Good commentary and I agree with a lot of it. Demographically a lot of the HD fans of the big twins will likely die off anyway to put it bluntly. I think that has been one of HDs issues is lower the average age of their owners and getting new, younger, blood into the stealerships.
I am likely in the age group of the typical HD owner, but maybe toward the younger (but not young) range of it and for almost all my life, there is almost nothing HD ever built that interested me as much as the LW. I was pretty much a sport bike or cafe racer aficionado and dreamed of Dunstall Norton or a Norton Commando John Player Special. All my friends were in the HD choppers and all I wanted was something quick and fast.
Closest HD got at the time was the XLCR and they sort of phoned it in to be honest. I did like their flat track bike the XR750 so I picked one of them up and made it street legal. That satisfied the quick and fast part for me.
I prefer to support local businesses so would have preferred to buy an American bike but HD kept churning out crap I wasn’t interested in. The LW was about as close as HD ever got to the bullseye for producing something I was very interested in/passionate about buying for as long as I’ve been alive. Contrast that with Ducati who has likely gotten something like 150k+ of my disposable income over the years. I just did the math and I’ve spent more on just one Honda model (Africa Twin) over the years than I have on all my HDs combined until you add in the LW. That just pushed it past my expenditures on Africa Twins (AT). Apparently I really like them and didn’t realize I’ve spent over 100k on them until posting this. Maybe there is a 12 step program to help with my addiction…
What is remarkable for me is since buying the LW, I’ve put less than 1k miles on the 2 ATs I’ve still own and I don’t think I’ve even so much read any posts on the AT forums I belong. That is what a tidal shift buying the LW has been for me. I think if a lot of motorheads actually can ride a decently designed and executed electric motorcycle, they might have the reaction I have had.
I‘ll be the first to admit that the amazing off the line torque and the attendant acceleration is a big appeal for me. At the same time the low maintenance and tuning aspects are big draws from a daily driver aspect. I’ll also to be the first to admit that the acceleration can be wickedly fast, it is also boring. My LW will crush most sport bikes 0-60 with no skill required. My Tesla will crush my LW at any speed range. At the same time they are sort of boring because the acceleration is so linear.
For me the high water mark of adrenalin inducing acceleration was when I was racing very fast 2 stroke road race bikes (RZ500 and RG500) that were highly tuned. The powerband was fairly broad given how highly tuned they were but I recall my last dyno plot the power basically tripled over about 2k RPM. It was something like 50HP to 150HP going from 8k-10k. Don’t quote me on exact numbers but it was the ride of your lift. It just pin the throttle, RPMs hit the magic number, and brap, brap, brap up through the gears. Imagine 150hp in a bike that was about 300 pounds.
When they were pulling hard on the pipes (in the right RPM range for the expansion chamber and port tuning) the acceleration was amazing. I could do roll on wheelies at 140 mph with ease. The LW would likely eat its lunch to 60 mph as it was so hard to launch from a stop but what a rush when you got going. It was the exact opposite of what most HD riders would want.
That is why I think HDs move to electric makes a lot of sense long term. Not just about the ecological aspects, but power delivery of electric motors matches up well with what you need for the big, heavy bikes HDs builds and markets. You could potentially have bigger battery packs and have decent range. Use the Tesla standard charging port and tap in the Tesla network as it works and is well maintained and you could go cross country on one these fairly easily.
I am not sure HD will get to 100% adoption of electric in my lifetime but I’ll be definitely interested to watch.
I am likely in the age group of the typical HD owner, but maybe toward the younger (but not young) range of it and for almost all my life, there is almost nothing HD ever built that interested me as much as the LW. I was pretty much a sport bike or cafe racer aficionado and dreamed of Dunstall Norton or a Norton Commando John Player Special. All my friends were in the HD choppers and all I wanted was something quick and fast.
Closest HD got at the time was the XLCR and they sort of phoned it in to be honest. I did like their flat track bike the XR750 so I picked one of them up and made it street legal. That satisfied the quick and fast part for me.
I prefer to support local businesses so would have preferred to buy an American bike but HD kept churning out crap I wasn’t interested in. The LW was about as close as HD ever got to the bullseye for producing something I was very interested in/passionate about buying for as long as I’ve been alive. Contrast that with Ducati who has likely gotten something like 150k+ of my disposable income over the years. I just did the math and I’ve spent more on just one Honda model (Africa Twin) over the years than I have on all my HDs combined until you add in the LW. That just pushed it past my expenditures on Africa Twins (AT). Apparently I really like them and didn’t realize I’ve spent over 100k on them until posting this. Maybe there is a 12 step program to help with my addiction…
What is remarkable for me is since buying the LW, I’ve put less than 1k miles on the 2 ATs I’ve still own and I don’t think I’ve even so much read any posts on the AT forums I belong. That is what a tidal shift buying the LW has been for me. I think if a lot of motorheads actually can ride a decently designed and executed electric motorcycle, they might have the reaction I have had.
I‘ll be the first to admit that the amazing off the line torque and the attendant acceleration is a big appeal for me. At the same time the low maintenance and tuning aspects are big draws from a daily driver aspect. I’ll also to be the first to admit that the acceleration can be wickedly fast, it is also boring. My LW will crush most sport bikes 0-60 with no skill required. My Tesla will crush my LW at any speed range. At the same time they are sort of boring because the acceleration is so linear.
For me the high water mark of adrenalin inducing acceleration was when I was racing very fast 2 stroke road race bikes (RZ500 and RG500) that were highly tuned. The powerband was fairly broad given how highly tuned they were but I recall my last dyno plot the power basically tripled over about 2k RPM. It was something like 50HP to 150HP going from 8k-10k. Don’t quote me on exact numbers but it was the ride of your lift. It just pin the throttle, RPMs hit the magic number, and brap, brap, brap up through the gears. Imagine 150hp in a bike that was about 300 pounds.
When they were pulling hard on the pipes (in the right RPM range for the expansion chamber and port tuning) the acceleration was amazing. I could do roll on wheelies at 140 mph with ease. The LW would likely eat its lunch to 60 mph as it was so hard to launch from a stop but what a rush when you got going. It was the exact opposite of what most HD riders would want.
That is why I think HDs move to electric makes a lot of sense long term. Not just about the ecological aspects, but power delivery of electric motors matches up well with what you need for the big, heavy bikes HDs builds and markets. You could potentially have bigger battery packs and have decent range. Use the Tesla standard charging port and tap in the Tesla network as it works and is well maintained and you could go cross country on one these fairly easily.
I am not sure HD will get to 100% adoption of electric in my lifetime but I’ll be definitely interested to watch.
