Freebird

Don't take everything so personal. I was addressing comments that always come up. Not specifically yours, though it did fit the pattern. It's not just about Harleys either. It's about oil leaking/vibrating Harleys, Tupperware clad Goldwings, etc. Of course this forum is about the Venture and Royal Stars and obviously that is the favorite bike for most people here. It's understandable that folks will defend what they own and ride but that can be done without criticizing what others ride. There are a lot of folks here riding other brands now also and they are still part of the great family.

Those types of comments always amuse me. I'll never understand why owners of one brand are always so quick to categorize owners of another brand as posers, squids, followers of the crowds, whatever. I love bikes of all kinds. American, Japanese, English....whatever. I have owned several first and second gen Ventures. I have owned a few Harleys. I've owned a few of the other brands. I've actually owned probably 30 bikes of various brands and types. I can honestly say that I enjoyed them all. Some more than others. The first gen Venture just didn't fit my body and that was the only reason that it ranked a bit lower than some on my list. I wanted to love it but my first trip of any distance, only a couple hundred miles, made me realize that it was not the bike for me. I replaced it with another Harley, an '86 FXRD. I truly enjoyed that bike but the FXRD was somewhat of a rare breed and finding any type of accessories for it was probably even harder than finding accessories now for the first gen Venture. After riding it for maybe a year, Yamaha came out with the second gen Venture. I bought a brand new one in May of 1999 and loved pretty much everything about it. I rode it until I bought my new Harley Road Glide Ultra in 2013. There was still absolutely nothing wrong with the '99 Venture but I was just ready for something else and the Road Glide was what I decided on. I have no regrets with the Road Glide. I've owned it just a little over two years now. Didn't put as many miles on this this year as I hoped to because of other things going on but I tell you, I have never had a problem of any kind with it. It has never been back to the shop since I bought it except for the very first service which was part of the deal when I bought it. I've done the service since then. There has never been a recall on it. Zero mechanical problems. No screws have vibrated out. No parts have fallen off. It's one of the most comfortable bikes I've ever ridden. The only thing that may have been equally comfortable to me was the '99 Royal Star Venture. My wife says that the Road Glide is more comfortable for her though. As for generalizing the rider of any bike for being more concerned with using them or looking good on them is just nonsense. If it was about that, I can honestly say that I got more looks and positive comments on the RSV than any bike I've ever owned. Probably because they were and remain so uncommon that people don't see them every day. The RSV is, in my opinion, still one of the best looking bikes on the road in spite of the design being almost 16 years old. It is a classic and will always look fantastic. I love the RSVs and it will always be one of my all time favorites. I am under no illusions about the mechanical longevity of the Yamaha as opposed to my Harley. I've seen a number of Ventures, first and second gen, with over 200,000 miles on them and even one with about 400,000 miles on it. There is no way that a Harley is going to go 200,000 miles without some engine work. That's just a fact. I know that 100,000 miles is possible though if they are taken care of and not souped up beyond what they can take. I knew that when I bought it though and accept the facts for what they are. The bottom line is, I could give a rat's behind how good I look on it. I could give a rat's behind if it's faster or slower than a Venture. I love the cruiser style. I love the low RPM torque. I love the way that off balance V Twin sounds. Just as I love so many things about the RSV. I could care less about following the crowds or fitting in with the Harley crowd. I ride the bike that brings me joy at a particular time in my life. If Yamaha comes out with another Venture. If it's based on the 1700 VMax engine and maintains the cruiser styling, you may well see me on another one. It's certainly a possibility. Of course first I will have to find a mirror and see how I look on it.

Well, I'm sure you are right about the machines. I guess we need to go after the operator.

Doesn't look all that tough to me. I think if enough of us join up, we can destroy this thing.

That's actually pretty cool. I've never run across one of those stores but maybe I'm just not looking for them. Interesting though. It actually says a lot about their marketing genius. I wonder how many other brands could run profitable stores selling only branded clothing and etc. I tell you, love Harley or hate them....they are marketing geniuses.

LOL....looks like they also sell Honda, BMW, Victory, Polaris, etc. I wonder if they actually stock anything.

Do you have an examples of that? In all my travels, the shops that I see have a lot of bikes on the floor. Not saying that they don't exist, I just haven't run across them. One exception I suppose is a store inside the Minneapolis airport.

I just refuse to do it just yet. The boat is put to bed for the winter. The Waverunners are fast asleep. I am still holding out hope for a couple more nice riding days though. This was a bad year for us in regards to riding. We spent more time on the water and not much time on the bike. Hope to get back into it next summer though.

