what do you think of this bike?

[The Buddha]

Harleys are very well designed bikes.

Dry sump oiling, seperate engine/trans/primary drive oils, awesome transmissions, good fuel injection, very low maintenance.

I cant say enough good things about them.
and a good rider on an 883 sporty will keep up with a GS500 any day of the week - and yes im talking about corners too.

Yes ... very much so. However they do have a pretty huge design flaw (single wrist pin and siamese connecting rods) as well as some serious design limitations (push rods).

They also suffer from other problems, like the heavy cranks and massive counter weights needed to make it that slow revving potato - potato sound eventually wears the cases into an egg shaped hole, the vibrations get all the body parts loose ... endless list ...

Harleys are basically a great process, great manufacturing technology and good looks wrapped around a huge list of problems that were introduced at the design stage. The best aspect is, harley has convinced their current customer (the lawyers, the doctors, the accountants) that the 1000 monthly repair bill is actually good, and that's how reliable the "best bikes" are. Besides, none of them ride.

The fewer big parts are hammering around inside your bike, the better it is for you. if you got great process etc etc etc, imagine how much better it will be without this design problem.

Cool.
Buddha.