Why Millions Buy Harley-Davidson Motorcycles

[Music] old crude broken but where some see death millions see holy ground true i confess no love for harley corporate those wall streeters are killing the brand and jason momoa's soul but that's why i buy the motorcycle not the stock it isn't a patriotism thing either i'm not american and frankly neither are some of the bikes the reason i buy harley's along with 200 000 people a year is the sound feel and style unsatisfied good it's a bit like asking a master sommelier why this chateau lafitte is so special and being told the taste well duh break it down for me the harley thump turning heads across the block and sails across the world wasn't always a selling point early bikes were marketed as silent grey fellows appealing to inoffensive gentlemen who wanted something clean oil tight and so silent that it cannot be heard across the street well that's different today's pipes turned the suburb into a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth but then again this was a tiny single it wasn't until harley switched to their iconic v-twin cylinder that they made a sonorous mistake see two pistons rotating one crankshaft is a pain in the ass it kinda necessitates two individual crank pins but harley and the davidsons are poor so they say screw it unless just mount them on one pin just like that if the cylinders are 45 degrees offset then the firing order will just have to be 45 degrees offset too giving us an engine that goes bang bang pause bang bang pause and that is only half of harley's lazy serendipity two cylinders and we kinda gotta figure out how to spark one plug and then the other but again no money screw it let's just fire both plugs together so when we're combusting this cylinder's power stroke we're also sparking over here burning some unburnt gas and a little pop now instead of bang bang paws we have bang bang pop or as became famous for driving forth the lamentations of women and children potato put to toe toe put the toe a sound so distinctive harley tries to trademark it in 1994. unsuccessfully to the knowledgeable ear this exhaust note is full of meaning and history but it gets a bad rep see anyone on a beamer is used to hearing clockwork bang bang bang bang bang pull alongside a harley going bang bang pop and it just sounds like the engine is struggling to idle like it's dying hence the myth that harley's run bad in truth there's nothing wrong with potato it's what the engineering is supposed to sound like a shift in perspective and sacrilege becomes sacred [Music] one thing about 45 degree v-twins they're almost impossible to counterbalance cue the jokes about this being nothing more than an expensive vibrator for old men to tickle their prostates see our single crank pin v-twin has the pistons moving mostly together and it's basically the one cylinder problem as the piston goes up we swing our counterweight down when the piston goes down we swing our counterweight up congratulations we've perfectly balanced our engine in one dimension because half stroke will have our weight swinging forward or back completely unbalanced balls all we've done is convert our up down vibrations into four aft vibrations which uncoincidentally is how a harley shakes looks rougher than a peg-legged ballerina until you see her dance see fat harley pistons weigh 600 grams and move 18 meters per second at 5 000 rpm i converted to metric our oversimplified model lets us apply conservation of momentum or energy up and down you'd get a whopping 10.8 newton-second kick in the plums your motorcycle doesn't otherwise move up and down so you'd really feel that but harley's counterbalancing converts to four and aft meaning the piston's impulse is diluted in the normal momentum of your motorcycle cruising down the road you can't feel this at all the result is glass smooth though the motor still has the weight and road stability of a half track it feels like a force of nature as steady as gravity as long as it's moving the misconception that these are idiotically imbalanced paint shakers comes from people using them raw and if you buy one to sit on and rev your engine absolutely it's an overpriced vibrator but if you buy it to ride it you'll feel how these motors are engineered to be ridden harley's higher calling than the primal sin of shaky motors [Music] harley styling they say you either get it or you don't putting us on a collision course with the old mantra if i have to explain you wouldn't understand what a silly idea it insults your capacity for comprehension and makes me seem like an idiot who can't explain anything let's tell two stories so anyone can understand the harley style our first begins in 1960 when harley is overrun by an invasion of japanese bikes in the 70s a bowling ball company saves harley from bankruptcy yet makes some predictably heinous machines then in the 80s harley buys itself back blobs protectionist tariffs against japan and uses the blast fallout to retool into a competitive then dominant market force to harley's mind this is the greatest beatdown since the pacific war so to celebrate they launched the 1988 fat boy a gunmetal grey yellow striped amalgamation of fat man and little boy the gunmetal gray and yellow striped atomic bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki killing 200 000 men women and children well even in the 80s that was poor taste making it nigh unbelievable that harley still produces the model in 2021 okay remember that while i tell our second story once upon a long time ago there was the dyna characterized by its rubber mounted engine and twin shocks a combination that is occasionally but honestly deadly it's called the diamond death wobble see rubber mounted engines shake a lot so you need a noodly frame with lots of free space around the engine and go around a corner of this and this will twist but independently [Music] holy mary mother of joseph exhibit b twin rear springs and whatever swing we want the swingarm to have our shocks need to be about that long meaning the recovery time is also very long this magnifies a fundamental problem in that no two springs are identical and say this one is a bit softer compression this one a bit slower rebound if i hit a bump and this side will travel further twisting the tire like that then that side rebounds slower twisting the tire back again holy mother [Music] the weirdest part is that harley knows how to fix this and they've been doing it all along with the soft tail you just hard mount the engine for a totter frame and use a linkage with a shorter shock giving the suspension shorter reaction times and more uniformity but even still harley continued making the deadly dinah for decades okay now what the fat boy and dinah stories tell us is that harley is pathologically resistant to style changes faced with the most legitimate reasons to redesign they don't riders deride this myself loudest but there's one side effect we should appreciate see car drivers can no longer buy vehicles like this as they became untimely or unsafe cars were relentlessly redesigned into what's available today but the motorcycle industry is different it keeps classic options if you like this 1969 electric glide you needn't shell out 100 g's for a resto build just buy the 2021 model the trouble is that freezing a model line for 50 years gives your followers generations to grow attached no one cries when kawasaki updates the ninja because they do it every three minutes but harley folk freak closed minded that's the harley style but also a necessary consequence of keeping time capsules in our market is it any wonder that sound feel and style always brought us back here see what makes the harley trinity seem old crude and broken to the uninitiated is what makes it holy to the faithful our opinions are doomed to stay this polarized at least we can all know that there are loftier reasons to ride a harley davidson [Music] besides that you know it makes your butt feel nice [Music]

