slothy wrote:
so which one of you hd haters kicked my bike over lol........./sigh - only damage was a bent pm brake lever and a little scratch in the rear chrome fender trim.... this is why i hate non lowered bikes lol... forget to raise it to the lock and this happens when i was away... made getting to the drain plug easy



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That seriously sucks bigtime!!!

slothy wrote:
so which one of you hd haters kicked my bike over lol........./sigh - only damage was a bent pm brake lever and a little scratch in the rear chrome fender trim.... this is why i hate non lowered bikes lol... forget to raise it to the lock and this happens when i was away... made getting to the drain plug easy



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Ummm... if you really take your bike apart to change your oil
then you are way worse than Smokescreens

I'll probably own an HD someday. Might be a V-rod But then I think I might switch things around and have a Street Glide or Road King and find a Warrior for my hooligan bike. Or strip my silverado and somehow, someway find some ground clearance so i can lean it over.

I rode many HD's in the 1980's working at a magazine. Great fun...great bikes. I ride with guys who have Heritage Softtails. We swap bikes a lot and I totally see some advantages to their rides for long distance riding. One, the straight line stability of that frame is awesome. The R* seems to bob it's head left and right all the time by comparison. The HD's handle great, sound great, yadda yadda.

Then again, our last big ride saw one of the HD's go home in the back of a U-haul It was the Baker 6-speed that gave out, but still....the owner has found all sorts of leaks and other problems since then. Right now, I simply can't see riding a bike that needs so much maintenance. The operating costs of the R* are superior, for sure.

Also, when I ride with other people, I like how I can just beat my bike with impunity, rev it, bang it through the gears, etc. It's a Yamaha, a recreational vehicle!!! And I like to ride it like one!

The Roadie is kind of it's own thing....a future classic of sorts. I like to think of it as a really big, really capable XS650 And I think that many years from now our bikes will be even more desirable for a whole bunch of reasons: simple, big, capable, easy to work on, reliable as a hammer, and pretty dang good looking!

Fact is, there are great bikes everywhere. In my dream garage I'd have a Street Glide, a Triumph Street Triple, and one of those bangin' new BMW 1600 touring rocket ships so I could blow by Goldwings at like 150+

All I know is that for now, and long into the future, the Roadie will serve me really well and won't cost me a bunch of money I don't have anyway.