$219 a month

[hacksaw]

Lol! How much down and for how many years ?
Not sure I will ever be able to ride enuff to justify a new bike , but here is “23 softail standard .
A bout the  only bike this side of the “bobber” trike they sell that  I would consider .
No frills motorcycle . No BS plastic add ons! And one can actually one can see the engine details.
Spend tens of thousands and one can’t tell an oil pump from a rocker  cover with the rest of Harley’s motors saturated in all black coatings! A trend I hate!
Hell! One could even have the rocker covers CHromed! My Heavens !
I Don’t know if I will out live this all black Neo fad.
But I proudly resist it.

[hacksaw]

Oh. Just to say , I am not picking on Harley ,it’s all tge manufactures. Indian , Kawasaki , Guzzi . Any of them.
Years ago in the later 70’s guys would spray  bomb their junkster CB 750’s with krylon flat black. Everything . Bars , motor , bodywork. It was a rebellion thing.
Decades later HD comes along with it’s Dark Custom stuff , which seems to have led to this of all black bike fad.
Black bikes , as in body work ,( but engines normally alloy looking except iron barrels etc ,)  were the norm years ago .
But tge OEMs found that paint was cheaper than chrome and jumped on the black on black on black skinny jeans social rebel  image . You know “you meet the hippest people on all black Hondas!”
So what do we have now ? Factory powder coated rip offs of those young rebellious guys with junker Hondas and a few spray cans. Lol. Being sold for unheard thousands of dollars.
Plus the bikes don’t look good . Hahaha.
some day I will go on about the practically orgasmic “all chrome “ idiocy of the 70’s as well . Probably what inspired the rattle can black guys originally .

[Fatfatboy]

hacksaw wrote

Not sure I will ever be able to ride enuff to justify a new bike

 I think that is what they figured out. Not enough old guys who demand chrome and shiny are buying enough bikes to make it worth the cost of chrome. A lot folks don't like the trouble of keeping it clean.

If you look through the 2024 HD lineup the only bikes that have any colors that pop are the Breakout, Street Bob and the Ultra Road Glide but even those don't have any metal-flake and have blacked out motors and primary.
As a at mater of fact the only bikes in HD's lineup that has a chrome primary is the Breakout and the Fatboy. The Breakout still has the chrome oil bag. The Fatboy's is black.

I've said in the past if HD would produce a softail with bags and fixed fairing I would be one of the first to buy. Then they came out with the ST in 2022 but it was only in black and gray so I didn't buy. I figured I'd wait until they had some color. Nope even the 2024's are black, gray or that horrible red they call Red Rock. Looks brick red to me. I settled on black because I can live with it. I couldn't live with that gray or brick red.
I was actually buying more for functionality than I was for looks.  

In the words of Brian Johnson
"Well, I'm back, yes, I'm back
Well, I'm back, yes, I'm back
Well, I'm back, back
Well, I'm back in black
Yes, I'm back in black!"

Maybe he was singing about 1940's and 2020's Harley's

[hacksaw]

Just to clarify-
I always thought my fat boys and superglide custom had too much chrome.
Personally I like chrome primary covers and rocker boxes.
But there is too much chrome to keep up maintenance on.
I also have the same complaint with The “all chrome” ideal of years ago . Chrome was cheap before the government  stepped in and regulated the crap out of it .
(Just as everything the G gets involved with rapes the populace.)
“All chrome” sportsters were the big deal . Engine  covers , swing arms, you name it ! But to me all that chrome was a distraction from the engine visuals, just as I say the all black definitely does.

$20,000 plus motorcycles and one can believe the buyer is saving money by black coatings over chrome? Lol.
If I remember correctly HD raised the price of their bikes that when the Dark Custom models were introduced.
Maybe Rolex should market all black watch’s . That’s for the “I bought mine to functionally tell me the time”
Crowd . Hahaha

I do agree on the boring paint . That’s not just Harley doing it . Look at motoguzzi stones. Matte yellow ? Wtf?
As too the low rider st, the did have a white with good looking blue graphics . The styling to me is just a bit to much California. And the idea of a bagger low rider defies the whole idea of the origin of the lowrider in the first place.
Much better than a Ultra Bagger Barge though .
I don’t know why there are so many “23 left over ST’s out my way though.
My question though , if I was in the market , can floor boards be adapted? Without extreme engineering that is.

Perhaps I have lived to long . I am having trouble just getting out in this weather to pick up a can of spackle  just down the street at home depot .
But if I was buying today it would be the softail standard .
I could basically pay cash and instead of monthly payments use that money to upgrade the beast.
Hell, maybe I would paint the cylinders black !

No offense meant to my pal Fat2. These are just the laments of an old man whom was once a hugely active player in a moto life . They are general comments .
No matter what anyone rides I envy you all! Enjoy and stay safe out there !

[oldironnow]

As someone who has an all black watch, I believe i have outlived a lot of what’s currently called ‘colorful’.

In my mind, the most prominent offender being the weird voodoo mind trick of pudding-thick deep-gloss primer gray.

Yeah, hack. Let’s have a bit more chrome.

.

