WTB: CBR/ZX6R or similar

X-No-archive: yes

[reads message a fourth time looking for the trap]
[ventures forth timidly]
Errmmm.... ride.. bike.. to..Phillip Island and buy a ticket? (Unless
you've pre-booked in advance beforehand)
Clem

 

No, no, I mean the _other_ bits of the plan. The beer-and-bad-jokes
type bits. I'm not really into racing for the racing, you know.

-----sharks

 

I thought Goldwings would have a motor to do that

-----sharks

 

Whaddaya mean ? They've been selling reasonably well.

It's the first HD I'd consider buying, if they'd reduce that stupid rake
to something real I might even get serious enough to consider calling
the bank manager

JL

 

I'll give you $3.50 and the usual for it ;-)

big

 

Knobdoodle wrote: (about "boring")

~
OK OK; I was wrong.... I'm sorry.
Clem
(I'm gonna' be haunted by these visions of R65 owners rising zombie-like
and advancing chanting "R65s are goooood... Come joinnnn ussss.....")

 

[looks left then right]
[writes very softly]
Don't tell anyone but I found the little GPX to be quite grin-inducing to
ride....
Clem

 

Hang on; have you ever bought anything BUT the latest-greatest Jap
sportster?
Maybe you just need to be enlightened!
Clem

 

In aus.motorcycles on Fri, 18 Feb 2005 18:51:27 +1100

Appearances to the contrary, I ain't got any of the usual. So whose
nutz get kicked then?

Zebee

 

Eh? You've described GENUINE trial-and-error improvement haven't you?
(I.e. changes you can actually discern instead of only read about)
~

Wow; "newer engineering". THERE's a reason to upgrade if ever I saw one!
~

Are you really trying to tell me that there's more profit to be made by
selling customers a new bike every 8 years instead of every 2 years?
~

Wow. If I was the kind of feller who thought "newer engineering" was
important I'd probably be impressed with that.....
What was wrong with the old brakes by the way?
~

Wow [very impressed look].
~

I've never ridden one so I can hardly say I don't like them... although,
like anal-intercourse and fish ice-cream I can assemble enough info to
formulate an opinion and my opinion is "bland and uninteresting".
~

Irrelevant certainly! (Or can you expand on oval thottle-bodies, radial
callipers, vacuum-formed alloy whatsits and why on-earth anyone outside of
a Supersport team would ever give a rat's-arse about them except for
bench-racing sessions at the local cafe?)
~

Well if the music was just the same stuff I've been bombarded with for the
last 20 years (but with new added bits that I can't even hear and have to
be told about) then I'd probably feel it was pretty irrelevant too!
(Thankfully TripleJ mostly keeps me interested although that's largely
restricted to Jay-and-the-Doctor at the mo as Mel, Myf & Rosie give me the
shits and Chris and Craig have lost their way).
Clem

 

Well; we don't generally plan those bits.....
Clem
(I'm riding down with Leon and hopefully picking up Pisshead on the way
through.
Bludge of BT Humble on Wednesday and then my brother at Warburton on
Thursday night hitting the track on Friday morning.
Fill the esky and erect [tee hee] the tent on Friday night and settle in to
whinge about how wet and cold it is.
Pack up Sunday morning and ride home... (Or maybe ride over to Adelaide
via the GOR))

 

Have they? I got the opinion they were a sales disaster.... (Didn't
appeal to existing HD customers and failed to attract new customers)
It wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong though....
Clem
(Maybe if they put the engine into a Buell chassis....)

 

They're attracting the new customers, no problem. Older HD owners prefer the
simplicity that comes with the older engines. That's why we like Harleys.
Can't see a point of all the complexity of a Japper when you're still just
getting a Harley anyway.

They do go though, Wacker's apparently are pulling 10s over the quarter with
nothing more than new pipes...and they're built to be bombed and
thrashed...and they're not half bad looking if you put spoked rims on 'em
and throw away the poncy stock pipes and fit a nice set of drag-style
shotgun pipes. (with internal baffles of course...)

And drag bars. (handlebars)

You're not wrong there, Clem...

*Someone will* <glances at watch> soon...

 

No, I've described the way things used to be back

If that means the bike will be perceptibly

Well, for one thing, Scum is hardly alone in having gone through three
identical ST Sprints.

