Rojo's for sell

As the immortal Clint Eastwood said, "a man's got to know his limitations".

I'm building an uber track bike and must raise some fund$ and get a little more space in my garage. My wife and son won't park their bikes outside.

Check out the classifieds. The 95 is gear driven cams, no linked brakes or ABS, lighter weight, and with Corbin seat, beetle bags, and a life of over maintenance, you can't miss with Rojo!out:

 

I'd get about 3 times the$ for the Harley, but if I have to explain why I'll always have a Harley, you probably wouldn't get it.

I'll have another VFR, or hopefully, the upcoming GP based bike!

 

WOW - Really Nice Bike!!! The Bettle bags look great on your bike. Whoever buys that bike will be really happy since you obviously did a meticulous job with cosmetic and mechanical maintenance. I wish the Bettle bags did not cost soooo much or else I would buy a pair. You should have no problem selling that bike. Wish I knew someone who had the cash for the bike and I would get a chance to see it and ride it. Wow - can't believe you gotta sell the bike - How about a bigger garage - just kidding but hey just a thought

 

If you ever want to sell your VFR, don't take it out for a ride after you make the decision.

I just strafed I459 around B'ham and as usual, I fall in love w/Rojo every time I ride her!

It she don't sell, I won't be terribly dissapointed! :biggrin:

 

Reg,

I don't know howso many folks believe Harleys aren't daily riders.

My 10 year old FXD has 30k miles and has never broken down. I can't say that for any other motorcycle that I have had over 10k including VFRs and BMWs. I usually have 5 or 6 bikes.

Keep in mind that over the 10 years, I was only at home to ride 20% of the time or less!

I take in HD trades every week w/ 30-70k miles. When my wife was a sales manager at a metric shop, the only bikes that she took on trade w/more than 30K were Goldwings or STs. The only Harleys with shitty service tend to be clapped out shovels or Sportsters. This ain't the 70's anymore.

I'm a 4th generation Harley guy, but I will always have several marques, but I could function w/a Harley only, but I don't know if I could call that living.

 

Hardleys are better than they have ever been, but they still do not approach the reliability of Honda.
Have them in my family, and riding friends with them. They still require more to take long distance than any of the main Japanese brands, or BMWs for that matter.
I have 100's of thousands of miles on street bikes. Mostly Honda, but I have also owned a Kawi, 2 Yamis, and 1 BMW. The only time a bike ever failed me was when the R/R went on my first VFR. I had 40 something thousand miles on it at that time I am guessing, since when it was stolen it had 48,000+ miles on it. Other than that, I have never had a bike break down on me. But I have been on more than a few group rides, and the only time I witnessed a non-crash related failure was when there was a Hardly in the group, and that has happened multiple times.
But hey, at least the company sucks to deal with. ;-)
There are plenty of Hardlys out there that are 4 years old with 700 miles on them.
And plenty of high mileage Japanese bikes. The problem is their resale value is crap, and most dealers won't take a high mileage bike, no matter the condition in trade. So people don't bring them to the dealer, it is EBay or Craig's. Hardlys do hold their value extremely well, even a couple years old. And a 5 year old Hardly likely looks like a current version of the same model. A 5 year old CBR600RR looks very different from a current model, and is considered dated. (when did the CBR600RR start, might be a bad example, but you get the idea).
There are plenty of Japanese and BMW models on the showroom floor, that I wouldn't blink to hop on and ride across country on tomorrow. I would be rather nervous to do that on a Hardly off the sales floor. Might make it, but might not.
Keep in mind that there are BMW bikes with 300,000 miles on them, with the original engine. Rare to be sure, but not unheard of, you don't see that with Hardlys.
You do have people with 100k on their VFR, with no problems, and it is a sport bike compared to any hardly.

 

I hate the resale value issue (except in my profession, i.e. selling Harley's) I may see some of my Jap bikes hit 100K ,since I can't seem to sell them for any reasonable money. That said, my Harley has over 30 k and has never been down, my SV only 4K but is 3 year old play bike, and Shadow has 20K with no problems. I met a guy with a Shadow 600 with over 250K, and he's still rolling! My VFR has been ridden pretty hard, so 1 breakdown in 18K is pretty good.

I hope to build an Uber NightRod soon and I'll let you all in on it when I do.:biggrin:

Most who diss Harleys have never had one or could afford one.

I see 100K + Harleys weekley, but those folks usually have another bike or 3, and usually another Harley. I sold a 79 year old guy an Ultra last week, we put on a PowerCommander and true duals, and he rode directly to Key West and called me to report that he averaged 50MPG. I hope that I'm alive at 79 , much less riding. Due to my exposure to all marques, it never ceases to amaze me how stupid other people are about other marques, and exclusively Harley folks are probably the worst offenders.

