Category: Harley-Davidson

18 Reasons Why You Should Buy A Used Sportster

This blog started out as a snarky collaboration between dos Joes (Gresh and me) as a followup to the recent blog on 9 reasons why you should ride a Chinese motorcycle.  One of the reasons we always hear about why you shouldn’t ride a Chinese motorcycle is that you can buy a used Sportster for what a new China bike costs, as if somewhere there is actually someone trying to make that decision.  You know, a troubled soul asking himself: Should I buy a used Sportster, or a new Chinese motorcycle?  We’ve got a bunch of witty one liners (at least we think they are witty) and I’ll get to them in a second. But before I do (and before all you macho Milwaukee muchachos get your chonies in a knot), you should know that I actually would like to have a used Sportster.  Three, in fact.

The first is a 1977 or 1978 Harley Cafe Racer, one of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made.  When these were first offered by Harley they retailed for about $3K.  I was a young engineer at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, and I wanted one.  But I couldn’t justify spending $3k on a motorcycle.  I was single; I don’t know who I think I needed to justify it to. I should have bought one.

The next is the 1983 Harley XR1000, which we did a Dream Bikes piece on a couple of years ago.  Man, I’d like to have one of those.  The XR1000 was a stunning motorcycle.  I’d call it visually arresting.

And the last one is a mid-60’s XLCH, preferably in blue or maybe red, like you see in the big photo up top of a restored bike.  These sold for something like $1700 when they were new; I could have bought the one you see above for around $4,600 maybe three years ago.  On the other hand, I saw a fully restored blue ’65 Sportster at the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show just before the pandemic hit and that one had a $20K price tag.

The used Sportsters listed above are the rock stars.  There are also the not-so-exotic/not-so-collectable Sportsters.   These are the ones that cost less than most new bikes but more than most used bikes. It’s a sweet spot, and to hear the folks who hate China bikes tell it, any used Sportster is a hell of deal.  All righty, then…in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek nature of everything we write, here are our reasons why you should buy a used Sportster.

    1. When you buy a used Sportster, you’ll spend less than you would on some new Chinese bikes (which, after all, is what started this blog).
    2. When you buy a used Sportster, you’ll be helping the guy selling it get a Big Twin or a new Sportster.
    3. When you buy a used Sportster, a lot of people on Facebook will think you’re smarter than the guys on ExNotes who keep bragging about Chinese motorcycles.
    4. When you buy a used Sportster, you can hang out at Harley dealerships (the ones that are still open, that is).
    5. When you buy a used Sportster, you won’t have to buy a vibrating chair (you’ll already have one).
    6. When you buy a used Sportster, folks who don’t know anything about motorcycles will think you’re cool because you ride a Harley.
    7. When you buy a used Sportster, you can gain weight big time and your Harley friends won’t call you fat because you’ll still be thinner than they are.
    8. When you buy a used Sportster, you won’t have to ever shift into 6th gear.
    9. When you buy a used Sportster, you won’t ever have to worry about not being able to find your 10mm socket.
    10. When you buy a used Sportster, you won’t have to oil your chain (if you have a newer used one).
    11. When you buy a used Sportster, it’s not likely you’ll ever get a speeding ticket.
    12. When you buy a used Sportster, if you ride in flip flops and shorts no one will ever lecture you about ATGATT.  In fact, they probably don’t even know what ATGATT means.
    13. When you buy a used Sportster, you can wear Harley T-shirts.  For a T-shirt company, Harley makes a nice motorcycle.
    14. When you buy a used Sportster, you can watch Then Came Bronson reruns and not feel silly.
    15. When you buy a used Sportster, if you just don’t feel like riding everyone will understand.
    16. When you buy a used Sportster, you will help cut down the used Sportster inventory. The scarcity helps Janus sell more of their motorcycles because the 1200cc Sportster and the 250cc Janus are almost the same motorcycle performance wise.
    17. When you buy a used Sportster, it allows you to say “I paid less than that for my used Sportster” when the cashier at McDonalds rings up your Happy Meal.
    18. When you buy a used Sportster, if it’s old enough it will have a kick start.  Kick starters are cool.  Or, you could get a kick starter on a brand new TT 250, but hey, this is all about why you should buy a used Sportster.

So there you have it:  18 reasons why you should buy a used Sportster.  If you have more reasons, we’d love to hear from you.  Leave your comments here on the blog.  We know a guy named Richard who always leaves his comments on Facebook, but don’t you do that (in other words, don’t be a Dick).  Leave your comments here on ExNotes, like the cool kids do.

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How Much Milk Is Left?

A few weeks ago I read a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Peter Funt (of the Candid Camera show).  His article was on the pandemic lockdowns and isolation inducing more folks to publish their memoirs, and Funt made the case that this was not such a good thing.  Most memoirs are God-awful boring.

That got me to thinking about the adventure touring genre.  You know, the books, blogs, videos, and endless Facebook posts and forums about adventure rides.

Adventure rides.

We used to call a motorcycle ride a motorcycle ride.  Now they are all “adventure” rides.  And we don’t tell a story or do a bike test.  Now, it’s a reveal.  Harley is going to introduce a new bike in few days.  But it’s not a new model announcement.  It’s a “reveal.”

Ten to twenty years ago, the place to go to read good riding stories was ADVRider.com and their Rides page (back then, the stories and photography were actually good) and HorizonsUnlimited.com.  Now it’s mostly videos, Facebook, and blogs.  There’s too much of this (and I say that as guy who writes a blog).  I seldom view any of it.  Which is not to say you should stop reading ExNotes.  We’re different, you know.  We’ve never had a “reveal” (other than that one unfortunate wardrobe accident in China) and we never will.

All of the above begs the question:  How much milk is left in the adventure riding cow?

Fads come in waves, and a surefire way to know that a wave is dissipating on shore is when a big company tries to surf in on the little bit of surf that’s left.  Witness the Pan America, Harley’s too much, too late entry into the ADV world.  Harley wants to compete with the BMW GS, KTM, and Ducati high end ADV bikes.

It’s hard for me to see how Harley is going to prevail.  For starters, my feeling is that most folks who ride big V-twin cruisers (folks who form the bulk of Harley’s current customer base) have little interest in adventure touring.   The premise is that Harley will attract a new crop of customers, presumably drawing the sheeple who would have bought BMWs, or KTMs, or Ducatis.  Color me skeptical, but I just don’t see it happening.

