Twolane, Have to disagree with you on all the Kurakyn stuff
That's fine DW. Your opinion as it applies to your own bike is perfectly legitimate. It bears no impact on my choices though. Furthermore, that's the way it should be as you wouldn't dress your bike based on my tastes or choices. Nor would I expect you too.
Now, as for the Hooters round table, I have to question the judgement of any group of guys that has a choice at Hooters of watching the girls or talking about Kuryakyn and then chooses Kuryakyn.... Just seems a poor bit of prioritizing [smiley=7.gif]
Having dressed out a few bikes over the years I've not had the resale or other valuation loss you're concerned about when having used non-HD pieces. I'm inclinded to pick and choose from various manufacturers to find pieces I like for reasons of both quality and appearance. HD simply doesn't cover all the bases.
The most recent bike I sold was a 2000 Road King this past summer. Really nicely dressed out and a great comfortable all day ride too. There's even a picture here on the site somewhere.
It had just about 60k miles on it when I sold, still brought $3500 over what it cost new, and sold in two weeks time from the day it was first listed. That was with a few Kuryakyn pieces and parts from other suppliers but no internal drivetrain modifications . The important thing was that all the choices were of a satisfactory quality and style for what they were used for and well executed. It's about exercising skill and judgement in the application of the parts from various manufacturers far more than it is that any given part may have come from a supplier that also manufacturers for another brand.
It's true Kuryakyn makes pieces for metric bikes. They also make pieces for the HDs. They also offer some that are (basically) interchangeable. Having said that, some of the OEMs supplying parts for Harley Davidson also make parts for metric bikes. So the fact of varied manufacturer sourcing is really not a determinant of style, quality or intent.
For that matter the bike has (in a way) got Chevy parts on it too. But I don't think the Delphi electronics are going to hurt the value either. Corbin makes seats for metric bikes (more than they do for HD bikes). That doesn't mean my rear end doesn't consider the Corbin saddle to be a far superior piece than what was for me the relatively uncomfortable stock seat. So the sourcing issue just doesn't carry a lot of weight with me.
It's about making good choices and exercising them correctly. If you do that the bike holds up, both mechanically and financially. If you piece together something that doesn't look like it had any concept of theme or totality it's going to lose value. But that would apply to a bunch of mismatched HD parts as well. The skill, therefore, is the riders hands and choices as he makes good or bad decisions; not in avoiding any particular supplier just because they happen to also supply for other brands of bikes.
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Topic: Freedom Pipes (Read 46427 times)