Let's Ride Page 15

  Where you live will also affect your insurance rates. Companies base their rates on crash and theft statistics in a given region. If you live in a neighborhood where a lot of motorcycle thefts have been reported, you will have higher insurance rates than if you lived in a suburb with low rates of motor vehicle theft. Sometimes the statistics are surprising—some so-called nice neighborhoods have high theft rates—but, in general, the farther you live from an inner city, the lower your insurance rates will be. If you live in a rural area, you’ll most likely have the lowest rates of all.

  BUYING A NEW MOTORCYCLE

  BUYING A NEW BIKE is in most ways much simpler than purchasing a used machine. You won’t need to examine every component of a new bike because it won’t have any wear and tear to examine. Likewise you won’t need to look for evidence of abuse and improper maintenance, since you’ll be first person to use (or abuse) and maintain the bike.

  Even though you’ll spend more buying a new bike, there are some good reasons to go this route if you can afford it. You can never be sure that a used bike was properly cared for, regardless how thoroughly you inspect it. You’ll be the person who controls how well maintained a new bike will be.

  When you’re shopping for a used bike, you’ll look for the best available bike that suits your needs. When shopping for a new bike, you’ll have your pick of any bike that falls into the price range you establish for yourself. Deciding which ones you want to look at is the fun part, because your research will consist of reading about each bike in motorcycle magazines and on motorcycle websites.

  BEWARE OF “BETA TESTING” NEW BIKES

  ONE WORD OF ADVICE when picking out a new bike—be cautious when buying a newly introduced model. Sometimes manufacturers have an unwritten policy of beta testing; that is, the first few examples of a new bike might not have had all the bugs worked out of them in the development process, making the buyers an unwitting part of that process. Because of the pressure to meet production schedules, manufacturers sometimes push new models out the door before they’re completely ready and then they work out any potential problems on the fly.

  Harley-Davidson is considered the worst offender in this respect. Longtime riders will tell you never to buy a first-year version of any Harley. This has probably been true since Harley and the Davidson brothers cobbled together their first prototype bike in 1903, but it has definitely been true since at least the introduction of the Knucklehead in 1936.

  In 1936 recirculating oil systems were still relatively new. Instead of high-pressure pumps that circulated oil through the engine, earlier total-loss engines just had a hand pump that a rider would pump every so often to lubricate the engine. This oil would circulate around the engine and then either be burned or slosh out through one of the many areas on the engine where moving parts were exposed, most commonly through the valve train. Recirculating oiling systems were a huge step forward in engine reliability, but designers of early examples like Harley’s 1936 Knucklehead didn’t fully comprehend the need to contain the oil being circulated by the high-pressure oil pump, so they didn’t fully enclose the valve gear. As a result, the very first Knuckleheads sprayed their riders with hot oil from the valve train. Harley quickly remedied this by designing tin cups that snapped over the exposed valve gear, but the problem wasn’t really solved until Motor Company engineers redesigned the valve train so that it was completely enclosed.

  This sort of problem-solving-on-the-fly approach has been a pattern with Harley ever since. The early Panheads had major problems with their hydraulic lifters, problems that weren’t solved until the lifters were moved from the tops of the pushrods down into the crankcases. The first electric-start Electra Glides also suffered teething problems, as did the newly introduced Shovelheads, alternator-equipped Shovelheads, and the first bikes equipped with five-speed transmissions.

  The first-year Evolution engines had so many problems that for years a lot of riders wore T-shirts that read: SEE NO EVO. HEAR NO EVO. SPEAK NO EVO. When the Evolution was later replaced with the Twin Cam 88, a mechanic friend of mine hurried up and bought one of the last Evolution-powered bikes because he knew the new TC88 engines would have problems. He was right. The TC88 engine came out in 1999. At the Sturgis rally in 2000 the sides of South Dakota roads were littered with TC88 engines that had suffered catastrophic failure of their camshaft bearings.

  Harley eventually worked out the bugs in all of these engines, but the pattern continues to this day. Even though the 96-cubic-inch Twin Cam engine was just an enlarged version of the TC88, early examples of that engine suffered from overheating problems. You should flat out avoid buying the first-year (and often even the second-year) examples of any new product from Harley-Davidson.

  Just because Harley is the worst offender doesn’t mean other companies don’t follow the same practice. Even competent non-Italian manufacturers can be guilty of beta testing every now and then. Usually, new bikes from Germany and Japan are good to go from the first day of production, but every now and then a motorcycle slips out of every factory before all the bugs are worked out.

  FINDING A GOOD MOTORCYCLE SHOP

  ONCE YOU’VE DETERMINED WHICH bikes you want to look at, you’ll need to find dealerships that sell those brands. Just finding dealerships used to be tough since up until a few years ago most motorcycle shops were little out-of-the-way holes in the ground. Historically motorcycle sales didn’t generate the kind of cash flow that allowed dealers to open up high-profile shops in good retail locations.

