CA Police Opting for Hogs over BMW

Re: How many 100,000 mile Harleys have you seen?

More than you think....my old 85 FLHT is on its third owner(I was first) and has 97k. My neighbor's 87 has 102k(2 top end rebuilds and sundry other fixes but nothing we couldnt do ourselves in a Saturday and a case of Beer).Theres an old ratty shovel running around that was bought new in 67 by my buddy's uncle and has been on the road almost continuously since then with many owners. I dont know how much of the motor is original but all rebuilds have been done by owner or local non-dealer mechanics and I can guarantee it has a lot more than 100k on the clock(which hasnt worked for years).Harleys can be ridden hard for years if you do the routine maintenance and are a reasonably capable backyard mechanic. If you need an article on how to change oil and want to ride it hard and dont have a good local mechanic you can trust...buy a Honda. If a rainy saturday morning in the garage doing an oil change and a tuneup is fun for you and taking the primary cover of f dont give you apoplexy.you can ride one hard and long and get good service

ElectraMaticPowerGlide®

"The fuel-injected 1300 cc Electra Glides have a bulletproof wet clutch that shifts much like an automatic transmission on a car"

Cool. Honda couldn’t pull off the HondaMatic, but I’ll bet that the Motor Company® sells every last ElectraMaticPowerGlide® that rolls off the York assembly line. The gals are really gonna’ love this one. Not only is it low, slow, and oh-so-vibrato, there’s no pesky shifter to scuff your Motorclothes® boots and no annoying clutch "handle" to chew up the fringe on your Motorclothes® gloves.

Nobody knows their customers better than the Motor Company®!

I wonder what letters will appear on the ElectraMaticPowerGlide® gear selector. Will they stick with the tried and true P,R,N,D,L2,L1? Or will they come up with something more suitable for a Harley®, like P1,P2,P3,P4,P5,T (Park, Pose, Primp, Polish, Poke, Trailer)?

I am fortunate enough to be a motor cop and we've used Yamahas, Kawasakis, and Harleys. The Yamahas were ok but drove like large boat anchors. You could buy a Kawasaki for $8000 and in four years you would have $10-14,000 worth of maintenance into each bike (we had seven), which our deptartment put up with for eight years. The last four years we have had HD Road Kings that are bullet proof reliable, almost as manuverable as the KZ 1000, yes they do have a high CDI factor, and people like to admire them when they are around town. I think HD came out with ABS due to BMW and Honda having it but neither of those two companies can match HD's $ value. I have ridden a new Electraglide with the new ABS and it works remarkably well. The bikes are plenty fast for all uses but if you think you want to outrun one, remember you can't outrun the radio on it. You can usually get a good deal on a used one, we sold ours on the internet for slightly over $10,000, and you should be happy with it. I wouldn't buy a used KZ 1000 though due to all the problems we have experienced, and we usually only got $2000 or less for those at auction.

I like to pick on the HD boys as much as anyone, but...

There is a reason they are the #2 bike seller. There also is a resaon that they are picked by departments all over the US. The monetary thing is a very strong influence as is the American appeal (whatever that means anymore. Where are those Harley wheels from again?)

If they are comfortable and perform satifactorily, more power to them! As for a performance cycle, how many cops are riding around in 'great' sqauds? I don't think most of them, given a choice would opt to have a Ford Grand Victoria as a sqaud. You get what you get and hopefully it works.

Now if Hummer offered vehicles to the departments for nothing, how many would they have? If Cadillac did, would your average sqaud have spinning wheels? Come to think of it, would people start wanting a ride in the back of a sqaud then?



Again, no matter what they ride or drive, you can't outrun the radio.



Now, can we get Victory to put out a police special? There has to be some competition here. At least as far as v-twins go.



But, wouldn't a Goldwing work better anywho?



paul from Minnesota, happy with my Vmax