The viper..just another cruiser bike...does nothing for me as I am into long distance and comfort. If I was simply gonna stay local and want to look cool in the crowd I would rebuild my 1983 shovel into as an attractive as possible rigid. Hey it has kick and a pussy button, best of both worlds,lol. I been through that phase in my 20's and early 30's. Been there done that and now try to do things for function rather than coolness. Although owning and riding a Harley is still way cool in my book....compared to most anything else on 2 wheels anyways.

I miss the old days when everyone followed the leader...he was on a Honda. That left the rest of us to our own devices. Now the damned Harleys are popular, a fashion statement and anyone with an undersized penis..like most cops...own one.

I'm not advocating we embrace and purchase every nuance that comes down the pike, but the V-Rod represents water cooling (which is coming, like it or not) and a virtual start-up company like Viper builds better V-twins right out of the chute.

And the V-Rod is a classic example of MoCo's supposed innovation. The initial V-Rod gulped fuel like a chubby kid eating french fries. MoCo's answer? The designed a bigger fuel tank.

They have enough design instruments to utilize deep draw stamping and hydro-forming, but once a bike hits the streets it pretty much remains in that configuration for decades. What we got after that in the VRSC series was a differing position for foot-pegs, more black paint, and a bike advertised with 'muscle' that actually made only two more pound-feet of torque. Using simple hop-up tricks Betty now makes +15 more pound feet. Some of the bruisers from S&S almost double Harley's stats.

In lots of ways (heat, power, ease of maintenance, etc.) MoCo would be better off pulling out an old shovelhead design and grafting modern upgrades to that. Imagine a shovel with a few more inches, the cam plate adaptation Betty has, EFI and tighter tolerances, etc. Heck, that might even apply to re-designing a pan.