  But that changed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, thanks in large part to the success of Harley-Davidson. A company that was almost bankrupt in early 1986, Harley-Davidson’s fortunes dramatically changed in the late 1980s. The Motor Company’s rags-to-riches story became the stuff of legend, and by the early 1990s Harley was one of the most successful companies in America.

  In large part Harley’s success was as much the result of its marketing clothing and accessories as it was the result of its motorcycle sales. And the company wasn’t just selling exhaust pipes and T-shirts; by the early 1990s Harley shops sold just about any product you could imagine emblazoned with the company’s famous bar-and-shield logo, from toilet-seat covers to cigarettes.

  Because retailing products other than motorcycles was such a big part of its business model, Harley forced its dealers to build new facilities on prime commercial real estate. These new Harley superstores were more like expensive boutique shops than the traditional motorcycle dealerships that used to be found on the wrong side of the tracks, sandwiched between a scrap-iron yard and a whorehouse.

  By the early 1990s Harley dominated the American motorcycle market; where Harley led, the other manufacturers followed. By the mid-2000s just about every motorcycle dealership had moved from its previous steel sheds hidden in industrial parks into big, fancy showrooms in high-buck retail areas. It used to be that you’d need a phone book and a good map to find a motorcycle shop in a strange city; today you can hardly miss them because they’re right along the freeway, next to the Audi dealerships and Cracker Barrel restaurants.

  Although you won’t have to track down motorcycle shops like we did in the old days, you will have to do a little research to see which shops are good and which should be avoided, because not all motorcycle shops are created equal. Each one is staffed by human beings, and the excellence of a shop is only as good as the quality of those individuals.

  To determine the quality of the staff will require two things of you. The first is that you have some knowledge of the bike you’re looking at, which you will have, since you followed my advice and did some research. Second, you have to use your knowledge of human nature. You need to have a feel for whether someone is telling you the truth or feeding you a line of bullshit. Developing that sort of intuition is beyond the scope of this book.

  THE SERVICE DEPARTMENT

  A CRITICAL FACTOR IN finding the right dealership is the quality of a shop’s service department. It really doesn’t m
atter how straight a shooter a salesperson might be if the service department is staffed by morons.

  For example, when I first saw Harley’s then-new V-Rod, I was visiting a Harley shop while traveling out of state. I wasn’t interested in buying the bike, but I was curious about its maintenance costs. I knew Porsche had designed the overhead-cam engine, and Porsche has a reputation for building engines that are idiotically expensive to maintain. I’d stopped at the Harley shop to get a part for my Road King and decided to ask the service manager how much it cost to do a major service on the V-Rod.

  The guy told me that it would be the same as the cost of the major service of any other V-twin. To comprehend the sheer stupidity this man exhibited, you need to understand something about Harley’s air-cooled V-twins and the V-Rod engine. The air-cooled V-twin, the engine that’s found in every Harley except the various V-Rod models, uses the same basic overhead valve system the company has used since the 1936 Knucklehead, which has the cam (or cams) located down in the case moving pushrods that go up to the top end and open the valves. These pushrods have featured hydraulic lifters since before I started riding, which means that the valves never need to be adjusted.

  The V-Rod uses overhead cams that don’t have hydraulic lifters, meaning that like most high-performance motorcycles they need periodic valve adjustments. The valve adjustment is usually the most expensive part of a major tune-up. When the service manager said the cost for a V-Rod tune-up was the same as the tune-up for any other V-twin, I asked him if that meant they adjusted the valves on the V-Rod for free.

  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a man look so befuddled. Here was a man so ignorant about motorcycle mechanics that he didn’t even know he had to adjust the valves on Harley’s new V-Rod (which, it turns out, is a ridiculously expensive process because the engine has to be dropped to gain access to the rear valves). And this fool was the shop’s service manager. I wouldn’t want anyone this ignorant checking the air pressure in my tires, much less supervising the people who might be rebuilding my engine.

  I asked around, and it turns out that I’m not the only person who wasn’t impressed with this shop and its service department. A lot of the local riders I spoke with refused to do business with the shop; instead, many of them drove an extra seventy miles to do business with a respected shop in a neighboring state.

  If it’s possible to meet with local motorcyclists, you can get a good idea from talking to them which shops are good and which should be avoided. You can also learn a bit about this by snooping around online and trying to find local motorcycle forums, but remember, like anything else you read on the Internet, take what you read with a grain of salt. Sometimes customers are to blame, but that doesn’t stop them from unfairly lambasting a dealership on the Internet.

  Ultimately you have to make the decision as to where you’re going to shop for a bike. Again, you need to have a pretty good knowledge of motorcycles to accurately gauge the competency of a shop and its service department. If you don’t feel comfortable with your own knowledge base, try to enlist the help of a friend who knows something about motorcycles.

  FINAL NEGOTIATIONS

  ONCE YOU’VE FOUND THE bike of your dreams from an independent seller or the right shop, one with a competent sales staff and a good service department, it’s time to negotiate a price. You’ll have less room to negotiate the price of a new bike than you will a used bike. As mentioned in the last chapter, dealerships have to make some money on each bike they sell just to keep their doors open. That said, there’s no reason why you have to foot the entire bill for their overhead. There has to be a little compromise on the parts of both you and the dealer.