[hacksaw]

my watch is black too! its an i-phone!

i was referring to paying thousands for a rolex.
if you have a powder coated black rolex, then you hang with better company than me. i certainly didnt want to offend.

a bit of chrome here and there is good thing.

[hacksaw]

by the way, just for the record , i have nvr heard of brian johnson.

Los Lobos - Black is Black  but not Brian Johnson


old iron- yes that globed on grey sucks.

another plus for the ST standard- the rocker boxes appear to be bald. which i imagine makes it easier to have chromed. i mean it could be a horror to strip these glob coatings off engine covers to be chromed.  

[Fatfatboy]

hacksaw wrote

Just to clarify-
I always thought my fat boys and superglide custom had too much chrome.
Personally I like chrome primary covers and rocker boxes.
But there is too much chrome to keep up maintenance on.
I also have the same complaint with The “all chrome” ideal of years ago . Chrome was cheap before the government  stepped in and regulated the crap out of it .
(Just as everything the G gets involved with rapes the populace.)
“All chrome” sportsters were the big deal . Engine  covers , swing arms, you name it ! But to me all that chrome was a distraction from the engine visuals, just as I say the all black definitely does.

$20,000 plus motorcycles and one can believe the buyer is saving money by black coatings over chrome? Lol.
If I remember correctly HD raised the price of their bikes that when the Dark Custom models were introduced.
Maybe Rolex should market all black watch’s . That’s for the “I bought mine to functionally tell me the time”
Crowd . Hahaha

I do agree on the boring paint . That’s not just Harley doing it . Look at motoguzzi stones. Matte yellow ? Wtf?
As too the low rider st, the did have a white with good looking blue graphics . The styling to me is just a bit to much California. And the idea of a bagger low rider defies the whole idea of the origin of the lowrider in the first place.
Much better than a Ultra Bagger Barge though .
I don’t know why there are so many “23 left over ST’s out my way though.
My question though , if I was in the market , can floor boards be adapted? Without extreme engineering that is.

Perhaps I have lived to long . I am having trouble just getting out in this weather to pick up a can of spackle  just down the street at home depot .
But if I was buying today it would be the softail standard .
I could basically pay cash and instead of monthly payments use that money to upgrade the beast.
Hell, maybe I would paint the cylinders black !

No offense meant to my pal Fat2. These are just the laments of an old man whom was once a hugely active player in a moto life . They are general comments .
No matter what anyone rides I envy you all! Enjoy and stay safe out there !

Personally I think my Fatboy has just the right amount of chrome. It's not over the top. I prefer chrome over natural aluminum and wrinkled paint because it's easier to keep clean. Most of the time I can clean the bike with some spray foam glass cleaner and a microfiber towel. Natural aluminum stains easier and the wrinkled paint gets gunk in the valleys that takes a scrub brush to get clean after a couple days of riding in the rain.

As for the leftover ST's, I'm really not sure. The dealer I got mine from had to get it from another dealer. Maybe the ST is not has popular up your way. They are pretty hot on the west coast.
I know some guys are buying used Low Rider S's and adding aftermarket fairing and bags and saving a few bucks but going new it doesn't make since. The ST is $3k more than the S so adding to new doesn't make since unless your just wanting bigger bags. If I still toured week long rides with the wife and I the ST bags would probably not be big enough. They are plenty for a weekender.

Yes, the Heritage footboards can be added without engineering. I see a lot of guys changing them out on the FB page.

Oh,, no offense taken. Just because we don't like the same thing doesn't make either of us wrong. Just different taste.

Brian Johnson replaced Bon Scott in ACDC after Scott passed out in his car and choked on his vomit. Pitty.

[hacksaw]

Ohhh AC/DC ! Scott I heard of. I like a couple of their tunes.
But all that  screaming gets to my head after a while so I never really followed them . Kinda after my time.
Well u are right about west coast . The ST is kinda  SAMCRO
California style. I am not a west coast guy. But I can see the value in a bagger that's not a bagger but is a bagger.
Too bad I don’t think they are worth 23,000 for bland paint and boring looking motors .
Looking at some of the sportster 72 metal flake gas tanks I can’t believe Harley killed off the metal flake .
I had 2 fatboys and a superglide custom .
For me I hated having to wipe all that chrome down constantly. One of the reasons I got rid of my 2003FB. Tge chrome was starting to pit. It only had maybe 2k miles  on it so it wasn’t fair to the low mileage to let the bike get bad . Do I decided to let somebody   else polish it.

In 1979 I bought a brand new FLH Electra Glide King of the Highway . It was a 74 cu in . But with all the dresser  crap it was cheaper than the 80 inch lowrider . So I bought the flh and took all tge  crap off it .
This was maybe a year or two before Harley did the same thing with the FLHS. And it trended. Lol.
Black bike the body work . So I had it flamed. Flames we’re out of style at that time . But again Harley came out a later with the disc glide that had flames on the tank!
So I be am not against trends when I start them LOL
But these days I am not a follower .
The trends used to start in garages and under shade trees of the young riders of the times. WilleG copied them all tge time. Nowadays it’s designer think tanks telling the buyers whst they want. The total opposite of how it used to work