Channel: FortNine

Views: 1,004,009

Rating: 4.9408965 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: XeuXShFIgyc

Length: 12min 30sec (750 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/8an5]

I bought a 95 RK carbed HD, today was the first day that I rode it, had a blast, the sound is something I can’t describe, like thunder and fire or a rocket ship blasting off, it just sounds sooo good. I don’t ride to go fast, I ride to enjoy the scenery and just listen to my bikes engine hum along down the highway. I’m very happy with my new bike.

[u/artful_todger_502]

I had a few Harleys. I just like trying different genres of bikes. I've scratched the surface of every type of bike. My Harleys were as reliable as a brick, and very well made. They weren't fast, but so what? That's not what hardcore HD guys are after. Who are we to judge? I had a nice couple of years ... Met nice people, did some cool stuff. I wouldn't buy one now, but don't regret a few years spent in the brospere.

[u/VirulentMarmot]

r/motorcycles usually: here's a Fortnine video proving X because everything they do is accurate scientific research

r/motorcycles today: uh achtuuually I don't think that's right.

[u/A_Wild_VelociFaptor]

I'm saving up for a Low Rider S right now but if Indian came out with their own clubstyle I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

[u/BeigeListed]

Can you imagine The backlash if Kawasaki came out with a "Pearl Alamo"? or a "Bighorn Nam"?

[u/JustLetMeComment]

I think something that maybe isn't touched on enough is a generational disconnect. Growing up, Harleys were STILL old, and the closest thing to a "young man's Harley" is the Sportster, which is now even more ancient, although to be fair it is being replaced next month. You can't capture a buyer spoiled by the performance and relative comfort of the modern Japanese naked with just the belt drive, hydraulic lifter ease of maintenance alone, but Harley learned from the XR1200 that their brand image can't overcome building a bike many young enthusiasts want, either. I don't want a machine I'll scrape peg on too easily. I don't want a machine with a brake design older than me. I don't want a machine that LOOKS like my grandpa's motorcycle, although I understand many do. I wish XR1200 parts weren't getting hard to find, I'd own one but I already had that experience with a Pontiac Solstice.

[u/spenserhicks123]

Long strokes

[u/eatmeatdrinkmilk]

This sub is on suicide watch.

[u/toebeanteddybears]

I feel like RyanF9 skirted around a huge reason why folks buy Harleys when talking Style: Outlaw cosplay.