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.
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.
