Agreed! its seems all a case of opinions and conjecture...but until you actually ride one its all just that...horses for courses you dont ride a chop around a circuit or for comfort and you dont ride a std production bike to stand out from the crowd.
I've ridden one, never again. I like having working rear suspension it helps with comfort and keeping the rear wheel in contact with the road which helps more than a little with handling.
I am sure that, done well, a hardtail can be made to handle reasonably well and, with a well sprung saddle and set up it might even be comfortable on good roads but, on British roads, full of potholes, twists and loonies, riding something with no rear suspension, possibly with extended forks and maybe even travelling feet first low to the ground seems just a little insane. I recall that when I was a teen a lot of the more 'serious' bikers round my way who all rode Kawa zeds that seemed to come only in Black with yellow wheels and a sort of Viking or Celtic themed airbrush artwork on the tank all suddenly turned them into weird and wonderful hardtails, usually with odd shaped tanks that were so small they could only have held a cup or two of fuel. Oddly these re-incarnated zeds didn't seem to be around long before mysteriously vanishing.
I know what you mean, but working suspension improves the comfort and handling more than the correct (or low) tyre pressure alone. (I hated the riding position too.)
I'm just now seeing this thread, Tricky-Dicky and I'm glad I "found it". This is one of the best photos I've seen in a long while! I think you should definitely have this made into a poster. I think your grandson is destined to be a biker.
You indirectly make a great argument for owning multiple bikes, @English Bowman. Not that I need anyone to convince me. Form does follow function and no one bike can suit every purpose--or taste.
Speak for yourself. My Sprint is used every day, all weathers for my commute and is much more practical than any car for the same journey. At my old job there was no parking unless you lift-shared which didn't work for my shift pattern, so with the bike I could park easily, with my new job the traffic is so bad that the 20 min journey on the bike would be an hour in a car. As for putting hardtails down, I'm not doing that, I just don't understand why you'd do it. In every other style of bike I can understand why. A tourer sacrifices handling and performance for comfort and luggage capacity, a sports bike goes the other way. An adventure bike sacrifices road handling for off road ability and so on, but each style rides better than another in the right circumstances, but a chop / hardtail is making the bike dynamically worse for no advantage other than looks, and I cannot get my head around that. To me, and I admit that I'm in the minority these days, a bike is for riding, not for looking cool on, and if you make it worse to ride it just makes no sense. I do accept that other people have different views.
Obviously a subject that creates much conjecture and you could argue the same for many styles of bikes and cars and everything else for that matter it all down to personal taste. I have always thought that the old style cafe racer was the most uncomfortable creation for the simple fact that the clipons push most of your weight on your wrists and reasets compound the issue the look was simply taken for the race bikes that where designed to be ridden for a a maximum of an hour or two so like hardtails its very much a young mans domain and only true hard asses and idiots ride them past 60 and 70.....i probably fall into the latter category. The same can be said for hot rods great if you live in California but they live in the garage for most of the time in England so my take is ride or drive or do what the fuck you please but dont knock others for their choices as we all enjoy what we enjoy.
And speaking of hardtails and choppers........ I saw this article in today's daily "BikeEXIF" e-mail. Sometimes I think these builds are truly for the fun of it, the art of it, the "because I can" of it, and the "what the heck" of it. This short little article about this particular builder and bike makes an interesting read. https://www.bikeexif.com/mini-chopper-motorcycle?omhide=true
I have long had the urge to find me a doner Triumph America and build a chopper. There are some ready built frames out there. I don't know if I would go so far as build a hard tail though. But a custom frame, Suger Bear front forks, ape hangers, why not ? ...J.D.