I wish I could help but just can't. I know that the second gen shock could not be taken apart without being destroyed but I just don't know about the first gen.

We were talking about deer at our sales meeting in Wisconsin last week. Our outside sales rep that works out of Kansas City has been with the company for about 25 years. He has hit 8 deer during that time. I've only hit one and it was about 3 years ago in my personal vehicle about 6 miles from home.

Too loud for me as a touring bike but sounds great and would be fun to run around on.

I too have had both Dish and DirectTV. A couple of years ago, Armstrong Cable entered this area and strung all new fiber optics. I had Dish for TV and Frontier had taken over Verizon which I had for my DSL service. My experience with Frontier was terrible. Though everything was supposed to be the same, my Internet service got worse and worse. I dropped Dish and Frontier and Armstrong installed their fiber optics for TV and Internet. It has probably been the best I'ver ever had. I still have a satellite on the guest house. Had DirectTV there and was never pleased with it. Equipment, on screen menus, none of it was as good as Dish. Had it taken out and Dish installed there and have never looked back. For our uses, Dish was much better than DirectTV. Yes, you can lose your signal if there is a really bad storm but it never happened often. I can't say that I've ever had a weather related outage with Armstrong cable...in fact...I've had no outages at all in almost 3 years now. I don't think that weather affects cable as much as it does satellite TV. Though I'm sure that they get their signal from a dish also, it is likely a much larger dish and is not affected nearly as quickly as the small dishes.

My Bushtec has the full carpeted interior and it is indeed installed with what looks like the spray on adhesive. You can get it at most any home improvement store. Sorry, it came from the factory that way so I have no useful tips on actually doing the job.

I love it. Looking forward to seeing more pictures when it is completed.

First I've heard of it but just something to be aware of. There was a news report just this week about one of those e-cigs exploding and causing severe injury to the man using it. Apparently the lithium batter is what exploded. He was in intensive care due to burns on his face, in his mouth and his throat.

Thanks for the replies folks. First, I was wrong about it being a 650. He came by last night and corrected me. It is a GS550. It belongs to one of his co-workers and has been a daily rider all summer. His friend rides it to work almost every day. It has 17,000 miles on it at this time. I know that if it needs repairs that a shop would charge him a fortune but if it does need anything, I'm sure it's nothing that I couldn't handle. He has at least agreed to store it here through the winter so I can check it out closely and take care of any issues that I find. He can buy it for $700.00 so I think it will be OK. Heck, if he were to end up giving it away later, most of us have lost more than that just on depreciation on vehicles. He has also agreed to take the motorcycle safety course so I feel good about that.

I use a full can for a tank of gas about twice a year.

My son, Dylan, is looking at buying his first bike. I actually don't want him to have one but he is 22 and makes his own decisions now. I know it's hypocritical of me to not want him to ride when I'm been riding all my life. So, one of his co workers has an older, '78 or '79, Suzuki 650GS that he has offered him for what I think is a decent price. It looks like it would make a good starter bike but I know nothing about these old Suzukis. Have any of you ever owned one of them? Any major issues such as transmission problem and etc? He told me that the fork seals are seeping a very little but otherwise, it seems to be in good shape. I haven't actually looked at it personally. Fork seals will be an easy enough fix.

Here is a tech article on changing the links to RAISE the rear of the bike. Should be the same except the links you add will be a different length. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?492-Leveling-Links-Raising-the-Rear-of-the-RSV

Rick, It could be a scam but not necessarily. It happens if somebody doesn't have a PayPal account or has one but doesn't have enough money in it and has to transfer money from their bank account. It even happens here if somebody uses PayPal to pay for their membership but doesn't have a PayPal account. If they use and electronic check through PayPal, there is a hold put on the funds until it clears. I get an email saying that I have received a payment but tells warns me that I should not ship anything until the funds clear.

I don't think that this is going to end well.

It's a bit pricy but this is my trailer of choice. I once had one very similar and have kicked myself many times for selling it. It is similar to the ground loading "Razor" trailer but this one is left connected to the vehicle to lower it. They make several versions. Everything from a trike model to a single bike model. There was another one that was very similar but a lot cheaper but I can no longer find it anywhere. http://www.baxleycompanies.com/Trailers.html

I would be more than happy to do that. It will have to be a weekend though because I travel a lot during the week. Just let me know when you want to do it.

That looks brand new Jonas. Very nice and I like the color. They never offered it with that engine here. I had an older model many years ago, a '97 I think, it had the 4.0 straight six. We never had any problems at all with it.

I have one that you can borrow. I live in Oberlin, OH. PM me your address and I'll put it in the mail on Monday. Out of town today.