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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 11:50 am 
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Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 10:11 am
Posts: 3632
Location: Orange County, CA
badinfluence63 wrote:
Roadking...really?.... first I ever heard of that being an issue, wish I had that problem...of course there are various seats to accomadate that obstacle. I imagine the road zepplin would erase that issue. I'm 5'7 and the Ultra is just a tad more bike than I am man. I had to go with the reach seat..drops you down and forward 1.5 inchs by taking out that much foam..I have an airhawk seat cushion for long multi day/week trips.

I have the 6 inch windshield instead of the stock 14" which gave me claustraphobia and couldn't see thru it at nite in the rain.


I sit on the back of my saddle as it is, the seat height on the '94 is the highest of all the bikes. Its not the height from the ground but the distance to the floor boards. That position is the best I've found to date.
As for the windshield I'm able to look over it but also cant look through it, especially at night or in the rain.


You can have it cheap.
You can have it fast.
You can have high quality.
PICK ANY 2....


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 11:59 am 
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Location: Orange County, CA
The Tourist wrote:
If you lived near me you probably would have a touring bike and some form of Sportster.

Good suspension, forks that actually go around tight corners and navigate through a maze of one-way streets.

If you have ever seen a cop rodeo you'd understand why they don't ride sportsters...
The electaglide/roadking can do anything and carry groceries and a shotgun.

Not knocking sporties, but they are limited to say the least.


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 1:50 pm 
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Road Captian
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Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:51 am
Posts: 1966
Check this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzN4Y-C0tL8


To expect to be perfect is unreasonable, to strive for perfection is reasonable.
2015 Ultra Classic Low.


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 2:00 pm 
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Road Captian
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Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:51 am
Posts: 1966
How tall are you?

roadking wrote:
badinfluence63 wrote:
Roadking...really?.... first I ever heard of that being an issue, wish I had that problem...of course there are various seats to accomadate that obstacle. I imagine the road zepplin would erase that issue. I'm 5'7 and the Ultra is just a tad more bike than I am man. I had to go with the reach seat..drops you down and forward 1.5 inchs by taking out that much foam..I have an airhawk seat cushion for long multi day/week trips.

I have the 6 inch windshield instead of the stock 14" which gave me claustraphobia and couldn't see thru it at nite in the rain.


I sit on the back of my saddle as it is, the seat height on the '94 is the highest of all the bikes. Its not the height from the ground but the distance to the floor boards. That position is the best I've found to date.
As for the windshield I'm able to look over it but also cant look through it, especially at night or in the rain.


To expect to be perfect is unreasonable, to strive for perfection is reasonable.
2015 Ultra Classic Low.


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 5:35 pm 
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Every few days I go onto the Harley homepage and check around for new entires. I found a video of this Softail Slim actually moving.

Now get this, no doubt that there is plenty of hype and old recycled Crossbones parts on the bike. However, I like the rider's seating position and the way it seems to roll. Either they found the smoothest section of concrete on the planet, or the thing really peforms. It looks like a decent bike, I like it.

So here's the 64 thousand dollar question. Why the hype? If the bike is comfortable to ride, has a decent engine and is good value for the price, why does it have to marketed and trimmed up like this? Why can't they just build the thing out of good pieces and sell the thing on its merits?

My guess is that we just cannot shake this concept of "bad-boy." Why not a decent engine. Refinements that mean something. A suspension that works. A headlight that allows night driving--what a concept.

I have more respect for the idea of the 1200 Custom. It has a 1200cc engine and various upgrades. Duh. No need to call it "The Bronson Ego Trip" and encrust it with two cans of black spray paint and a skull and cross bones.


"Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a sight?" Brad Pitt as Achilles in the movie 'Troy'


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 6:39 pm 
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Posts: 1966
You know exactly why...the MOCO sales department is trying to bottle and sell courage and machismo to the poser pussies who lack self confidence and figure an HD, a do rag,fingerless gloves and azzless chaps costume will fill the void. I bet the majority of people who posts on forums are like that. I see it in droves when I head to Laconia bike week for the morning/early afternoon. I only live 60 miles away and its a grand meandering ride thru the mountains and dense forest of rural New England. Twisty,windy, low speed cruising. The trick is to get out of weirs beach before the drunks wake up. Venders have been way down last couple years. I just hit the hot spots and look at the new makes and models and what venders are hawking what. All the major ones are there and discounts can be had. Couple years ago the Hells Angels held their world and USA rally there. It was the shit. I talked to members from everywhere..... South Africa, England, Germany and many states too. Cops were every where. There were 2 on both sides every 20 yards. I went incognito on my Buell S2T,lol. I figured if I came tooling in on my 1963 rigid pan all straight pipe loud and ape hangers to the sky trying to look cool I would get hassled. On the Buell, to the cops, I would appear just to be another sport bike yahoo. There was minimum to no trouble except of course in the end with a couple of locals and after most of the HA had cleared out. The HA did not start it. I found them to be regular people looking for booze and women,lol and aproachable. Now that was a memorable Laconia. I wish I had the stones to be an HA.