  Most dealers will do what they can to meet you halfway, but in recent decades that has not been the case with Harley dealers. For many years, selling Harleys consisted of sitting behind a desk, collecting $500 deposits, and putting names on a list. The dealers had little incentive to compromise with a buyer. Today the motorcycle market is very different, and Harley sales are down dramatically. Harley dealers have been slow to change their stubborn ways, but they will have to adapt to survive. Those dealers that are unwilling to compromise will become extinct.

  Typically dealers add a base margin of 12 to 18 percent on new bikes. They often add extra charges on top of that, like freight and setup costs. They also make money from their finance department by talking you into things like extended warranties.

  Your best tool for finding a dealership with the lowest markup is still the old-fashioned telephone. You can find a lot of dealerships advertising on the Internet, but they usually aren’t listing the lowest prices they have available. More often they seem to be fishing for buyers willing to pay a bit more. For example, a shop might list a bike at $11,000 on its webpage but if you call and talk to a salesperson, you might find that you can get a one- or two-year-old carry-over version of the exact same bike for $8,000.

  Make certain you ask for an out-the-door price when shopping via phone. Make it clear that you want the salesperson to include all extra charges like freight and setup costs as well as the costs of license plates and sales tax. This way you’re comparing apples to apples when talking to salespeople from different dealerships; it also ensures you won’t be surprised by additional costs when you go to buy the bike.

  If you can’t get a straight answer from a salesperson, you’re best off avoiding that dealership. If the person says something like “Come on down and we’ll talk about it,” he or she is trying to lure you into that dealership. There are plenty of motorcycle shops out there; you don’t need to deal with one that tries to trick you right from the start.

  You’ll be able to get somewhat of an idea about what dealers are paying for the wholesale price of a bike from the range of prices you find when calling around. You can figure that the lowest prices are marked up around 12 percent from the wholesale cost and the highest prices are marked up around 18 percent. Do the math and you’ll have a rough idea of what the wholesale cost is.

  You can negotiate from there, but chances are you’ll have a hard time getting the price down much below the lowest price you find when shopping around. What you can do is use this information to negotiate the best price at the best dealership you found while researching dealerships. If the best price is available at a dealership with a lousy service department or a bad reputation, you can try to negotiate the same price from a dealership with a decent service department and a better reputation.

  PULLING THE TRIGGER

  IF YOU’RE BUYING FROM a dealership in your own state, the dealership will take care of getting license plates for a bike and paying the sales tax. It will roll that cost into your out-the-door price. But if you’re buying from an out-of-state dealership or a private party, you’ll need to take care of tax and licensing yourself.

  There are some ways to make this process simpler and safer. For example, it’s a good idea to write up some sort of simple contract between you and the seller. This doesn’t have to be a formal document drawn up by a lawyer. It just needs to be a document written in plain, easily understandable language that outlines the terms to which you and the buyer agree. Both you and the seller should have a signed copy of the agreement.

  Before any money changes hands, you’ll need to make sure you have all the paperwork you’ll need when you go to your state department of motor vehicles for your license plates. You’ll need a clear title, and you’ll need to make sure that the VIN (vehicle identification number) and engine numbers are correct and match the title. If there’s some discrepancy, you may find it impossible to get a license plate for your bike.

  WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

  Be prepared before going to buy a motorcycle—have your financing and insurance in order before you even go to look at a bike.

  Avoid financing if you can help it because it makes buying a motorcycle much more expensive.

  Make sure you can afford to insure a motorcycle before you buy it.

  Photograph by Jinushi © by
Free&Easy magazine

  Chapter Six

  Advanced Riding Techniques

  Now that you’ve learned enough about motorcycles to decide what type you want, you’ve learned how to ride, and you’ve bought a motorcycle, I’m going to talk about the most important thing you can do while riding a motorcycle: staying alive. In this chapter we’re going to discuss advanced training and riding techniques, including cornering, braking, and coping with other vehicles.

  More than anything else in this book, the information that follows will help keep you alive. But as with the information in chapter 3, your best bet is still to get professional training. Once again, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation is a good place to start when looking for advanced training: in the late 1980s MSF developed its Experienced RiderCourse (ERC), a half-day course for newer riders and seasoned riders alike that’s designed to hone bikers’ riding skills as well as help develop the mental skills that will keep people alive out on the meat-grinding public highways. I took the ERC back when it first came out in the 1980s. I’d sent so many new riders to the basic RiderCourse that I thought I should take a course myself. I had nearly thirty years of experience when I took the ERC, and I still found it extremely helpful (even though I was the only rider in the entire class who fell down).

  If you want to take your riding skills to the next level, you might want to consider going to one of the many high-performance riding schools available. These usually are held at racetracks and use motorcycles provided by the school, though some, like Lee Parks’s Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic, take place in large parking lots and require you to provide your own motorcycle. (See the appendix for more information about riding courses.)