No, what’s happening is a sea change, not an opportunity to do a little surfing in a dying market.  The world moves in fads, with each fad having about a ten-to-twenty-year life, and we’re due for a new one.  I just don’t know what it is.  Consider this:

    • In the 1960s, it was British vertical twins.  Those were cool years and the Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons, and Enfields of the day were cool bikes.
    • In the 1970s and the 1980s, it was Japanese machines (the so-called UJMs).   Honda’s 750 Four had five gears, and that fifth one was for the paradigm shift that swallowed the British empire and made us wonder if maybe Japan won World War II after all.  Four cylinders across the frame, with differences between manufacturers that could only be described as trivial.  The UJMs were kind of cool, too, but not as cool as the Britbikes (at least to my way of thinking).  But the Britbikes were toast, destined to emerge two decades down the road as the darlings of a small but well published vintage motorcycle market niche (and in case you missed it, that was a plug for Motorcycle Classics magazine).
    • In the 1990s, it was Harleys and all that went with it.  You know, middle aged guys becoming pirates and bikes festooned with chrome, leather fringe, and conchos.  I was one of them for awhile and I had everything but the tattoos.  Bikes that people with more money than brains bought (often paying over MSRP) so they could don do-rags, denim, and non-DOT helmets, and look pretty much exactly like all the other beer-bellied rugged individualists.  I was one of them for a while, too.
    • Sportbikes had a good run somewhere in the middle of all this, too, with ergonomics that guaranteed significant incomes for chiropractors and physical therapists, who frequently used that money to pay well over list price for a Harley (see above).  Guilty again.  You got me.  I had a TL1000S, a Triumph Daytona, and a Speed Triple.
    • With the turn of the century, the trend migrated toward 650-pound, liter-plus bikes styled like dirt bikes and equipped with electronics rivaling Air Force One.   Denim and do-rags were replaced by Power Ranger clothing.  Everybody wanted to be Charlie and Ewen, but few could afford the chase trucks and mechanics, and even fewer could handle one of the bloated beasts off road.  Most adorned driveways and Starbuck’s parking lots.  I mean, the headlight lenses on some of these things cost $1800; no way anyone was taking those wunderbikes into the woods.  I’m sort of guilty here.  I had a Triumph Tiger.  I took it off road just once and it was terrifying.

I think we are fast approaching the last throes of the overweight off-road $25K-to-$30K wannabee adventure bikes and their thousand-dollar Aerostitch-wearing riders…you know, the guys who stand on the pegs even when riding on level asphalt.  (Sit down, guys…your “sell by” date flew by years ago and I’ll say what everyone else is thinking:  You look silly.)

So what’s next?

Electric motorcycles?  Nope, I don’t think that’s going to happen in any major way.  Alta is gone, Zero is struggling, and the Livewire may have already suffered electrocution as a consequence of Harley’s rewiring.  Electric bikes don’t sound like motorcycles, the range is not there (it’s not going to be any time soon), and I think a motorcycle without an internal combustion engine really isn’t a motorcycle at all.  So what will be the next big moto thing?

Self-driving motorcycles?  Nope.  Dead on arrival, I think.

Even more “mode complexity” on street bikes?  Probably not.  That sort of thing appeals to juvenile minds (ones susceptible to Jedi mind tricks).  I think even the easily-led characters mentioned above recognize this as too gimmicky.  I once had a pimply faced kid ask me at one of the IMS shows how many modes our imported-from-China 250cc ADV bike had, and I told him:  Two.  On, and off.  He nodded knowingly, as if I had let him in on a great secret, and wandered off toward the Ducati booth.

I think the ADV thing is going to dry up, even though we are still seeing sales upticks in the motorcycle market.  Sort of.  ADV-style bike trends have been up, but it always was a relatively small market segment and the current increase (most likely the result of the “more free stuff” crowd rocking Washington these days) appears to be big but actually is not.  Dirt bike sales are up, but that’s for off road dirt bikes only.  Street bike sales are down about 10%.  And that thing about motorcycle sales overall going up?  Yeah, it is, but it’s mostly ATVs (of the 4-wheel persuasion, which are included in the motorcycle sales figures).  One bit of actual data, and that is this:  CSC can’t keep bikes in stock.  They sell out as soon as they arrive.  But CSC delivers real value at a very reasonable price…I don’t know that I ever saw an RX-Anything with conchos and fringe.  And CSC motorcycles are definitely not $25K driveway bling.  Yeah, the big bike ADV thing is fast approaching its “sell by”date, I think.  The fat lady is singing, folks.  It’s almost over.

So, given that the ADV milk is drying up, the next big thing will be…

Hell, I don’t know.

What do you think?  You guys figure it out and let me know.  And if you think you know, leave a comment here.  Curious minds want to know.

ExNotes Product Comparo: Mitsubishi Mirage versus the Milwaukee Eight

Have we finally lost our marbles?  A Mitsubishi Mirage?  I’m comparing it to a Harley Big Twin? No way!

One of the nice things about business travel is the opportunity to sample different cars.  That’s something I like…extended test drives to find out if a car fits.  I’ve rented cars I thought I would really like only to find out I hated them (saved a lot of money on a Jaguar doing that), and I fell in love with a few by accident…mostly because because they were the only thing available and they surprised me in a good way.

My first time for a rental car romance was in August 1972 when I rented a VW Beetle one weekend at the Benning School for Boys (jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia).  (When I say a rental car romance, I’m referring to falling in love with the car, not any sort of an illicit parking lot relationship.)  The Beetle was a blast and I bought one.  I had a cool picture of it somewhere but it was taking too long to find, so you’ll have to trust me on this one.

The same thing happened again when I rented a Subaru (back when Subaru penetrated the US market with dirt cheap rental agency sales).  I was blown away by the Subie’s overall quality and I’ve owned four since (including my dynamite WRX you see below).

A 2006 Subie WRX near the marigold fields above Santa Barbara. That was a fun car.

And then it happened again recently when the only thing left in the Atlanta Enterprise lot was a Mitsubishi Mirage.

Mitzi. More fun than any $14K car has a right to be.

The Mirage is a car that would have never been on my radar, but I liked it.  Oh, it’s tiny and it didn’t have a lot of power, and it only has three cylinders, but somehow that made it even more appealing.  The three-cylinder thing made me think of my old Triumph Speed Triple, but as soon as I stepped on the gas, it was all Harley.  You know…open the throttle and there’s lots of noise and not much else.  But I was in no hurry, and I kind of enjoyed hearing Mitzi’s howling protestations when I poured the coal to her.  Harleys ain’t the only motor vehicles focused on converting gasoline to noise!

Three’s a crowd? Not with my old Speed Triple. Good lord, that was a good-looking motorcycle!

Mitzi.  Yeah, I gave my rental car a name…and that’s a first.

A sparse interior, but the car had cruise control, air conditioning, a heater, a radio, Apple car play, and an automatic transmission. She drove like a comfortable go kart.

Mitzi’s road noise was a subdued sort of thing…not the screaming tire whine like the Chevy Traverse I rented earlier in Houston (I think a more apt name for the Chevy might have been the Travesty).

Mitzi’s ride was firm and the seats were a bit on the hard side, but I liked it.  And Mitzi is most definitely not a lard butt.  She weighs a scant 2,095 pounds, or just a little more than twice what a Harley Electra-Glide weighs.  And you get air conditioning, power windows, Apple Car-Play, and a heater with the Mirage.  The best part?  I rolled all over Atlanta and the surrounding areas for the better part of a week, used nearly a full tank of gas, and when I filled up before turning her back in at the rental agency, she took just 7 gallons for a whopping total of $21.  I like that.

7 gallons. $21. I could learn to live with this.

Mitzi kind of reminded me of a motorcycle, but better.  I mean, think about it.  The new Harley Icon, a beautiful motorcycle to be sure, but damn, it’s $30K and 863 pounds!  Yeah, you get the Milwaukee Eight motor, but there’s no air conditioning, no heater (other than what rolls off the rear cylinder, as Harley riders know all too well), no spare tire, no windshield wipers, no rain protection, no automatic transmission, it only seats two, and the Harley gets lousy gas mileage compared to the Mitsubishi.  And the Mitsubishi will clock an honest 100 mph (don’t ask how I know).  Maybe the Milwaukee Eight will, too, with that 34-cubic-inch advantage it has over my old Harley’s 80-incher.  My ’92 Softail wouldn’t hit 100 mph.  Maybe this 114-cube Milwaukee monster will.

The Harley Icon. All $30K and 863 lbs of her. 863 lbs!

So I started researching Mitzi’s stats online, and our relationship deepened.  Mine was a no frills model (she actually had hubcaps on her tiny wheels, not the cast wheels you see in the photos above).  The base model I drove clocks in at a starting price of $14,625.  That’s not even half what the new Harley costs.  The Mitsubishi has a three-cylinder, 74-cubic inch engine (compared to Harley’s 114 cubic inch twin).  The Harley is mostly made in ‘Murica; the Mitsubishi comes from Thailand.

More Mitzi magic?  How’s a 10-year powertrain warranty sound?  10 years!  That’s  longer than most folks get for murder!  As an aside, when I owned my Harley Softail, Harley wouldn’t even work on the bike when it hit the 10-year mark.  The Mitsubishi would just be coming off its warranty!

I know I like a motor vehicle when I start thinking about what it would be like to take it through Baja, and that’s what I found myself doing as I was tooling around Georgia in my Mitsubishi.  It’s most likely not going to happen, but it sure would be fun to get lost for a few weeks in Baja in an inexpensive, light, air conditioned car that gets 40 miles per gallon on regular fuel.  With a price that starts under $15K, that leaves a lot of money for Tony’s fish tacos.

Tacos by Tony in Guerrero Negro…bring it on!

Don’t run out and buy a Mirage based on this ExNotes blog.  To balance my rose-colored outlook on life in general and the Mirage in particular, consider this opening paragraph from Consumer Report’s review…

The Mitsubishi Mirage lives up to its name. While its low $16,000 sticker price and good fuel economy of 37 mpg overall may conjure up an inviting image of a good, economical runabout, that illusion quickly dissipates into the haze when you drive this tiny, regrettable car. The Mirage comes as a tiny hatchback or sedan, built in Thailand and powered by a small three-cylinder engine.

Eh, Consumer Reports.  What do they know?  I wonder how the CR folks would rate the Harley Icon.  Funny how all this has come around…I used to refer to my ’79 Electra-Glide as my optical illusion.  You know…it looked like a motorcycle.  When it was running.  Which wasn’t very often.

My take? The Mitsubishi Mirage is one of the least expensive cars out there, it has one of the best automobile warranties ever offered, and it was fun to drive.  No frills here, folks.  It’s just an honest car that’s not trying to pretend it’s something it is not.  I like it.  If I buy it instead of the Harley Icon I could pay cash and still have enough left over for a little more than 20,000 fish tacos!

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Pan America Adventure Motorcycle: The World’s First No-Compromise Harley-Davidson

What does that even mean, no compromise?

Hear me out. Like you I’ve read all the reviews on Harley’s new Pan America Adventure-Glide and they have been uniformly positive. Surprising is the word most frequently used by the tattered remnants of the moto-press when describing the Pan America. And it is surprising.

I’m not likely to ever test ride a Pan America. I offer Harley-Davidson nothing but suffering and heartache. Why would Harley loan me a bike in a category I pretty much despise? I can’t stand big Adventure bikes. I don’t like them one little bit. I think they are dangerous off road. Anyone who sends me one to test ride is a fool and Harley-Davidson’s marketing department is not populated by fools. Luckily I don’t need to ride one because Kevin Duke, the hardest working man in motorcycle journalism, says the Pan America is a good bike and that’s all you really need to know.

The no compromise hook in this story is the most impressive part of the new Pan America. It’s the first Harley (since the late 1960s) that competes head to head with the best the world has to offer and does it at a competitive price. In all areas the new bike is acceptable, meets expectations and is even, dare I say, good.

Most all the high-end, heavy, dangerously inadequate offroad Adventure bikes clock in at around 20,000 US dollars retail and they all weigh nearly the same ground-crushing 600 pounds. It must be a class requirement. Check out the manufacturer-provided spec sheets on a GS BMW, Ducati Multi Service, and KTM Breakdown. All of the numbers are within spitting distance of each other.

And that’s the amazing part. Harley-frigging-Davidson has made a competent motorcycle for the same price as everyone else. There’s no brand penalty. Harley-Davidson has made a motorcycle that the owner isn’t required to look through leather-fringed, nostalgia-tinted lenses to justify. No more having to tell non-Harley riders that they don’t get it when their questions turn pointed. Like all cults, the Harley cult requires actively looking the other way when hard facts and performance figures per dollar are bandied about.

With the Pan America there’s no need to believe in the Harley mystique. There’s no need to defend anemic performance by waving an American flag. The Pan America stands on its own merits as a motorcycle, nothing more. Is it as good as the other big Adventure bikes? I can’t say but the fact that it’s spoken of in the same breath and held up in comparison to the world’s best Adventure bikes is a stunning turnaround for a company that seemed hopelessly stuck in neutral by its mad marketing genius.

As much as I hate big Adventure bikes, I love the new Harley-Davidson Pan America.

I hope it’s a harbinger of change. I hope it succeeds beyond Harley’s wildest dreams and ushers in a new era of 150-horsepower Sportsters that handle, stop and are as fast as any other guy’s bikes. The late 1960s was the last time Sportsters were hot. That’s a long, long time to rest on your laurels. Let’s hope the Pan American gives stodgy old Harley-Davidson new life and a desire to be measured against the very best. Listen, if there’s any way you can afford to go out and buy one, go out and buy one. Tell Harley I sent you. Maybe they’ll even let me take one for a ride.

Berk, on right, telling Gresh to go back to Starbucks and fetch a Pumpkin Spice Latte for him.

Getting to One

Joe Gresh raised an interesting topic with his recent blog on motorcycle quantity.   You know, how many motorcycles are too many?  That blog got a lot of hits and tons of comments on Facebook.  It seems like he struck a nerve.

The most motorcycles I ever owned at one time was five, which pales in comparison to Gresh’s shop full of motos and maybe the collections of a few other people I know.  When my collection hit that peak, I had a Triumph Daytona 1200, a Harley Heritage Softail, a Suzuki TL1000S, a Honda CBX, and a KLR 650.  That was about 20 years ago. There was no rhyme or reason to my collection and no central theme guiding the contents of my fleet.  I just bought what I liked.  In those days I had more money than brains, but don’t interpret that to mean I was rich.  I just never had a lot of brains.  Most folks who know me recognize that pretty quickly.

My Harley Softail in the muddy plains outside Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur. There’s a kitchen sink in there somewhere.
The Triumph Tiger. Good, but tall and very heavy. It was essentially a sport bike with excess suspension travel and ADV cosmetics.
Me with a buddy currently in the witness protection program, and my Honda CBX. It was a surprisingly competent touring motorcycle.
The Triumph Speed Triple. One of my buddies nicknamed it the Speed Cripple, which became true for me.
Ah, the yellow locomotive. My Triumph Daytona 1200. Delightfully crude and fast. I loved this bike and I rode the 2005 Three Flags Classic on it.
Turning sportbikes into touring machines…my TL1000S somewhere in Baja. This was a seriously fast motorcycle.

I seemed to hover around that number (five, that is) for a while.  Other bikes moved in to displace one or more of the above, most notably a Triumph Tiger and then a Triumph Speed Triple.  Those were fun, but they’ve gone down the road, too.

One of my favorite former motorcycles for real world adventure riding…the Kawasaki KLR 650 in its natural surroundings (Valle de los Cirios in Baja).

Which one did I enjoy riding most?  That’s easy.  It was the KLR 650.  The KLR 650 was the bike that led me on an arc toward smaller motorcycles, like the CSC RX3 and then a TT250.  I was a bit player implementing Steve Seidner’s decision to bring those motorcycles to America.  The 250s were a lot of fun.  I sold off all the big bikes and only rode 250s for a few years, then I fell in love with the new Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor when it hit the market, and suddenly I was back up to three.

But three, for me, was too many.  I haven’t been riding much in the last few years for a lot of reasons.  The pandemic put a dent in any big travel plans (YMMV, and that’s okay), and constantly moving the battery tender around and cleaning the TT250’s jets was getting old.  I couldn’t move anything in my garage because there was so much stuff crammed in there, and I had to park the TT250 under the rear porch awning.  I don’t have a separate workshop area and I don’t pour concrete (I don’t have Mr. Gresh’s talents, but even if I did, it looks like too much work to me), so hanging on to a big motorcycle fleet was not in the cards.

My TT250. I’ve ridden it in Baja, too. It sold the day after I placed an ad for it a couple of weeks ago, and at the asking price. This bike held its value well.

Badmouthing Facebook has become trendy, but I’ll tell you that Facebook Marketplace came to the rescue.  I already had a ton of photos of my motorcycles and whipping up ads for the TT250 and the RX3 literally took only seconds.  I checked Kelly Blue Book values, picked prices only marginally below what a dealer would charge, and both bikes sold quickly.  The TT250 sold the day after I listed it; the RX3 took one additional day.

All the China haterbator keyboard commandos said Chinese bikes had no resale value.  Like everything else they posted, they were wrong.  The haters said Chinese bikes were unreliable (they were wrong), the haters said you couldn’t get parts for them (they were wrong), the haters said they were built with slave labor (I’ve been in the factories, and they were wrong), and they said they had no resale value (and they were wrong about that, too).  My 6-year-old RX3 with 20,000 miles on the clock went for 69% of its original MSRP, and my 5-year-old TT250 with 3,000 miles went for 74% of its original MSRP.  That’s pretty good, I think. And both sold right away.  Not that I was in a hurry to sell.  I probably could have held out for more.

My current sole ride (or is that soul ride?), the Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 on Baja’s Highway 1 south of Ensenada.  At this point in my life, one motorcycle is enough.  Your mileage may vary.

So I’m down to one motorcycle, and that’s the Enfield.  For me, at this point in my life, one motorcycle is the right number (your mileage may vary).  I’m on to other “how many” questions now, like how many guns are too many, and how many bicycles are too many.  The answer to both of those questions is something south of my current number, but those are topics for future blogs.

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The Big Ride: 5 Factors Affecting Daily Mileage

How many miles can you ride in a day?

About 30 years ago I cranked 1070 miles in one day on a Harley Softail coming home from Mexico (and that was on an older Softail without the rubber mounted engine…it’s the one you see in the photo above).  I was younger and I could ride, as they say, like the wind.  A couple of weeks ago, I did a 250-mile day ride on my Enfield and it about wiped me out.

Gresh and I were talking about this recently, and I thought I would share my thoughts on how many miles you can plan on covering in a day.  Maybe it will influence your planning.  Maybe not.  We get paid the same either way.

1: Age

Like I said above, big miles used to be no big deal for me.  That’s not the case any more.  After substantial scientific study and close observation of my geezer buddies over many decades, I developed a graph showing the relationship between age and how many miles you can reasonably ride in a day.

Like it or not, when we get older, it gets harder to rack up big miles.  Serious scientific study went into the above, so if you want to debate our conclusions, bring facts.  We want to hear them.

2: Weather

Weather plays a big role in how many miles you can ride in a single day, and here at ExNotes we rely heavily on our weather rock before leaving on any ride.  You’ve probably heard about weather rocks.  We sell weather rocks here on ExNotes and they are conveniently sized to fit into a tank bag.  They work like this…you hang the rock from any available support (you have to supply your own string and support).  Here’s how to interpret your weather rock:

    • If the rock is wet, it means it’s raining and you should reduce however many miles you had planned to ride by half.
    • If the rock is swinging, it means it’s windy that day, and you should reduce your miles by maybe a third.
    • If the rock is hot to the touch, it means the temperature is elevated, and you should reduce your miles by maybe a third.  Maybe even more.
    • If the rock is cold, it means it’s cold, and you probably can ride as long as you dress appropriately.  If the rock is really, really cold, though, maybe you should stay home.  If there’s ice on the rock, you definitely should stay home.

ExNotes offers weather rocks in brand-specific models:

    • If you ride a Harley, we offer chrome weather rocks for $395, chrome with conchos and black leather fringe weather rocks for $495, and chrome, conchos, fringe, and matching do rag weather rocks for $595 (freight and setup fees not included).
    • If you ride a BMW, we offer the GS weather rock with an electronically adjustable center of gravity, BMW logos, and a one-year Starbucks gift certificate for $1995.
    • If you ride a Ducati, you probably don’t need a weather rock (Ducati riders generally only ride their motorcycles short distances on clear days, anyway, although if you insist, we can provide a red rock for you personally autographed by the former famous racer of your choice, or we can put several rocks in a bag you can shake to sound like a Ducati clutch).  Ducati rocks are free, or at least that’s what we tell you (we’ll recover the cost on your first valve adjustment and let you think you got the rock for free).
    • If you ride a Chinese motorcycle, we sell an ExNotes weather rock decal for $2 and you can put it on your own rock.

3: Roads

The kind of roads you plan to ride make a huge difference.  If it’s all freeway, you’ll be bored but you can rack up huge miles.  If it’s surface streets (and a lot of us do everything we can to stay off the freeway), you won’t cover as many miles unless you’re riding in Baja, where you can run 140mph+ on the long straights south of Valle de Los Cirios.  If it’s in the mountains, it will be less, unless you’re posting about your skills on Facebook, where the folks who post are world class riders (to hear them tell it).  The same holds true for riding in the dirt.  You just won’t cover as many miles.

4: Headcount

This is the big one, folks.  Maybe I should have listed it first.  If I’m riding by myself or with one of my motorcycle buddies in Baja, I can easily do over 500 miles a day.  Throw in more people, and…well, read on, my friends.

The number of riders in your group has a profound impact on how many miles you can ride in a day.   In the math world, we would say that the miles per day are inversely proportional to the number of riders in your group.

As a starting point (and after extensive research and mathematical modeling), the technical staff here at ExNotes developed Formula A:

A)  Miles per Day = (M)/(N)

where:

M = Miles you want to ride
N = Number of riders in your group

What the above means is that as the number of riders in your group increases, the number of miles you can cover in a day decreases.  That’s because with more riders you’ll start later in the morning, you’ll be stopping more often, and you’ll take more time at each stop.  That is, unless you’re riding with me.  Then Formula A reduces to Formula B:

B)  Miles per Day = M

where:

M = Miles you want to ride

The B in Formula B stands for Berk because basically I’ll leave you behind if you’re not ready when I am.  You can catch up with me later.  You might think I’m joking. I’m not.

Formula A varies a little depending on what kind of riders you have in your group, and especially if you have a Rupert.  Rupert is the guy who takes 20 minutes putting his motorcycle gear back on after every stop.  I once rode with a Rupert who could take 20 minutes just putting his gloves on.  He got better when we threatened to cut a few of his fingers off.

5: Your Motorcycle

There are several motorcycle factors that play a huge role in how many miles you can ride in a day.  In the old days, a motorcycle was a motorcycle and we did it all with a single bike (touring, off-road, canyon carving, adventure riding, etc.).  Today, you gotta get specific:

    • ADV-style bikes are actually pretty comfortable and the ergonomics make sense.  500-mile days are easy.  My KLR 650 was one of the best touring bikes I ever owned.   It had phenomenal ergos.
    • Standard motorcycles are also relatively comfortable and you can probably do 500 miles in a day, but you’ll feel it, especially if your bike does not have a windshield.  My Enfield 650 Interceptor is a good bike, but it’s the one that wiped me out on that recent 250-mile ride.
    • Cruisers look cool in motorcycle ads and they complement do rags and tattoos nicely, but they are less comfortable on long rides.  I’ve found I can reasonably do 350-mile days on a cruiser without needing to see a chiropractor.  Go much beyond that and you’ll feel it.
    • Sportbikes generally cut into big miles, but a lot depends on your age. Good buddy Marty and I rode sportbikes on the 2005 Three Flags Classic (I was on a Triumph Daytona) and we did big mile days on that ride. But I was 20 years younger then and I bent a lot easier.  I wouldn’t want to do it again.
    • Classic bikes generally require shorter daily riding distances, particularly if they are British and equipped with electricals manufactured by Lucas (as in Lucas, the Prince of Darkness).  I think a mid-’60s Triumph Bonneville is the most beautiful motorcycle ever created, but I wouldn’t want to ride Baja on one.

Beyond the style issues outlined above, there are other motorcycle factors to consider:

    • Bigger motors generally mean more miles in a day, but bigger motorcycles can slow you down if they suck up too much fuel.  One year at the International Motorcycle Show, Yamaha’s bikes all had labels that showed, among other things, fuel economy.  The VMax, as noted by Yamaha, averaged 27 miles per gallon.  You’d be making a lot more fuel stops on that one.  27 miles per gallon.  I can’t make up stuff this good.
    • Daily mileage is independent of displacement at 400cc and above (as long as fuel economy is not VMax nutty).  Below 400cc, it gets harder (I think) to crank big miles.  On my 250cc RX3, 500 miles is a big day for me.  But my good buddy Rob once did a 1000-mile Baby Butt on his RX3, so I guess anything is possible.
    • Seats can make a big difference.  I’ve never found any motorcycle seat to be really comfortable, but I have found a few to be god-awful (my Enfield is working hard to earn that title).  If you want to really improve a motorcycle seat so you can up your miles, get a sheepskin cover (I’ve found those to be quite comfortable).  There are other options like inflatable seats or custom made seats, but my advice is don’t waste your money.  A guy showed up with an inflatable seat cover on a group ride once and it slowed us considerably.  It kept blowing off his bike and we had to stop and look for it each time that happened.
    • Fuel tank capacity doesn’t make much difference.  My KLR could go 250 miles on a tank; my TL1000S would start blinking at 105 miles.  You’d think you could ride a lot further with a bigger tank, but I found I need to stop and stretch roughly every hour or two, and if I do that at gas stations, tank capacity doesn’t matter.

What do you think?

So there you have it:  Our thoughts on a complex topic.

We know there are keyboard commandos out there who will take exception to our carefully constructed and presented thoughts.  If you disagree, let’s hear it.  We appreciate all comments, dumbass and otherwise.  Please leave your thoughts here on the blog for others to see.  Don’t waste your time leaving comments on Facebook (all the cool people leave their comments here…only losers post comments on Facebook).  You’ll be a faster rider, you’ll be thinner, and you’ll look better if you post your comments here.  And don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar, or capitalization (believe it or not, it will help our readers assess the validity of your thinking).

Like they say, your mileage may vary, and we’re looking forward to your comments.  If they’re particularly inane, so much the better. We await your inputs.

Some of our more interesting rides?  Right here, folks!

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Used Sportsters: Who knew?

I think CSC gets $3995 for a new RX3 these days, and that’s with all the goodies…skid plate, luggage, ABS, 300W alternator, auxiliary accessory switches, the 19-inch front wheel, and probably a few more things I don’t know about.  That’s my RX3 in the photo above.  I’ve been riding it for more than 5 years.  For the Sinophobic haterbators out there, I’ve never found any fish oil in it, I’ve spent substantial time in the factories where they make the RX3 and there are no children chained to the manufacturing equipment, and the Zong techs are most definitely not slave labor.  My RX3 has been and still is a good motorcycle.

Looking over the windshield, on the road in Baja.

I know you can buy a used Sportster for what a new RX3 costs if you shop around; the topic comes up nearly every time I mention the price of an RX3.  It’s a silly thought, actually, because I’m still looking for that prospective buyer who is trying to decide between a used Sportster and a new RX3.  I’ve been on that quest ever since I started writing about the RX3 six years ago, when the keyboard commandos first started pushing the used-Sportster-in-lieu-of-an-RX3 argument.

Here’s a hot flash:  That person (the dude or dudette struggling with such a decision) doesn’t exist.  You either want an ADV motorcycle, or you want a used bar-hopper with “much chrome” (as the Sportster ads often highlight).  I have never met, or even heard of, somebody pondering whether they should buy a used Sportster or an RX3.

Behold:  The financial equivalent of a new RX3.

I hear the same kind of keyboard drivel when Janus motorcycles are mentioned.  They’re stunning motorcycles, and I’ve had good times riding them through northern Baja. Invariably, though, the used Sportster financial comparison will emerge. Janus is always polite in their responses.  Me?  I’m a noncombatant and I don’t respond to such Internet drivel. If you want a used Sportster, it’s a free country. Go for it.

To listen to the keyboard commandos, there must be a lot of folks out there dreaming about used Sportsters.  Maybe that’s the answer to Harley’s problem.  Even though motorcycle sales in general are up sharply since the pandemic started, Harley’s sales most definitely are not. In fact, to read The Wall Street Journal, Harley is circling the drain.  Not to worry, though, because I think I have the answer: Rather than rewiring or hardwiring or screwing around with $30K electric motorcycles, or hiring high-priced executives with zero motorcycle experience (as they seem to love to do), Harley should simply stop production and only traffic in used Sportsters.  There would be no need for a factory; that’s a huge savings right there.  More savings? Harley wouldn’t need to spend anything on advertising; there’s a potful of worldwide web wannabe wizards pushing used Sportsters already doing that for free.

Used Sportsters. Who knew?

Back to my RX3:  I’ve covered a lot of miles on it here and overseas. I had it out this Sunday charging through the smoke we call breathable air here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia.  I hadn’t ridden the RX3 in a couple of months, but it started right up (like it always does) and it’s still running strong (like it always has).

Good buddy Greg on the road to the cave paintings in Sierra San Francisco, Baja California Sur.

It’s kind of a funny story about how the RX3 came to America.  I was in China on a consulting gig for another client when CSC asked me to poke around for a 250cc engine for its line of Mustang replicas.  It’s funny in the sense that a lot of Internet people told us they’d buy the Mustang if only the bike had a 250cc engine (instead of its 150cc engine).  I found a source for the 250cc engine (Zongshen; they weren’t very hard to find).  CSC put the 250cc Zong engine in the Mustang and sales…well, they remained essentially the same.  All those yahoos who said they’d buy one if the bike had a 250cc motor?  They went MIA. I don’t know what they did after CSC introduced the 250cc engine, but they sure didn’t buy a new Mustang.  Ah, I take that back…I do know what they did…they posted more comments on Facebook.  It’s hard work being a keyboard commando, I guess, and it’s lonely down there in those basements.  But they kept at it.  Why buy a CSC Mustang, they said.  You could buy a used Sportster for that kind of money, they said. Actually, most of the CSC Mustangs were optioned up by their customers so much that their cost approached and sometimes exceeded what a new Sportster would cost, but that’s neither here nor there.

A 250cc CSC Mustang, accessorized to the max.

The arrangement with the Big Z was a good one, and it led directly to things like the RX3, the RX4, the City Slicker, the TT250, the SG250, and more.  It’s how I came to own my RX3, and like I said above, I am still riding and enjoying it.  Even though I could have bought a used Sportster.