Most folks are ready to trade way before 100k.

 

Resale for Jap and BMW bikes is right where it should be, pretty close to the percentage resale for your average car or truck. Harley resale value is very skewed because of the Harley mystique, image. Never underestimate the stupidity of the majority of Americans, you may miss out on a LOT of money.

 

Spike - seriously. An awful lot of what you are saying just isn't true. Why the long tirade against H-D? What are you trying to accomplish?

 

Uhh, what wasn't true?

 

AHHHH, I always love when someone brings up the ol' Harley quality debate and the defenders of the GRAND marque HD. The reason Harleys are expensive is simply because people are buying them up regardless of price or debt to income ratios. It is no different than BMW cars selling for $35K+ when you can get similar technology and more reliability in a Honda for thousands less. YOU ARE BUYING AN IMAGE which is extremely important to many people.

And as for you, Legs, with your impressive stable (bragging), and your typical Harley owner comments about "never owning one" or "can't afford them" is a hot steaming bowl full of crap. I have ridden a pimped out dyna and it was impressive, and I would get a lot of attention on it, but I also get turn necks and many compliments from my bright red VFR with no chrome at $25,000 less. If that Dyna that I rode was the same price as the VFR I bought, it very well had an equal chance of being in my posession.

Last, if you are here, Legs, trying to impress everyone with your great wealth and astute playboy charms you can go check out:

http://www.robbreport.com/

Or maybe you could buy a super cool Confederate Motorcycle for $65,000 and tell us "normal" folk that we just don't get it.

 

Spike - I have no interest in starting a flame war, and obviously a board devoted to Honda VFR owners is not the ideal place to have anything positive to say about Harley - Davidson.

With that said, I still like them. New Harleys are completely modern in their design and execution. They run well, and are as reliable as anything out there. To the folks who say otherwise, I would simply ask for some sort of proof, other than anecdotal claims. As an example, various magazine tests have indicated solidly built products.

It is perfectly OK not to like them! To each his own. I like bikes, not manufacturers. I wouldn't be caught dead on a Heritage Softail. Or a Gold Wing. Or a Ducati Multistrada. Doesn't make any of them bad bikes, though.

 

Legs You are right I don't get it. I owned a hardly and the two happiest moments with it, were the day I bought it, and the day I sold it. It was pre evo model. It was a pain to ride and when I got off of it i felt like I had been in a boxing ring. Yes I made money when I sold it. I can ride my 86 VFR all day long. my 06 VFR is several orders of magnitude better than the 86. but I still can't part with my old girl. she just has to wait to be ridden. I have had several offers to buy her but she still in the garage.
you know this is a Viffer forum all bikes are better than no bikes, but on this forum keep your hardly to yourself if we wanted one we would get our own. a convertible is nice, too. why don't you buy one of them. I'm thinkin a nice red corvette like the one I smoked on the way home from work the other day would be nice.
Peace
Dan

 

Just because it is a VFR board doesn't mean nice things can't be said about other bikes -- and there often is. I have plenty nice things to say about other bikes, there are always pros and cons in life and just because a VFR is the fit for me at this point in mine, doesn't mean it is for everyone.

You still haven't said what specifically in my earlier post was not true.

They aren't across the line completly modern, although again, they have gained in leaps and bounds in the last 10 years.

You must be reading different mag tests than I.

And while leaps and bounds above where they used to be, they are still not the quality equal of Honda, Yamaha or possibly even BMW. As for proof JD Power is one and about 1.5 - 2 years ago, Motorcycle consumer news as part of its annual rider/reader survey touched on reliability. To my recollection Buell was solidly in last place and Hardly was 2nd from the bottom. They also did an anylisis of percentage of market share for different brands compared to percentage of recalls listed with the feds -- the numbers were overwhelmingly against Hardly and specifically Buell.

I'll also say from going on multiple group rides, sometimes with Hardlys, people I work with, and like I said, I have several in my family that ride them.

The fact that you, or even I, like or don't like them has nothing to say about the reliability of them.

Never said a GoldWing or a Multistrada were bad bikes, nor would I -- although I didn't chose to drop my coin on either of them. If I was going cross county for a month and could borrow any bike the GW would be on my short list. Wanted to like the multistrada, liked where Ducati was trying to go iwth it, but I find it pretty ugly, rides fairly nicely though, a lot more upright than the VFR.

 

Edit... too much info

 

My 2003 Road King never gave me one ounce of trouble in the two years and 14,000 miles I put on it. I had a lot of good times on it going to Hollister and Laughlin and doing the local scene with my buds. In a perfect RW world, I would have a VFR, Duc 1098 and a kick ass $40,000 Custom. My opinion is if it has two wheels, it's all good...:nod: