Who Hates Harley Davidson?

Me as well, she would divorce me then shoot me for the hell of it....

 

Weekend warrior. . .NOT

 

Harley built the VR1000 sport bike.

 

By buddy has a street rod that pretty much kicks ass in the canyons, you should see these ricky racers when they realize they just got passed by a Hardley

 

That was the basic tech behind the Vrod of today. Ever see how much one of the VR 1000's cost if you can find one? Like in the 100k range! They only made 50.

 

Who raced on those HDs? Duhamal, Pengram those bikes didn't do chit. Would live an RC30 though.

 

From this article. http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/h-d/harley_davidson_vr_1000.htm

" Harley had the funds to hire a string of top names to ride the beast – including Miguel Duhamel, Pascal Picotte, Chris Carr, and Scott Russell. The team managed to post some impressive lap times and come tantalizingly close to victory on a few occasions, but bad luck often intervened. The competition was light years ahead of Harley by this point – the VR would have been a hot ticket in 1991 but by ’94 it was already becoming outdated. To add insult to injury, it couldn’t beat the trapspeeds that the “obsolete” Lucifer’s Hammer XR1000 had been belting out almost ten years earlier."

 

Chris Carr had an HD skid lid from Arai back in the day, not bad looking paint job for the "bar and sheild" crowd eace:

 

No, but my point is they had the expertise to build a decent sport bike. From what I read, and it sounds right, they only had the money to develop one project. They choose to develop the Evo motor line. In retrospect it was the best choice. The problem is that the marketing has worked too well and they have painted themselves into a corner. The faithful want to old style bikes. I think Harley has a second problem in that motorcycle do not wear out like cars. They can be rebuilt and refurbished especially Harleys. There is less and less need for new bikes when Craigslist is awash with used Harleys of every stripe. I'll bet Indian is taking a big bite out of Harley's market share. Indian is playing Harley's heritage game but they are not so dependent of a single engine style.

 

And Indians are American made. Hardleys.... not so much.

 

"Assembled in America" perhaps?

Indians are bad-ass .... I'd own one if I were into that style of bike. Hardley ... no thank you.

 

I feel the same way about the Scout. It has the heritage look while being modern at the same time. I am just not into the feet forward riding style.

 

Yes Harley's are assembled here. From what I gather Indians are american made and built here, Victories are close, I think some EFI part is made in Sweden but they are almost all American too. Hardley....., Japanese, Korean, Chinese and so on. Even their apparel seems to be mostly Chinese.

 

The Harleys and such with foot forward feel strange to me too.

 

I saw a guy riding a Vrod and it looked like he was bent in half. It looked really uncomfortable.

 

Actually they didn't and they knew it. So they picked up some hired guns to do the project.

"Most of Harley's racing success had come at long dirt ovals, on machines developed from production models. The VR1000 stepped into new territories of AMA Superbike racing, bespoke racebike development, and use of engineering contractors, all at the same time. With a 1000 cc 60-degree bottom end designed, the company hired the expert who had worked on the engine at Roush Racing to complete development of the 4-cam heads, and the bike had about 150 hp on tap when it took the grid at Daytona in 1994. The massive aluminum perimeter frame held Penske suspension and Wilwood brakes, and handled well for Miguel DuHamel before an engine failure early on. Fits and starts dogged the effort, and though the bike was in the top five often in 1996 and on the podium once, the factory reduced support to the teams in 1997, and ended the effort in 2001."



http://raresportbikesforsale.com/tag/vr1000/


They tried back in the late 70's to build a cafe racer bike from real Harley parts called the XLCR. One of the big Harley shops in Cleveland entered one in the Nelson 24hr road race. It was around 78/79. After blowing two engines they drop out out after about 12-14hrs. That thing was a rolling log on the track it was so slow compared to the rest.

If it wasn't for the Japaneses back in the 80's Harley wouldn't be were there are today I bet. I'd also bet being an engineer at Harley has got to be boring..............................

 

If HD had hired some fast guys to ride the VR they would have beat everyone. A harleydood told me this..

 

Did you mean to say some not fat guys?

 

In keeping with Harley tradition, fat harleydoods are known as porkers. Some like fat boys, some like knuckleheads. It's a matter of taste.

 

I had a HD bike and owner with the whole HD outfit (these guys mustn't have played dress ups as kids) pull up beside me at the traffic lights to take a right turn. Idiot tried to drag me off at the lights, got half way around the corner and he realised that he would scrape his running boards. So the idiot backs off and stands his bike upright right in front of me. I had to serve to avoid him but I got close enough when I went past him to look in his eyes and call him a fack wit before I opened the throttle and left him in the dust.

99% of them are d!ckheads as far as I'm concerned.