Who Hates Harley Davidson?

I was able to find their engine design...

 

The reportage on the guy on the bike states he is an ex-navy man. That may be a fact but anyone who has been in the military knows that doesn't really mean squat when it comes to dudes who get into that HD frame of mind. We don't know what went down before.

Returning to our favorite program sort of, early this morning I am on Utube watching the Trump camp do their thing. The ads that kept popping up were for Harleys.. A coincidence?

 

Check this one out:



http://20carwallpaper13.blogspot.com/2013/01/1912-verdel-radial-engine-motorcycle.html

Seen pix of the bike with what looks like a Pratt&Whitney Radial bike but no pix of it actually being ridden.

Probably very smooth running.

That nine cylinder engine I'm guessing is from WWI. Italian maybe (??)

Motoguzzi V2s have been used in drones and I have heard the some of the Rotax engines used in bikes are light aircraft rated.

 

My favorite, from the Glenn Curtiss Museum, about 20 miles from my previous home in the Finger Lakes of NY.

 

I'd have no issues flying in a Glenn Curtis built airplane! HD on the other hand...Don't think so.

 

I love the looks of this thing and I'll bet it sounds fantastic. Seems like the torque from all that rotating mass would be considerable. I don't know if it even runs, but sure looks cool.

 

Great for cleaning the leaves out of your driveway:

 

Wow, ta each there own..
Couldn't imagine having him as a neighbor....sheesh

 

I dislike some of the attitude of their owners more than the manufacturer.

To be honest, I seriously considered getting a H-D Iron 883. I know yes. But it sure looks bad ass and ridden within its limits it's pretty fun is what I read from reviews.

Anyway, I can say the same thing about the attitude of some Ducati or BMW riders. OTOH, I know of some Ducati, BMW, and H-D riders who are very cool people. So, ok I guess I don't hate H-D. But if I were just honest with myself, I just prefer Honda's most times. Performance with reliability is important to me. Neither of those are H-D traits.

 

They do make good ramps though apparently.

 

Lots of pesos there! Radial and more conventional if we can use that term when dealing bigass aircraft engines, can fool ya. One dark and stormy night , Naaa , It was a nice SoCal Sunday at a local drag strip (Lions) Art Arfons showed up with one of his early Green Monsters. The nose looked like two 40 Ford hoods welded together and painted to look sort of like a sharks mouth in profile or the paint job on the noses of the Flying Tigers from WWII.

The engine was an Allison. The story goes that Arfons had a shitload of them from surplus and bought them, so it is said, for 50 pesos each. The engines were designed to run at altitude (30k ft) developing X amount of HP at X amount of RPM at X # of feet above sea level.

The "car" was rolled up to the starting line for a run not running. Crew guys came out and inserted the device used to start the engines. I think including mself everyone expected the sound to be like a blown big block fueler in a slingshot. Not so.. actually very quiet and with an industrial engine sound.

Initial launch was aboot the same. A slow roll out. Near the end of the run he punched it. Sea level air density and over revving produced a shitload of HP.

To my eyes at the time. I could almost swear the car lifted off the ground. Top end and ET? Not a clue.

 

The HD 883 Ironhead is one of the safest motorcycles ever built. Probably out of those numbers the pre AMC bikes and the AMC bikes were the most safe. Anyone who owned one will vouch for that.

 

Here in the Midwest tractor pulls are very popular. I went to one many years ago, and there were several "tractors" there using Allison engines, and one had dual Allison engines. Pretty damned impressive, especially when the runs were about 20 feet from the stands. Would have been a real mess if one of them had blown a clutch assembly.

 

I jump over cars and buses everytime I ride my VFR. I just consider it routine and not really worth mentioning.

 

Bad Billy railing it on a Harley!

http://www.shockmansion.com/2016/07...r-than-half-the-sports-bike-pilots-out-there/

 

. . .and the guy on the sport bike, taking pictures, almost runs over him a time or two. I think a squid on a clapped out Ninja 250 could spank this guy.

 

I don't quite understand why you guys are so against a good spanking.

 

I have been seeing reports that Harley is losing market share.

http://www.bikebandit.com/blog/post/buyout-rumors-and-a-federal-investigation-are-more-bad-news-for-harley-davidson?roi=echo3-35736381818-36338219-f8cb3de80ab10241fd4024f5d062e35d&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=promo_bbnews&utm_source=Sun_071016_BBNews&utm_content=harley_davidson_buyout_rumors

I think Harley has been wise in rolling out the Street and in racing a highly modified version in dirt track. It think that they are going to have to figure out how to walk that fine line between keeping "tradition" in the brand while branching out and appealing to a broader market. The market for high end big touring bikes has not been the same since 2005, that includes Gold Wings and Big Harleys.

 

Apparently a few HD owners are now on the list of who hates HD...

Harley Davidson under investigation

 

Well, I do really enjoy my Harleys, but two years ago I was furious with HD.
The ABS unit in my 2010 road king decided to quit working. It completely locked out the front brake lever when it fried. I rode it to the dealership with only a rear brake in the rain. The service manager called the next day and said it was an 800 dollar repair. I asked if this was common, and he said he never in his life had ever seen an ABS unit go out.
I called Harley Davidson corporate and told them this was a serious problem, and they didn't really seem to care. They told me they would not do anything to help me out. I told the person on the other end of the phone that I was selling that p.o.s. Harley and buying a Honda because I've never had a Honda motorcycle brake on me and cost 800 bucks to repair! She said OK, that's fine and hung up on me!
I was a Honda motorcycle technician for many years and Honda always used to help their customers with repair cost. Wether it was a full warranty repair or a 50/50 split, or a lot of times they would pay for the part if the customer paid the labor. But I didn't get anything from Harley, not even a "were sorry that happened"or anything. They just didn't care.
Honda was always at least sympathetic with their customers.
Oh well, maybe one day I'll get back on an interceptor ! I hope!