Sick of Harley Davidson

I rented a Hardly-Did-It-Son Fat Boy several months ago. I liked it. Fair power, well balanced, nice running machine.

I was thinking about buying a Harley. As I cruised around the hills and twists of farm-to-market roads around Justin, Texas, other motorcyclists, Harleys, Yamahas, Ducatis, even a rare Bimota, would wave and I would wave back...unless we were traversing a curve, in which case everyone understands there are better things for your hands to be doing than executing friendly gestures to other bikers.

Who could have blamed me? I personally can't recall anyone in the last decade telling someone "You shouldn't have bought a Harley."

Motor officers in law enforcement divisions across the nation depend on Harleys. The Hell's Angels depend on Harleys (even if they don't care much for the Harley Davidson corporate entity). With a spectrum of users like that, how can there be anything wrong with buying a Harley Davidson motorcycle? I ended up with a British bike instead, because it just happened to fit all my criteria, from power to styling to price. It had nothing to do with any failure in the quality or design of the Harley Davidson.

Nevertheless, I'm sick of seeing and hearing all things Harley Davidson. I look for motorcycle rags and books and everything is divided into two piles: 50% Harley Davidson, 50% metric. I don't even know where British bikes fit. Of course they have metric bolts and nuts, but "metric" bike rags all seem to focus solely on Asian bikes.

I pass Harley Davidson riders on the road and some of them have their noses turned up so far they'd drown if it started raining.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not some newb who waves frantically in a desperate attempt to make sure that the rider approaching me knows I'm riding a motorcycle too and therefore we are automatically in a close-knit fraternal brotherhood with secret handshakes and sacred underwear. I just give the casual gesture of the left hand out to the side in a calm, indifferent and unobtrusive twitch to say, "Yep, we're both riding bikes past each other."

A few Harley Davidson riders wave back or even initiate this time honored rider greeting. But many simply ignore any other rider on the road who isn't riding the holy grail of motorcycles. Virtually every rider on a metric or European bike is willing to partake in this simple exchange, but too many Harley Davidson riders would rather behave like popular high school girls.

The Harley Davidson snobbery and overwhelming marketing is simply getting to me. I have nothing against Harley Davidson riders who realize they aren't any better than any of the rest of us. It's the ones who haven't come to that realization that are getting on my nerves. With so many other great choices out there, and a growing selection of American made alternatives as well, isn't it time HOG members toss out the false impression that they're the only game in town?

After all, riding a bike that has to have a $4,000 engine upgrade just to get it to perform well enough to keep up with an equivalent sized off-the-rack metric bike wouldn't be anything I'd be all stuck up about. But I like to focus on power. Harley makes a great looking and sounding product. They have an awesome marketing department.

It's just a percentage of their customers who are jerks.