Good buddy Kyle from China, somewhere in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Don’t worry; he’s not armed (and if you’re wondering what that’s all about, you can read that story here).

I’ve been up and down Baja lots of times with lots of RX3 riders.  I’ve been across China, including the Gobi Desert and the Tibetan Plateau, and I’ve ridden around the Andes Mountains in Colombia.  I’ve ridden to Sturgis, then back across the top of the US, and down the Pacific Coast with a bunch of guys from China.  Gresh rode with me on a lot of of those rides.  I know, I know, he didn’t get invited on the Colombia adventure, but hey, he didn’t invite me on the Russia ride, either.  But to stay on topic:  It’s all been on the RX3.

Riding into the Gobi Desert with Joe Gresh as my wingman. Or was I his?  In 6000 miles and 40 days of riding across China, we did not see a single Sportster, used or new.

Those early RX3 rides were marketing demos, basically, designed to show a few guys having the time of their life and demonstrating to everybody else that the RX3 had real chops as an ADV bike.  But don’t think I wasn’t nervous.  We took 14 guys and one gal on a 1700-mile ride through Baja literally the same week the first RX3s arrived in the US from China (I was sweating bullets on that one), and then we immediately took another 12 or 15 guys from China and Colombia (and one motojournalist from Motorcyclist) on a 5000-mile ride from southern California to Sturgis, back across the top of the US, and down the Pacific coast on what was arguably one of the most highly-publicized (in real time, too) motorcycle publicity stunts ever.  I was scared the entire time, thinking something might break and generate a lot of bad press.  I guess I didn’t realize how well things were going until the last night of the trip, 4700 miles into it, when Gresh told me to relax.  “You won, man,” he said.   He was right.  But just think: I coulda had that used Sportster.

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Bikes Gone By

Do you dream about the motorcycles you used to own?

Yeah, me, too.  I don’t have photos of all my bikes that have gone down the road, but I have a few and I’d like to share them with you.

My first motorcycle was a Honda Super 90. I bought it from Sherm Cooper, a famous Triumph racer who owned Cooper’s Cycle Ranch in New Jersey. My Super 90 was cool…it was white and it had an upswept pipe and knobby tires.  Mr. Cooper used it for getting around on his farm (the Cycle Ranch actually started out there).  I was only 14 and I wasn’t supposed to be on the street yet, but I was known to sneak out on occasion. I liked that Honda Super 90 motor, and evidently so do a lot of other people (it’s still being manufactured by several different companies in Asia).

Yours truly at about age 14 on the Honda Super 90. What’s that stuff on top of my head?

The next bike was a Honda SL-90. Same 90cc Honda motor, but it had a tubular steel frame and it was purpose-built for both road and off-road duty. I never actually had a photo of that bike, but it was a favorite. Candy apple red and silver (Honda figured out by then that people wanted more than just their basic four colors of white, red, black, or blue), it was a great-looking machine. I rode it for about a year and sold it, and then I took a big step up.

That big step up was a Honda 750 Four. I’ve waxed eloquent about that bike here on the blog already, so I won’t bore you with the details about how the Honda 750 basically killed the British motorcycle industry and defined new standards for motorcycle performance.  The 750 was fun, too. Fast, good looking, candy apple red (Honda used that color a lot), and exotic. I paid $1559 for it in 1971 at Cooper’s. Today, one in mint condition would approach ten times that amount.  I wish I still had it.

My first big street bike…a 1971 Honda 750 Four. It was awesome. It’s a miracle I never crashed it. I rode it all the way up to Canada and back in the early ’70s. Check out the jacket, the riding pants, and my other safety gear.

There were a lot of bikes that followed. There were two Honda 500 Fours, a 50cc Honda Cub (the price was right, so I bought it and sold it within a couple of days) an 85cc two-stroke BSA (with a throttle that occasionally stuck open), a 1982 Suzuki 1000cc Katana (an awesome ride, but uncomfortable), a 1979 Harley Electra-Glide Classic (the most unreliable machine I’ve ever owned), a 1978 Triumph Bonneville (I bought that one new when I lived in Fort Worth), a 1971 Triumph Tiger, a 1970 Triumph Daytona, a 1992 Harley Softail (much more reliable than the first Harley, and one I rode all over the US Southwest and Mexico), a 1995 Triumph Daytona 1200 (the yellow locomotive), a 1997 TL1000S Suzuki (a sports bike I used as a touring machine), a 2006 Triumph Tiger, a 1982 Honda CBX (a great bike, but one I sold when Honda stopped stocking parts for it), a 2007 Triumph Speed Triple (awesome, fast, but buzzy), a 2006 KLR 650 Kawasaki, and a 2010 CSC 150.   Here are photos of some of those bikes:

My high school buddy Johnnie with a Honda 500 four I later bought from him. That sissy bar was the first thing to go. It was a fun bike.
A Honda 50cc Cub, the most frequently produced motorcycle on the planet. In China and elsewhere, this bike is still being manufactured. I bought this one in the 1960s, mostly because I knew I could sell it and make a few bucks quickly.
My ’79 Electra-Glide Classic. I called this one my optical illusion, because it looked like a motorcycle. I couldn’t go a hundred miles on that motorcycle without something breaking. And people badmouth Chinese motorcycles.
Me with my 1982 Suzuki Katana. In its day, that was a super-exotic bike. Uncomfortable, but very fast, and way ahead of its time. I bought it new and paid over MSRP because they were so hard to get. I was a lot skinnier in those days.
My ’92 Softail Classic Harley. This motorcycle was superbly reliable right up until the moment the oil pump quit at 53,000 miles. At about the time I shot this photo on a trip through Mexico, I started thinking that maybe a Big Twin was not the best answer to the adventure touring question. And I know, my motorcycle packing skills in those days were not yet optimized. That’s a Mexican infantry officer behind the bike.
My buddy Louis V and me with our bikes somewhere in Arizona sometime in the mid-’90s. I’m not sure why Louis had his shirt off…we sure didn’t ride that way. Louis had an ’81 Gold Wing and I had an ’82 CBX Six. That old CBX was a fun bike…it sounded like a Ferrari!
My ’97 Suzuki TL1000S on the road somewhere in Baja. Wow, that bike was fast.  Here’s a story about my good buddy Paul and me featuring this motorcycle.
The 1200 Daytona. I won it on an Ebay auction.  It was an incredible motorcycle and you can read more about it here.
I’d always wanted a KLR 650, and when I pulled the trigger in 2006 I was glad I did. Smaller bikes make more sense. They’re more fun to ride, too.  It seemed to me that this was the perfect bike for Baja.  That’s me and Baja John out at El Marmol.
The ’06 Triumph Tiger. Fun, but a little cramped and very heavy. It was styled like a dual sport, but trust me on this, you don’t want to get into the soft stuff with this motorcycle.
Potentially the most beautiful motorcycle I’ve ever owned, this 2007 Speed Triple was a fast machine. The joke in motorcycle circles is that it should be named the Speed Cripple. That’s what it did to me.
My CSC 150. Don’t laugh. I had a lot of fun on this little Mustang replica. My friends and I rode these to Cabo San Lucas and back.

