it looks great next to some beautiful classic cars, which is also the point about cool bikes.