For another, the crown-snatching at play in sportsbike world isn't done
to convince people to chop in the bike they bought last year, but to
sway people who are updating after a few years.

The improvements in performance, reliability and what will you have to
come from somewhere. Looked at from one model update to the next, the
individual changes don't amount to much. Over a span of 5 or 6 years,
the developments become significant. Over the space of a decade, the
experience offered by the bike changes completely.

At some point, you have to ask, "How come the new bike turns so much
more easily, holds a line so much better, pulls so much harder through
the midrange etc... than the old one?". The answer to that is in all
these arcane, incremental improvements.

If everyone bought the cynical "character" bullshit peddled by
manufacturers who can't hack it in the research lab, we wouldn't've
progressed beyond the double-cradle steel tube frames and
breathless-up-top engines from the time when opinions like "All UJM's
are the same" were only a few years old.

If you've never ridden one of these objects of your disdain, how exactly
do you know what they vibe like, or even what sort of power they make,
so you can dislike them?

Again, when I say "Yeah, there's a place for them in the motorcyling
spectrum for BMW's and Triumphs and overpriced Italian twins", I say
that after having ridden at least a couple of each of them, and a couple
of the UJM's which you can't seem to see past.

I can see where you're coming from, and I can see where you're going wrong.

But it's still either guitar, bass, drums and vocals, the way it's been
for the past 50 years, or beats and vocals, the way it's been for the
past 30 years. Haven't those formulae gotten "stale" by now? If not, why
not?

 

Aha! It's spot the coded message time:

Were you erect[tee hee]ing your tent at the track or at the
cowes[tee hee] caravan park or some other place?

-----sharks pulling teeth.

 

Cowes caravan-park for me (site 116).
Naturally you're welcome to share my grass (mud?).

I hear there may also be a bed at a real live house available down there
too.......
Clem

 

The thought of you riding a GPX has me grinning too.

-----sharks (stick to GSes, mate, they suit you ...)

 

[looks for the rest of the sentence]
.... back when there was something to be actually gained from regular
superceding?

[looks again]
....perceptibly "more fashionable"?
~

Eh? People steal/crash Triumphs more than Jappers?
Is that because they have old-fashioned frames?
~

Yep sure it is.
And the evidence is.......?
~

Does it? It still looks like a bland wiz-bang boy-racer toy to me (same as
last years and last decade's model).
Which part of the "experience" has changed for you?
~

Or you could just say "who gives a rat's unless you're racing Supersport?"
I didn't realise the 10yo one so unmanageable that it needed all this
work.....
~

Like Harley Davidson? The company the Japs are still trying to properly
copy after 25 years?

There was a heap of them at Karuah last weekend but I didn't see too many
wiz-bang boy-racer bikes.... (Probably all at the cafe comparing their
exciting new engineering eh?)~
~

They don't vibe do they? I thought that was the point!
~

Funny; I CAN'T see what you find even vaguely interesting about Jap UJMs.
If you can see where I'm going wrong then steer me right. Tell me what's
exciting!
They all look shithouse with silly stripes, flashes and swatches of colour.
(And you can't paint 'em plain colours 'cause they'll all look alike)
They sound as boring as batshit.
No-one ever seems to ride them further than 100km without stopping and
getting off so they must be uncomfortable.
Is it just the whole 'I'm riding newer engineering" thingo that's the
drawcard or is it the one track-day every 6 months that makes the rest of
the chore seem worthwhile?
Clem

 

Yeah but WOULD you?
I wouldn't. (And I don't know anyone who ever said "What I want is a
Harley with a liquid-cooled DOHC engine")
If I was gonna' buy a Harley I'd buy a Fatboy or Road King or somesuch.
If I wanted a liquid-cooled DOHC bike I'd buy a Ducati, VTR, SV1000 or the
like.

Sure lots of people think they're a great step forward but those people are
not the "market".
Clem

 

I was just thinking about this and I realised that I've never seen a Harley
"special" with a non-Harley(derived) engine.
If people really wanted a more powerful Harley how come no-one's ever built
one?
Surely a 916 engine could fit in there with room to spare and you could
take your pick from the plethora of Jap hi-performance donks but no-one is
interested.
(And yet they'll spend squillions extracting 90hp out of a pukka Harley
donk.....)
Funny eh?
Clem
~