Famous Harley Myths

Famous Harley Myths

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

RODE MY LARGE ELECTRA GLIDE TO the doctor’s office a few weeks ago, right before the Moon of the Frozen Garage Door Hinges arrived and forced me to store my bikes for the winter.

I strode into the examination room carrying my leather jacket and helmet, and the nurse-the one who takes your blood pressure and makes you put on that backless gown that makes you feel like a cast member from Night of the Living Dead-said cheerfully, “Looks like you rode your bike in today. What kind of motorcycle do you have?”

“A Harley-Davidson,” I admitted. (I always hate to say this because it’s such a common answer these days. How much more interesting to say, “I rode in on my Velocette Venom Clubman” or, “my trusty Tohatsu Run-Pet.” Anything to break the monotony.)

“Oh,” she said, her eyes lighting up somewhat, “my husband would love to buy a big Harley, but we don’t have $25,000 to spend on a motorcycle right now.”

I frowned as she pumped up the boaconstrictor cuff that slowly squeezed the life from my rippling bicep and said, “Well, I don’t either, but my Electra Glide Standard was only $13,700.”

She smiled and looked at me as if Fd said she could get a new Mercedes for about the cost of a dozen eggs, and then handed me a striped, backless gown. “Put this on,” she said. “The doctor will see you in a few minutes.”

So I shed my motorcycling identity and soon sat shivering in that humiliating gown, thinking about this misconception of Harley prices.

Ah, yes, the $25,000 Big Twin. Fd heard this a thousand times. Okay, maybe only a few dozen times, but it’s surprising how often you tell someone you have a Harley and that person says, “Must be nice to have $25,000 to blow on a motorcycle.” Somehow, in the public’s mind, any big, glittering Harley has become fixed at that price. Where did this idea come from? Boasting owners with a taste for exaggeration?

Okay, in truth, I suppose it is possible to spend that much. If you buy a bike from one of those rip-off, “Bikes in stock now!” dealers and then glom on a big-bore kit and a couple hundred pounds of chrome eagles, you could probably stagger out of a Harley shop having been shorn of $25,000. But then you can do the same thing by getting drunk and ordering too much Chateau Lafite at a French Restaurant. An act which is uplifting, but not required.

In any case, the $25,000 Harley is not the only odd myth in circulation; another favorite of mine is the odd notion that, “Harley riders trailer their bikes everywhere.”

For some reason, many non-touring riders I know have the impression that most Harley riders haul their bikes to within 300 yards of, say, Sturgis and unload them in a Wal-Mart parking lot before putting on their riding duds and parading grandly down Main Street.

People who believe this probably are not getting out of the house often enough. Or out on the open road. I rode to Sturgis on my Ducati a few years ago and found myself in a virtual lemmingfest of long-distance Harley riders converging from all points of the globe. A few bikes were trailered, but those were mostly overbuilt or overtuned custom showbikes.

On my many cross-country trips, I have to say that most of the bikes I see being ridden through the middle of nowhere, bearing dusty license plates from distant states, are Harleys. Followed closely thereafter by BMWs and Gold Wings. Most of the trailered bikes I see are Daytona-bound in winter.

Another interesting urban legend I often hear or read is, “Harleys are all owned by stockbrokers who wear Rolexes.”

Now, Harley-Davidson sold 263,000 motorcycles last year, and is hoping to sell 289,000 of its 2003 models. That’s a lot of stockbrokers, especially in this economy. Personally, I know only one stockbroker, and he doesn’t ride a motorcycle or wear a Rolex, but what if he did? Are stockbrokers less worthy to ride bikes than, say, truck drivers or skilled machinists? Of course they are-especially those who have turned my retirement funds into a distant echo floating through cyberspace-but that’s neither here nor there.

In any case, I feel the notion of bigshots on Harleys is greatly exaggerated. Surely these guys buy their share,

but they are not the people who keep the production lines rolling.

I recently took my bike into our local H-D shop for its post-break-in inspection, and decided to wait for it.

So I spent the whole Saturday morning drinking coffee and reading magazines in the hospitality area. For three hours I watched customers come and go, and never for one minute felt I was hanging out on Wall Street. Coming through the door were guys buying oil and parts, young couples and their kids arriving by Saturn wagon to look and dream or order a bike, middle-American retired couples traveling across the country. A few apparent rich dudes, but mostly ordinary working people.

So those who worry that Harley is losing its constituency among mechanically minded folks who actually know how to produce real goods of measurable worth can rest easy-unless, of course, we send all our remaining industrial jobs to Mexico and China. Then Harley, and the rest of us, will find out exactly how many stockbrokers there really are.

The last myth I was going to mention is the old notion that Harleys break down more often than other bikes.

Well, I’ve had one Shovelhead from the supposedly dreaded AMF era and five modern Harleys in the past 12 years-three Evos and two Twin-Cams, and I’ve never had a problem with any of them. Not one thing has gone wrong. Until last week, of course, when the shift lever fell off my Electra Glide on the interstate.

Maybe I should have sold some of my priceless blue-chip stocks and bought the $25,000 version-and a trailer to go with it.