That brings up to today.  My rides today are a CSC TT250, an RX3, and a Royal Enfield Interceptor 650.  I like riding them all.

Do you have photos of your old bikes?  Here’s an invitation:  Send photos of your earlier motorcycles to us (info@exhaustnotes.us) with any info you can provide and we’ll your story here on the blog.  We’d love to see your motorcycles.

Want to see some of our Dream Bikes?   Give a click here!

Movie Review: The Forgotten Tragedy

Last year we wrote a blog about The Warning, a statue honoing two motor officers who came to be known as the Paul Reveres of Santa Paula.   The statue was an unanticipated discovery on a motorcycle ride through Santa Paula, and it had my attention because it’s not the kind of monument you see every day.

The other night Sue and I were flipping through the movies on Amazon Prime, and to my great surprise one I had not seen before popped up:  The Forgotten Tragedy:  The Story of the St. Francis Dam. 

You know, I’m embarrassed to admit that when I first saw that statue in Santa Paula 10 years ago, I had never heard of the St. Francis Dam and its collapse.  I grew up on the east coast, and there’s a lot we never heard about back there.  It took a little digging for me to learn about California’s second largest disaster ever (the only event involving greater loss of life in the Golden State was the San Francisco earthquake), so the idea of a movie on the St. Francis Dam and its collapse had my immediate attention.   The Forgotten Tragedy is a documentary and it’s very well done.  It even included a bit about the motorcycle officers in the above statue (although it only mentioned one).

Trust me on this, my friends.  The Forgotten Tragedy:  The Story of the St. Francis Dam is worth viewing.

Happy Thanksgiving, and let’s hear from you…

My first motorcycle had 3 cubic inches. This one must be 48 times better.

I love this time of year.  The temperatures are nice (although it’s raining here in So Cal today and for the next couple of days), it’s good to get together with friends and family, and like most folks fortunate who live in the US, I have a lot for which I am thankful.

Earlier this week, I picked up a screw in one of my Subie’s tires, so it was off to America’s Tire, where they fix these things for free.  The idea is that you’ll think of them first when it’s time for new tires, and in my case, you can bet that’s going to happen.   It was a 2-hour wait, and I used that time to go for a walk.  Our local Harley dealer is just up the street from the tire place, I hadn’t been in a Harley showroom in a while, so I stopped by to check things out.

 

Things have changed from when I rode a Harley.  In those days, any Harley dealership was a hopping place.   When I walked over to the dealer this week, the place was mostly empty, they didn’t have a ton of T-shirts, and there were plenty of motorcycles.  It’s a world gone mad, I tell you.

Sometime when I wasn’t looking, production shifted from T-shirts to motorcycles. In the early and mid-1990s, you’d have to go to the Laughlin River Run, Daytona, or Sturgis to see this many Harleys in one spot.
Ah, hope springs eternal. A thousand dollar dealer markup? At least these folks are honest about it, and they don’t try to disguise gouging as freight and setup.

I haven’t kept up with the latest from Harley, other than the headline-grabbing stuff about the Livewire.  I guess they had a hiccup with the initial rollout, but that sort of thing happens and I hear it’s been fixed.  What hasn’t been fixed is the Milwaukee notion that any Harley is worth $30K, and I think that’s one of the major reasons the bar-and-shield folks’ best days are in the rear-view mirror.  I haven’t heard that Livewires are flying out of the showrooms, and judging by the looks of the dealer I visited, neither is anything else.  It’s not just me saying this…the stock market shows a Harley trend that is downright scary.  Harley has ridden their rebel reputation big time since the early 1990s, but one place you don’t want to buck the trend is in the stock market.

Harley’s stock performance over the last 5 years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last five years. It’s been said that a rising tide lifts all boats. Maybe it does. Maybe Harley’s stock would have been much lower without the bull market of the last few years. Maybe, maybe, maybe….

The Harley sales guy was eager to help, so I asked him about the Bronx 975 (Gresh did a piece on it not too long ago).  My guy never heard of the Bronx, so I asked if they had any Sportsters (there was one, so maybe they are selling better).  I then asked about Harley’s Street models (the 500 and 750 V-twins), and he told me there were none.  “They didn’t sell too well,” he said.  I thought that was unfortunate.   I’m conceited enough to think that if Gresh and I had ridden those bikes in Baja, if Harley offered guided Baja tours to Street buyers, and if Harley had an effective blog, that bike could have been a winner.  We sure sold a lot of motorcycles at CSC with those Baja tours (including to folks who didn’t ride with us in Baja).  It was just the idea that they could (that, of course, and the CSC motorcycles’ price).  Good buddy Dan is adventure touring in Tunisia right now along with a bunch of other Guzzistas on a ride organized by Moto Guzzi.  I think that’s brilliant (and I’m jealous).   Tunisia!  Damn, that’s exotic!

I don’t think there’s much of a future in two-wheeled, 900-pound, 114-cubic-inch dinosaurs, but hey, what do I know?  That’s a rhetorical question…I think my lack of knowledge is right up there with the industry wizards who continue to ponder the “what can we do about the sad state of the motorcycle industry” question, and then continue to offer 114-cubic-inch, $30,000 motorcycles that sit for presumably extended periods on showroom floors.  And like I said earlier, I don’t think ebikes are the answer.

So, what do you think?  Let us know with a comment or two.  We love hearing from you.  And I think the folks in Milwaukee would, too.  They read these pages, I think, judging by what I’m seeing on Google Analytics.  Let us know.