chillo wrote:
davej wrote:
...<<snip>>... HD parts are easy to find and are reasonably priced when compared to other bikes parts like an Indian.

Dave... HD replacement parts are cheap and easy to find for a reason...coz you need lots of them...

davej wrote:
Before any of you sign up for that beautiful Indian you need to check the price to insure it. My buddy went from a Vic CC to a Indian Roadmaster. The difference in the Insurance premium was almost a deal breaker but he sucked it up and bought the Roadmaster. He loves it, says it is the best bike he has ever owned and he has owned a bunch of them. Mostly HD but not all..

Words well spoken. With the Road Star I have PLPD. To borrow money they require full coverage. Between the payments and insurance, I had to pull out of the deal. No Indian for 2017.

My Road Star was bought with cash and has PLPD insurance. Thus to own the bike is very affordable.

Time to dust off the piggy bank and start saving versus financing. Put money in the old piggy bank for the next 2 years and pay for it in full. I have a bit of OCD I tend to impulse buy. This way I will get a better deal on a used bike, get cheap insurance and ride it without worrying about payments.

The big difference is the Road Star was a 5k purchase, whereas the Indian is well over 10k.

When I was at the Indian dealership they mentioned how a lot of sales are going to guys switching from Harley to Indians.

The natural progression of Harley guys bashing metrics is migrating to Indians and bashing Harleys. I tend to think most of it is now from the perspective akin to an engineering standpoint, whereas the metric bashing was due to the metrics trying to look like the Harley product. So the metrics were branded a wanna be bike. Where as the in the Harley culture, they believe they posess a real bike due to it's iconic historical significance and a hangover of what happened at Pearl Harbour.

Since the migration to the Indian is from both the metric and Harley camps, and bike brand bashing is somewhat of a parking lot group therapy sport to justify pride in ownership, it will only grow in popularity. It is part of the dark side of motorcycle culture.

The other side of the coin are the knuckle draggers of lower income that brand bash expensive bike because they cannot afford it.

The bikes that appear to be impervious to any of the above mentioned are the old retro bikes that are iconic and historic.

The brand bashing is morphing into a more sophisticated discussion pertaining to more practical elements of the motorcycle. Polaris has raised the bar as they and cognitive of the importance of sound engineering. Harley is stepping up it's game also. Yamaha had it figured out when they built the Road Star.

In MHO, the Road Star is underrated and the jem Yamaha should have kept developing. Maybe Polaris is teaching everyone a lesson. I don't think it is a mean-spirited style of bashing but more like fans comparing their favorite sports team over the other.

My Indian cost me less than $200 a year for full insurance.
As far as the "bashing goes, I think some people are a bit loose with that description. Here on the RSC for a while if any one mentioned HD in a less than glowing light he was bashing, even if he was just stating fact. On the Indian forum a lot of members have been loyal HD riders for up to 40+ years. If they write about actual personal experience, as fact, and why they don't like HD anymore, I don't consider that bashing. However, there are several HD boys on there that are there to just blatantly bash Indian. I loved my R*, and this forum has always been good. But if I came on here now and said "my light bar broke, and the front pulley seal went out......" because it really did happen, would this be bashing?

Hockey brings the best and worst in people. Montreal Canadians vs Toronto Mapleleafs. A guy walked into a Toronto Mapleleaf bar with the Montreal Canadians jersey. There was some serious brand bashing that day.

With bikes I enjoy the technical aspects of comparisons. Such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCryz_0PZFA Factual and based on ownership of the bikes compared. This video explains why I prefer Yamaha technology.

Polaris has examined a lot of technologies from various units to design the 111ci motor.

This is interesting viewing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by707xq_O3A