To expect to be perfect is unreasonable, to strive for perfection is reasonable.
2015 Ultra Classic Low.


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 8:20 pm 
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badinfluence63 wrote:
You know exactly why...the MOCO sales department is trying to bottle and sell courage and machismo to the poser pussies.


Oh, I agree. I remember an old expression, "Good things are good because they are good."

It sounds simple, but the idea is clear. Something is 'good' when you see it and discern it. No one has to 'sell' you on the idea. No one has to paint it wild colors or glue it to Kim Kardashian's backside, if it's a good product you'll know it in an instant.

I watched this Softail Slim roll with a guy comfortably sitting on it--I needed no book of instructions. Why MoCo decided to make the back end out of Crossbones parts and the front end out of old Duo-Glide parts still baffles me. What's so hard about the idea of building a good bike?

When are they going to learn? Haven't we had enough of an Electra-Glide dipped in chrome and called a "CVO"? Or a Crossbones, or a Rocker, and then the Rocker "C" meaning more chrome, then the Blackline, and now a slimmed down Crossbones they should have called the Crossed-line, because it really crossed the line into the foolish realm.

I guess "good" stuff will never sell. Look at the Fat Bob. A good, simple bike. An engine. A better front end. Two front discs. So far MoCo hasn't screwed up that model. Maybe I should buy a few of them, just in case they decide to 'improve' them...


"Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a sight?" Brad Pitt as Achilles in the movie 'Troy'


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:26 pm 
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Location: Orange County, CA
badinfluence63 wrote:
How tall are you?

I was 6'1" before back surgery I lost a little over an inch at the base of my spine... now I just have really long legs 32" inseam.


You can have it cheap.
You can have it fast.
You can have high quality.
PICK ANY 2....


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:37 pm 
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badinfluence63 wrote:


My first lesson was in a parking lot for 2 hours doing just that.
I practice once a month for about an hour in a secluded parking lot doing just that...
I I'm not happy until scrap floor boards every session.
Not bad for a "parts bin bike" LOL


You can have it cheap.
You can have it fast.
You can have high quality.
PICK ANY 2....


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 Post subject: Re: Another parts bin bike.
PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 7:33 am 
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No, but I'd like to answer that publically on the forum.

I guess styling can ultimately lead to innovation, and there are examples. One of them is the 1964 Mustang. That car was new tin-ware with a Ford Falcon underneath. The innovation came from its popularity.

The first Super Glide was the same exercise. It was an unchanged Electra Glide on the back and an unchanged Sportster on the front. Not even the transmission ratios or the front brakes were altered, and oddly it still wore the same single leading shoe front brake after hydraulic discs were being offered. The plastic boattail seat was the only real innovation.

But beefing up the Super Glide's front end is not innovation, it's simply recognizing a design flaw. Oh, I suppose errors lead to innovation, and we see that (finally) on the front ends of the Sportster 48 and the Fat-Bobs.

Can you really say that forty years of putzing is innovation? Or, is the "engine heat to EPA numbers" ratio just another attempt to try and stem the obvious market tide?

The reason that Betty wears a CVO inverted fork is that around 2006 my bike experienced severe "dive and pogo" coming to a rolling stop at a downhill intersection. Every one of us makes those kinds of stops routinely in daily driving. And the technology for a 'hydraulic lifting cylinder' (the premise of our inverted forks) goes back to patents my FIL enhanced for his work in the 1960s as a design engineer.

Can innovation coexist when using off the shelf parts? Of course it can, the Blackline is an example. That bike is +90 percent out of the parts bins while wearing a newly designed set of handlebars. However, using the description of 'groundbreaking' is quite a stretch when the underlying bike is an air-cooled 1936 design.

We're stuck in the past, and it shows. I was quite surprised when I first found out the newer V-Max has rising and descending velocity stacks to better meter air during acceleration. Our Sportsters had carburetors until just a few years ago. And all of the chrome and paint in the world isn't going to whitewash the comparison of those designs.


"Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a sight?" Brad Pitt as Achilles in the movie 'Troy'


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