steveb leatherworks: the blather

I was at the International Motorcycle Show a few weeks back and happened upon the Star Motorcycles booth/display.This is a Yamaha company doing a Lexus/Toyota thing and i must admit, the Star bikes look very nice, if thats you’re thing. For better or for worse, there is not much of a chance of me owning a Star anytime in the future. I got H-D in my blood, as silly as that decision seemed in times of yore when i was in the midst of the trials of some mechanical distress, usually far from home…with night falling.  

I mean, I traded in a perfectly fantastic Honda Shadow 1100 all those years back for a FXR that was fraught with mechanical gremlins and problems, in all honestly, many of them my own doing… doesn’t matter though when you’ve got to “deal” and be entrepreneurial in your pursuit of enough internal combustion power to get you home.

MY favorite FXR breakdown was when the clutch actuating finger (a cast steel part)  in the early 5-speed transmissions snapped…. at the bottom of our driveway, just as the Boss was going to get on for a Fall ride up to squirrel country….oh the shame, she had to help me push it up the driveway, back into the garage….i was ready to drop a match right there, let me tell you…ugh!…she  was really cool about it as i recall  and probably commiserated with me about the injustice of it and the fact that it was probably a “union made cast part” in the tranny that  snapped… lol.. she didn’t make fun of me for trading the Shadow….which had served us faultlessly.

So even though i am an irrational H-D devotee,, it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a shiny thing and *ding* Yamaha for knocking off H-D. I mean, c’mon – you guys got the engineering might to do it right, like BMW, so do it…show us what innovation looks like!!