Harley did it again?

CRF....

"Within the last two years they've done nothing but way overproduce and then discount every single bike they make."

I can only speak from my experience, but there are NO CRF450s or CRF 250s available in the dealerships in the Minneapolis south metro area in Minnesota. I have'nt seen a 450 in a dealership for months. They fly out the door at MSRP, which, I believe, is $6799.

$6799 for a 225 lb. dirt bike that any joe schmoe could disassemble and reassemble in his garage in a day. That's a lot of money!

I would bet they are making money on dirt bikes, cruisers, and the gold wings, and losing on the sport bikes.

"nothing but way overproduce and discount every single bike" - Hardly.

Since this is not a Honda thread, it's a HD thread, let me pass on my congrats to HD. I was one of the many who thought that they would make less money (still a lot, but less) in 2004 than 2003, due to a potential let down after the 100th anniversary stuff. I was wrong, the H-train rolls on. Good for them.

Wings in Junk Yards? Huh?

I have a '78 with 85k miles on it. I live near a big junk yard (biggest in MN, anyway), SportWheels in Jordan, MN. They easily have 5000+ junked bikes.

How many wings? Exactly one, a completely picked over GL1000. I wish GL's would end up in the junkyard once in a while, just in case someday I need a part. Thank god for ebay.

Still waiting for my GL to break...maybe I'll take it from MN to Alaska and back (through Arizona) with my wife and camping gear on back again....then if it's broken I'll take it to the junk yard, just like you predicted.

By the way, I saw tons of bikes on the Alaskan Highway (bumblebeemers everywhere), but not a single late '70's Harley. I wonder why. Since they were not being ridden, and obviously are not in the junkyards, where are they?

Of course, since I was on a Honda, there was no "emotional" aspect to my trip. I must have really missed out on that one. If only I had spent $17k on my bike instead of $950, then I really would have enjoyed the trip.

Re: Wings in Junk Yards? Huh?

Longride, I often agree with you, and enjoy reading your posts, but you're trying to prove me wrong by responding to assertions that I never made.

I never said that NO old harleys had ever made the trip to Alaska, just that I didn't see any on my trip. Good for the guy on the Shovelhead. Good for Dave Barr, too.

Why are old wings worth so little? Supply and demand. Supply is high, since they sold well, were bought by people with garages who took care of them, and are a high quality bike. Demand is low because there is no "nostalgia" market for the bike, and few people would trust a 25+ year old bike to take on long trips.

Price has little to do with vehicles being "good", if you define "good" as I do, which is reliable, well designed, comfortable, and capable of doing what it was designed for.

For example: My nephew has a '98 VFR, two brothers high mount pipe, heli-bars, mint. He bought it with 6,000 miles on it two years ago for $4500. There is no bike he'd rather have, it meets his needs perfectly, he still gets a cheeser every time he rides it. But, it must not be "good" if the market says it is only worth $4500, right? He would be much better off on a Sportster 1200, since it is worth more, and therefore must be a better bike, right?

You spend quite a bit of time defending HD's against ignorant HD haters here (which I am not, if people like 'em, good for them, the more bikes on the road, the better). Your argument, which I agree with, is that they are the right bikes for the people who ride them, i.e. "good".

Ok, you rip on my junkyard example, even though I qualified it with: "(biggest in MN, anyway)", which, as it turns out, I didn't need to do. So, let's check the website of my 12 acre junkyard:

http://www.sportwheel.com/

Note the part "Our huge inventory of dirt bikes, road bikes, street bikes and just about any other two wheeler you can imagine spans over twelve acres in two locations making us the largest motorcycle liquidation center in the U.S."

Please reply with the link to the junkyard in Chicago that is bigger. Oh, and, by the way, the city of Chicago does have less population (2.89 million) than Minnesota (4.92 million).

Let's see, could you point out where in my post where I claimed to be an expert on junk?

"other than riding your 950 buck wing"

This really steams me, but I'm going to keep it civil. My wing is not junk. It is 27+ years old, with 85,000 miles on it, the engine & tranny have never been rebuilt, and I would leave for Alaska on it tomorrow if not for work. No. It is not junk.

You know what? Both of our bikes will end up in the junkyard some day.

Mine might be in 15 years, when the bike has 135,000 miles on it, something minor goes wrong, the owner either can't find or can't afford the part, and a junkyard (probably some little one like SportWheels) buys it to part out to the other wings still chuggin' with owners who took better care of them than I (or the next owner) did.

Yours might be in 50 years, after there are so many old HDs on the road that the price drops to where a repair will cause it to be junked for the same reason mine did.

When something is junked is a function of the worth of the bike, not the quality. The worth of the bike is set by supply and demand, which is only slightly dependant on quality.