Any Motörbike riders here?

hywelg

Dominic said:

guitargeek62 said:

I’ve just booked test rides on an Indian FTR1200, and a HD Forty-Eight. I don’t expect to like either one too much really, but figured it won’t hurt to try them.

HD 48 is a pretty bike but it's not a proper Harley......they are quite small ;whenever I have ridden Sportsters my wife just laughs and says I look ridiculously big on it - they really lack power unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money and bring it up to stage 3 spec ......by the time you've done that and paid for it you may as well have bought a Triumph.

FTFY

guitargeek62

@Dominic, to be fair, I don't really want a Harley - I've ridden a couple before and didn't like them much at all, this is purely to kill some time and because the dealership is only a mile or so from my place!

Bridgehouse

Well. Given the tiger won’t be with me till November, I’ve been eBaying for cheap hacks. 

And I seem to be drawn to an ER5. Had one a while back and loved its simplicity. They are peanuts at the moment for a good low miler late one. Only 48 horses but frankly I don’t care.

Boring? Yep. Cheap? Yep. Don’t care if it gets dumped in the wet or snow? Yep. Cheap to fix? Yep. Not a bloody bandit? Yep. 

Might have to go look at a few at the weekend

guitargeek62

Fair choice, can't really go wrong with an ER

Bridgehouse

guitargeek62 said:

Fair choice, can't really go wrong with an ER

Well, the reg/rec goes pop - but other than that, no, you’re probly right

Dominic

hywelg said:

Dominic said:

guitargeek62 said:

I’ve just booked test rides on an Indian FTR1200, and a HD Forty-Eight. I don’t expect to like either one too much really, but figured it won’t hurt to try them.

HD 48 is a pretty bike but it's not a proper Harley......they are quite small ;whenever I have ridden Sportsters my wife just laughs and says I look ridiculously big on it - they really lack power unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money and bring it up to stage 3 spec ......by the time you've done that and paid for it you may as well have bought a Triumph.

FTFY

certainly a Speed Triple ,Rocket or Tiger but the Triumph equivalent ,the Bobber isn't a great bike to ride

Bridgehouse

Dominic said:

hywelg said:

Dominic said:

guitargeek62 said:

I’ve just booked test rides on an Indian FTR1200, and a HD Forty-Eight. I don’t expect to like either one too much really, but figured it won’t hurt to try them.

HD 48 is a pretty bike but it's not a proper Harley......they are quite small ;whenever I have ridden Sportsters my wife just laughs and says I look ridiculously big on it - they really lack power unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money and bring it up to stage 3 spec ......by the time you've done that and paid for it you may as well have bought a Triumph.

FTFY

certainly a Speed Triple ,Rocket or Tiger but the Triumph equivalent ,the Bobber isn't a great bike to ride

Probably a good thing you can only go about 70 miles on it before you need to stop and put another few thimblefuls of fuel in then

Dominic

I get that tho'
by nature a "bobber" is just a bar-hopper (to use an Americanism )........the whole point of the original 1940/50s bobber was to strip down to the essentials sans mudguard etc to get a bit more poke.........less weight =more speed etc
ie you don't want to haul an extra gallon of petrol around 

TheBigDipper

guitargeek62 said:

Fair choice, can't really go wrong with an ER

I ran ER5s at my training school and loved riding them. I always said I'd buy one as a commuter bike if I ever started commuting again. Which I probably won't. I closed the school at about the same time they changed the regs (2010) and schools were buying ER-6s and the like instead. They never appealed in the same way.

AK99

Dominic said:

HD 48 is a pretty bike but it's not a proper Harley......they are quite small ;whenever I have ridden Sportsters my wife just laughs and says I look ridiculously big on it - they really lack power unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money and bring it up to stage 3 spec ......by the time you've done that and paid for it you may as well have bought a full size Harley.

Funny - having owned three 'Hardlys' (Hardly Able Son in local parlance) at various stages when off 'proper biking' over the years I have a soft spot for the Sportster. Despite being the smallest of the bunch, the unit construction engine is a lot better design than the likes of the 1340 Evolution in the DynaGlide. A decent 1200 Sportster is probably quicker too

(Best of the breed btw was the 1130cc VRod - liquid-cooled, 4 valve head, short-stroke twin with 10,000rpm redline that would run to 100,000 miles with nothing other than routine maintenance. Best road-bike engine they ever made, but dropped quietly when it was totally shunned by The Faithful as it wasn't a 'real Harley'. No wonder they are going broke..)

TheBigDipper

I always fancied the idea of a 750cc flat tracker Harley (The road going lookalike, not a real flat track bike). Never tried one, never seen one in the flesh. Just liked the way it looked in pictures. In orange. And, yes, the V-Rod was decent and therefore unsellable. 

Bridgehouse

I’m afraid I just don’t get Harleys. Never appealed. A lot of money and I don’t like the looks, or the noise tbh. I dunno. Maybe I’m a Luddite or not a proper biker or summat. 

Bridgehouse

TheBigDipper said:

guitargeek62 said:

Fair choice, can't really go wrong with an ER

I ran ER5s at my training school and loved riding them. I always said I'd buy one as a commuter bike if I ever started commuting again. Which I probably won't. I closed the school at about the same time they changed the regs (2010) and schools were buying ER-6s and the like instead. They never appealed in the same way.

