Street Motorcycles

[Bird]

I put a drivers back rest on my Heritage

I had one on my Aspencade and loved it on long trips, such as 400 miles to Port Aransas, TX, 1300 miles to Quantico, VA, and such. It also had cruise control, so I could lean back, drink my coffee, listen to the stereo, and travel in real comfort.

 

[mostly_gas]

Bird is that motorcycle riding ?

 

[Bird]

Bird is that motorcycle riding ?

:laughing:That was the best kind of motorcycle riding.:laughing:

 

[MWRR]

Driving a motorcycle is more fun, but it will saty parked most of the time unless you are a real die hard biker, like Harley guys. They ride in anything and don't get cold.

I guess you would call my wife and I "die hard bikers". The first pic is of my bike when I rode to work this winter, temperature was 3 degrees. The other picture was taken last May when the wife and I rode from Illinois to Yellowstone National Park. The bike is a Road Glide Ultra, and yes it has heated grips, but no other heated gear.

 

[tomd999]

Not to start a war, this is somewhat true but it all depends on year and model.

Yes, I have ridden old iron barrel Sportys that the stopping procedure was to pull the front brake lever back to the grip, take your foot off the peg and stand on the rear brake until the tire started chirping and down shift, if you were lucky, the light turned green before you got to it other wise you were on your own. Same is true for my '83 Lowrider, nice old slow Shovelhead, doesn't handle, doesn't stop, doesn't turn but sure sounds and looks great while it goes slowly down the road. My 1200 Sporty does everything a sporty should, it stops reasonably quickly, it accelerates well and is fairly easy to flick around on the street. A Buell it's not but it's a lot better overall than the old iron barrels.

My Buell XB (subdivision of Harley, now closed down) on the other hand has a front brake that's better than the one I had on a TZ-750 I raced in 1981, It's a 2 finger at max and even then I have to go easy on it or it will lift the rear and go into a stoppie. The XB turns as good as the road race stuff I raced in the 80's, it's actually too aggressive in the turns at street speeds, it wants to fall to the inside and you have to strong arm the inside bar to keep it from turning into itself. It's dyno'd at 114HP at the rear wheel and being 390 lbs with a short wheelbase, it's a handful on the street, in comparison, my '83 Shovelhead makes maybe 40 HP and weighs at least 900 Lbs...

My 2 cents,

Tom

 

[Car Doc]

That ain't getting soft, it's called adaptation.:thumbsup:

I briefly thought about a Spyder, but that's just not the same.

Yeah that's it adapting I like it! :thumbsup:

We see Spyders here and there they seem to be gaining popularity. I never rode with one yet or even visited with the riders so I don't know much about them? I agree it just isn't a motorcycle in my terms, now a side car yeah that counts but yeah they are different animal for sure.

 

[Car Doc]

I rode to work in the snow yesterday and it was 35 when I left the house shouldn't have even been snowing when its that warm. It was supposed to get up to 50 or so and it did thats Kansas as we say. fwtw I don't make a habit of riding when it may be slick but you never know just gotta watch what you do.

 

[Car Doc]

I guess you would call my wife and I "die hard bikers". The first pic is of my bike when I rode to work this winter, temperature was 3 degrees. The other picture was taken last May when the wife and I rode from Illinois to Yellowstone National Park. The bike is a Road Glide Ultra, and yes it has heated grips, but no other heated gear.

Aye carumba as Bart would say 3 degrees you guys are tougher than us haha! Niice bike btw! :thumbsup:

 

[unbidden]

I demo'd a Spider at Americade a couple years ago. Very fun; it's takes a few minutes getting used to turning a speed. It kind of feels like the bike is going to high-side as opposed to leaning into the turn. Once you get that down, the Spyder handles like it's on rails. Down shift two gears and hit the turn, you don't need to touch the brakes.

 

[Car Doc]

We stopped at a pancake place once for breakfast while on a trip and there were 3 Spyders and all had trailers and all had parked heads in in front of the place. We looked at them with question marks on our faces and went on in so I figure not only do they have reverse but they can actually back up pretty decent? We dint see them leave so only guessing.