Please don't take this wrong, cuz I'm not trying to argue here. You make some valid points, but, Harleys are not the oil spewing prairie schooners of the AMF years anymore. While I would not own a Hog personally, I have ridden them and they compare very well with other bikes of their type.
He just said they were "dinosaur designs". Whether they spew oil or not, they are still dinosaur designs, undersquare OHV air cooled V twin. Just what would you call that, state of the art? Other metric cruisers are dinosaurs, too, only in that they ape the Hog and only in the amount that they ape the hog. A Suzuki intruder 800 is actually a pretty advanced design, water cooled, OHC, undersquare, fairly high output by comparison.
Yes they are expensive, but so are the other big bore cruisers out there. The msrp of a Harley is rather reasonable in that regard (Looked at a Ducati lately?).....
Another point to make here is depreciation. You buy a new hog, re-sell it 3 years later, you don't lose a heck of a whole lot compared to the metrics.
Any bike can wheelie, that is a rider skill, not a function of the bike (at least any bike that I've ridden doesn't have a wheelie button or any thing).....
I'm not sure I could wheelie a Heritage Softtail, as a for instance. Doug Demokos probably could, if he's still around. Some bikes are a WHOLE lot easier than others, just dial on the power.
I prefer air cooled bikes. Call me jurassic if you will. I don't have a puddle of coolant in my garage . I wouldn't say that its inferior technology either. Just different.
I have four water cooled bikes in my shop that belong to me and no coolant stains on the floor. Only two of those bikes are recent manufacture. There's an '88 KX in there and a 1983 GL1100 in there. If you want longevity of service and/or optimized performance, water cooling is a must. It's not totally necessary in a street bike, of course, but it's definitely preferable to me. Anything has to be maintained, of course, but I haven't had a lot of problems maintaining a water cooled bike and I've been riding them since the early 80s. Suzuki's GSXR was originally air/oil cooled. As the performance ante increased, even THAT bike had to take on water cooling. Its only real disadvantage is weight, but the weight is worth it.
I wonder if you've ever dragged a mildly tuned Harley? Light to Light? They're faster than you think. They snap off the line with MUCH authority. A heavy long frame is good for planting the back tire and not lifting the front. A big heavy fly wheel means little or no clutch slipping to launch. Big V-twin torque..... Just like an rc51 only it keeps its front end down when you give it the go.... Of course all this is null and void when you hit about 80 mph . But hey, you'll get to the next red light before you can catch up with your high revving sport bike.
I've ridden a lot of hogs and there aren't too many of them that would whoop my SV650, let alone a ZX10R. That's rather laughable.
A really well massaged hog is making maybe 120 ponies, if you dump five figures in the motor. Add to that 650+ lbs, well, a 600 can whip that if it has ANY kind of rider aboard. My SV runs 0-60 in under 4 seconds. A CBR1000RR test I recently read says it runs 2.92 seconds. I ain't seen the street hog that can run THAT! To run that, you'll be rebuilding that air cooled top end in under 10K miles, not hardly worth it. If you're going fishing for sharks, you'd best take an off shore rod and real, not a Zebco 202. To me, though, and I've done the bracket thing, drag racing is a drag. I'm more used to slipping the clutch on a RS125 off the green flag. The start is just the start, the fun begins in turn one.
Your right about the attitude though. The non waving 1%'ers out there are not real motorcyclists. They are buying into an image. Many have a big chip on their shoulder just waiting for someone to knock it off. Just like the high school bully. I wave at everybody.... Bicyclists, mopeds, Harleys, no helmet wearin' flip flops riding a 'busa with a pipe (saw him yesterday )... Everybody. Some don't wave back, oh well.
I don't really get hung up on the waving thing. I don't wave unless I see the other guy waving.
BTW in case your interested, Harley Davidson won Drag racings prostock bike division's first event of the season in Gainsville Florida. It would make me immensely happy to see HD do well in drag racing. The perfomance will filter down in a couple of years, guaranteed. If they worked with Porsche on an engine, maybe they could work with the italians on chassis design. Give Eric Buell a dependable liquid cooled power plant and an unlimited R&D budget for the chassis and we'll see what happens
First, the bike that won that race doesn't have a whole lot left on it that can be called "Harley". I understand the motor is a 2 liter minimum billet wonder. But, also, it's a water cooled, DOHC 8 valve motor! It's based on, roughly, the V Rod, a bike that true Harley faithful scorn to the max for being too "Jap" like. I wonder if it leaks coolant on the shop floor...
At any rate, 2 liters is a tad over the Superbike displacement limit, so I don't think there's much any Italian designers or Eric Buell could do to scare Yosh or Mladin with a new VR1000...
With the AMA superbike limit back up to 1000cc for four bangers, well, even the RC51 struggles. Honda is going to the 1000cc four format this year, I think, though I didn't get to see any of Daytona because I was in Katy road racing that weekend.
All that said, I really got nothing against Harley or Harley riders, just that I don't now nor have I ever in 37 years of riding ever wanted one! I'm a performance, handling kinda guy. Not so much that I care about motor on the street, ride an SV after all, but I love quick handling bikes and kicking the front wheel out to 32 degrees of rake on a 650 lb motorcycle ain't the way to gain quick handling. I'm also a budget kinda guy, bang for the buck, thus the SV. Harleys are my antithesis. I might consider one for touring, Ultra Glide, but I think I'd rather have a Wing, even a 21 year old Wing. I gave three grand for mine and have been all over the west with it excluding California, bang for the buck. What irks me are the HD guys that scorn your bike cause it ain't a Hog. Well, ****, if it were a hog, I'd sell it and buy something I WANT! I have friends who ride Harleys for which my bike doesn't matter. We ride to ride and have fun. But, so many Harley types are Harley snobs.
I have a friend, tunes my KX80 race bike, former CRRC F4 (125GP) champion and runner up in WERA for a national championship in '77. He woulda won that national championship except for a crash at the GNF. He teaches motorcycle and marine mechanics, head of the department, at Cedar Valley College in Dallas. His father-in-law is a Harley guy, cop, found him an old shovel head in the police impound yard. Duncan got it cheap and as he told me, built it like HD should have. He did his own dual plug head conversion. He had 48K miles on it and it still ran like new and didn't leak when he sold it for major money and found a used KLR650 Kaw. He's into "adventure touring" now, always wanting to try something new. He told me the real reason he sold the hog, though, is that people just assumed he wasn't much of a rider being on a Harley. LOL! Now, that's not much of a reason to sell your hog IMHO, but think about it. How many GOOD riders do you know that are Harley fanatics? Not too many! I know a couple, one a guy who also owns a Ducati, a DRz400, and an RZ350 in addition to his Glide. He don't count, LOL! Another runs a Harley parts place in Tucson and was a former factory MX rider in the Philippines back in the day when he was in the service. He loves his FXR, it's set up tall, not lowered, for handling and he delights in running with the sportbikes on the Mount Lemon or Kit's Peak roads on the weekends, LOL.