Yep, did DAS on an ER5 in the 90’s and had one as a hack in the late naughties. Despite claims of bland, boring and dull I really like them for what they are. 

Dominic

I'm a Harley die-hard since 1982 .....I ride Ducatis, BMW etc all the time and really appreciate them but there is something about that agricultural old Twin and the feel of the bike that just has magic.
I'm sure it's a marmite thing and they certainly don't score on tech or reliability but everything else is just a bike whether is a Pannigale or a GS1250 or a Rocket.
 I don't like rice rockets particularly although I had a lot of fun racing a 400rr.20 years ago.

Bridgehouse

Dominic said:

I'm a Harley die-hard since 1982 .....I ride Ducatis, BMW etc all the time and really appreciate them but there is something about that agricultural old Twin and the feel of the bike that just has magic.
I'm sure it's a marmite thing and they certainly don't score on tech or reliability but everything else is just a bike whether is a Pannigale or a GS1250 or a Rocket.
 I don't like rice rockets particularly although I had a lot of fun racing a 400rr.20 years ago.

I can totally get the appeal. I’ve had plenty of mates have them and love them. They just seem to leave me cold tho.. 

My first bike was an NC30 so I totally get the 400 mini rocket thing... loved that bike to bits. 

Dominic

at the time I had the 400rr for a track bike I had a Ducati 888 SP on the road .......when I put both on the circuit at Donnington and Snetterton I was much faster on lap times on the little Honda which will carry so much more corner speed.You have to be one hell of a good rider to get anything better on the road or track out of a bigger bike .

Bridgehouse

Dominic said:

at the time I had the 400rr for a track bike I had a Ducati 888 SP on the road .......when I put both on the circuit at Donnington and Snetterton I was much faster on lap times on the little Honda which will carry so much more corner speed.You have to be one hell of a good rider to get anything better on the road or track out of a bigger bike .

Never tracked the little VFR.
It did used to sing like a sewing machine and it was mightily fun on a twisty back road. 

Couldn't do it nowadays.. my back and wrists would put complaints in in triplicate.

Mind you, I always hankered after the "jewel" of the 400's - the RVF400. Never got round to getting one.

AK99

Dominic said:

I'm a Harley die-hard since 1982 .....I ride Ducatis, BMW etc all the time and really appreciate them but there is something about that agricultural old Twin and the feel of the bike that just has magic.
I'm sure it's a marmite thing and they certainly don't score on tech or reliability but everything else is just a bike whether is a Pannigale or a GS1250 or a Rocket.
 I don't like rice rockets particularly although I had a lot of fun racing a 400rr.20 years ago.

As they say - 'tis often better riding a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow

I reckon if you 'get' vintage Steam fairs and the like, you'll get Harleys. They get seriously slagged off on the bike forums here in Ireland - the Live to Ride/Ride to Work weekend pirate/estate-agents and dentist types don't help - but yeah, there is something nice about that old agricultural feel. Handy too with things like the US industrial sized threads (UNC maybe ?) where you can strip the thing down to its component parts fairly easily, and stand a fair chance of putting it back together without ringing the threads on about 1/3 of the bolts. (Or maybe that's just for ham-fisted clouts like me ).

I always found them reliable - if - you check nuts and bolts every so often, torque everything down properly, and use loctite on every damn thing you can  Mind you, I did have a mate on one who was coming up to stop at traffic lights, went to snick down a couple of gears and discovered the gear-lever had vibrated loose and fallen off sometime earlier..). But if you treat them like an older vintage or British bike, you'll be fine.

Overall cost of ownership can be buttons too - buy sensibly and they're virtually depreciation proof. Service the thing and keep it clean and you'll nearly always get your money back. I never saw the merit in buying a new current model Harley either btw -  when any one from the last 20 years was going to be virtually identical tp the latest showroom models from an engineering perspective

Dominic

it is amazing how many slag off Harley until they have a windfall and are suddenly riding around on one !
 In all seriousness there are 2 types of Harley riders ;
  The Wild Hogs ; Dentists , Poseurs .......the garage "toy" brigade who run up 700 miles a year on a sunny sunday wearing a mean bandana and a HOGGIE patch which means Fuck all .
  Bikers ; Could be anything from a normal guy who rides 10,000 miles a year to a full -on 1% Club MC Patch member
The definitions have blurred......in the old days a Prospect was expected to be able to strip and rebuild a Shovelhead engine blindfold in 10 hours before even being put up for Patching in and happy to put in a 250 mile day on a hardtail .Today I have stood next to full Patch 1% members (won't name the club ) moaning at the service counter in a Harley dealership about the sat-nav and stereo not working on a bagger but moaning about the brothers who haven't turned up for Clubhouse "Church" .
 The real Harley "built not bought " bikers are few and far between except for the NCC.

AK99

^ At one stage I was in buying a filter for the VRod at the local HD dealer (only time I ever go there, because the coffee is free and I can look at the Triumph showroom under the same roof - honest.. ) one of the Wild-Hog types - in fake-patch cut/an ill-judged pair of side-laceup leather trousers and a pair of para boots - came over and said hello. Turned out to be the Operations Director at the large State Owned company I was working for at the time. I nearly dropped.  Never really could take the guy seriously after that alas ..