I just love it when HD riders get defensive / protective. Consider your chain professionally pulled. To be fair, I ride out with many HD riders here in the UK and so far all have them have made it home in more or less one piece. Most breakdowns are due to the riders and not the bikes. With one chap we have to arrange pit stops every 30 minutes. Honestly though we have had bits fall off their bikes which made one cartoon on the ‘laughs’ page particularly poignant to reality. My m8s riding HD’s would rather push their tractors home than admit defeat by calling out their roadside assistance service. I am not sure this proves/substantiates reliability statistics, or if it shows a level stoicism unique to HD riders. On the other hand they take the piss out of my bike for sounding like a hairdryer... sadly that’s true and justified. There’s an ongoing, unresolved banter about who’s best. Quickly forgotten as we share a pint (or three) and mull over the day’s ride out.
Haha! Well, I'm sure they would be good for more than 16K miles ("on average") but, hey, what can I say? I like changing it up. I like riding new and different bikes. New models come out. And bikes seem to come and go out of my garage.
Yep, the unresolved banter will always exist. It seems it exists in every subculture (cars, bicycles, dogs, you name it). Sharing a pint or three always seems to make differences of opinion less important.
As @In my own world said in front page thread How to Have an Excellent Motorcycling Holiday: "Wave at a lot of bikers on the other side of the M27/ A27. About 20 BMW GS riders all two up. Not even a nod. Stuff them. Even a group of Harley riders waved back." Well, at least we Harley riders (some of us anyway) can be a friendly bunch! And some of us ride Triumphs, too.
Ah, so you secretly admire my Bandit then! I have owned many different makes & types of bike over the years, I have enjoyed some more than others. The Triumphs I have owned kind of reflect how the riding went over the years, from the days of the Sprints when my Wife rode pillion and we did UK & European touring. She decided that it was too risky having both of us on a bike while we had younger children so I moved to the Daytona, that got me into Sportsbikes, track riding etc. I too enjoy riding something a little less mainstream, I moved on to Aprilia with an original RSV-R Mille, then the second generation Mille R 'Factory' before moving on to the GSX-R, and this was only because I got frustrated being passed on the straights on track days to then be held up through the bends! A big crash in 2006 on the GSX-R, double compound fractures to left tibia & fibula, this left me very limited movement in left ankle so moved away from Sportsbikes, to a KTM Superduke had naked bikes ever since.
Yep, you've discovered my secret, Billy. I admire your Bandit. Covet it even. What a cool history of your bikes and riding over the years. Your 2006 crash sounds like it was horrific. Glad it just moved you to different bike types and not off bikes altogether. I have a friend who recently bought a new KTM Superduke GT and he's crazy about it. He also has an older Speed Triple (2008 I think) and a Kawi H2 but said he always finds himself on the KTM since he bought it.
