Because the utterly vast majority of them are weekend warriorers that think 20 miles a month to the bar and back every weekend is a hell of a lot of riding. You should see the looks I get when I tell some of them that I go through 3 sets of tires a year, it's unfathomable to them. again has to do with whats sitting on top of the bike. if it's a cruiser I generally won't wave first unless it's a Goldwing (i love those guys, there's some great riders) or other obvious metric cruiser. The old timers are the best. Those are the guys that know it's not the best, know it's issues and still love them. they've got nothing to prove and could give a damn if you do either. they'll talk to you at a fuel stop, shoot the shit and ask where your going and how far they could ride with you till you gotta split. I love the old timers, they ride to ride, not to be cool when their on their way into the office, I've got an uncle like this and as much as he bitches about the bikes, he'll never own anything different. I know several die hard HD owners, they hate the bikes. always something broken, everything costs a fortune for them, and there's always something that needs a fixing. To me thats not a bike, it's an obligation. If i wanted one of those i'd get married. I pull my bike out of the garage, thumb the starter, strap my helmet on, and go. no warming up, not fussing with that or this, nothing. and about every 3-4k miles i change plugs and oil. about. If you need to buy a different bike to justify slowing down, you need some serious work. EVERY bike ever created, no matter by whom, has had a throttle. ALL of them, and I have yet to see one make without a speedo of some sort, hell even HD throws on leather tassels like my little cuz's tricycle on the handle bars so you can tell if your moving. I hate HD because I'm an intelligent person. You cannot sell me shit and claim it's gold. I know better. I live eat and breathe mechanics. It's what I do. I drag race, I street race, I road race. I built my first 10 second small block at age 15. I spec'd my first cam at 22, it went into a 2001 Trans Am that put 433hp/402lbs/ft tq to the wheels. I know why things work and I'm obsessed with the internal combustion engine. Harley Davidson has failed miserably at this. Their engine is such a joke it's not even funny. for christs sake VW gave up on the air cooled engine. let it go. The sound they tried to trademark is caused by a faulty engineering design that will, and it's a scientific fact, eventually rattle it's self appart. They are cursed with unholy vibrations that they 'solved' with rubber mounts. No shit? rubber mounts? they used them in cars 60 years ago and HD just figured it out what, 6 years ago?! seriously? Beyond that scope every other manufacturer (almost, cheappo cars still use rubber) has switched to a harder, more aggressive compound like urethane or even solid mounts to improve chassis response and make the most out of their engines. they've done this because they've evolved their engines, making them smoother and less vibrations by balancing the internal parts and making them spin in unisom. The auto industry spends billions a year working on NHV (Noise Harshness and Vibrations) on their engines. HD slaps an old irrigation pump in a frame and tells you it's what all the cool kids are riding, don't you wanna be like peter fonda? and charges your a kings ransom for it. Jap bikes, sport bikes specifically use the engine as a structural part of the frame they are designed and redesigned every 2 years, even the small 600cc variants make 2x the HP of HD's largest offereing, they have twin beam chassis with inverted forks, their all aluminum magnesium and other exotic metals and are ultra lightweight pumping out upwards of 190 hp in the new Gixxers. All that for less than 10 grand. A base HD will run you 12 grand. that gets you an 883cc engine designed in 1910 that produces a whopping 42hp (be carefull with that!), forks designed in 1950, and admission to the flock. You still need to throw on 100 lbs of chrome at about 500 dollars, you need the HD gear to show which flock you belong to, not a riding jacket, i mean tee's, jeans boots to PROVE to everyone that you OWN a HD, you don't actually have to ride it, just so long as you own it, and the kicker is the HD window sticker for the back of your lexus, and the license plate bracket that says "I'd rather be riding my XLVSGHETHERTUDLKJJVDOW Harley Davidson" even though it's 80 degrees and sunny out. The people are a big bitch, but my biggest is that they are junk. Period, any real mechanic who know HOW an engine works, not just someone who can change parts, someone who knows how and why air flows through and engine and what makes it tick, someone with gasoline in their veins. since someone is bound to bring up the new wonder shitpile the twin cam let me explain that to you. They need chains and sprockets for the cams at 30k miles. which isn't really a problem since most of them never make it that far in the first 5 owners. It's a fact, I know 3 people with them that actually RIDE the damn things, and they all complain about it. Now, let me explain what HD did here. they took one cam out, seperated it so each cylinder has it's own cam, almost like a SOHC setup. However they knew that if they put the cams on top of the cylinders, there would be many upset sheep in the flock, and they might rebel. so they put TWO cams in the motor, essencially doubling the frictional losses of a single cam. thats all they changed. no wonderus head improvements, well nothing worth speaking of anyways, no fantastic exotic valve train, nothing. they doubled the friction losses of a single cam, and called it an upgrade. and the sheep were happy. What amazes me is HD has the POTENTIAL to be an amazing company. THIS is why I dispise them with every fiber of my being. They are utter hill jacks that are content with making crap. below 4500RPMS a 2valve head is VASTLY superior to a 4v head. 20lbs/ft tq at 2000 rpms is instantly noticable, 20hp at 10,000 is not. Torque is what moves you, and lets face it, a heavy ass cruiser spends most of it's life at or below 3k rpms. a 4v head here (and in luxury cars for that matter) is a bain, not a blessing. There are things going on inside a cylinder with air swiriling and things burning that a 2v head greatly excentuates. With a GOOD head design, a SOHC, or cam in block setup and some liquid cooling HD could easily catch up, maybe not to todays standards, but to at least the late 90's. Wht they should do is copy the LSx cylinder head. It's a work of art. In automotive terms it's pure sex. the best cylinder heads ever produced, they flow like mad at low lift, and high (low lift is what really counts, the valve is at half lift 2x and only at peak lift for a millionth of a second, something like 90% of the air injested into the clyinder happens below 1/2 lift, think about that) they have exceptional swirl, the air enters the cylinder in a tornado vortex, spiraling down, and as the piston comes back up it squishes this tonado making it go even faster untill the plug fires, which on a the LSx 2v head is right at the top outside of the tornado making a perfect burn. 4v heads don't do this, infact they prohibit this, the plug is smack dead in the center of a dead spot and it really can't be moved, and up untill about 5k rpms they are nororiously inefficient. they have shitty emmissions, and due to low speed filling issues, make much less tq. HD could capitalize on this making a high tq low speed motor, which for a cruiser would be ideal. and as much as I love to race, there's millions of people out there who just want to turn the key and go. Okay this is long, no one is gonna read it, i'm done.
Slide IS laying backwards, good eye. Also I'm not sure about Glock, Thats a Springfield XD .45ACP...