Traded the B in on a Springfield today. Love it! I liked the way the B handled, but the bags, & hurting my knees was too much to take.
Mike
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Traded the B in on a Springfield today. Love it! I liked the way the B handled, but the bags, & hurting my knees was too much to take.
Mike
Pics?
That is the Indian I have considered also. Thought about a Harley "Toad King", but Harley just doesn't have a nice suspension/ride like the Indian has. I like the Springfield for the hard lockable bags, and a lighter more motorcycle type bike than having a large fairing in front of you.
What are we using for pic hosting these days? I'll get a good one tomorrow.
The Springfield is a very good handling bike for its size. Plus it's handles bumps & the wind like a champ! The bags & leg position are just icing on top!
The new RK is close. Suspension is much better, but not Indian better. Motor is close. Trans & primary, but not Indian better.
Mike
I rented a Indian a few months back and I loved it. I thought about buying one but I love the flat 6 too much.
Good luck they are great looking ad riding bikes.
Mike...........
Go to www.imgur.com and sign up. Then upload your photos. To post here, open up your images and click on one of them, then on the right at the bottom is the BBCode box. Right click that box and copy it. Come over here and paste that image in the SUBMIT REPLY box. Then hit SUBMIT REPLY and it should reveal the Springfield to us.
Black and chrome...that's pretty hot !!!
Nice choice, junkie. I tested a Springfield out last year to compare to my old 2008 Street Glide. Hands down it kicked the Harley's ass. I was tempted then, and I'm still tempted today. It is one sweet ride.:yes:
I too sold my F6B and bought a 2014 Indian Chieftain. But now that the new Gold Wing/F6B are due to be released 10/24/2017....I'm thinking. ....https://powersports.honda.com/beyond.aspx#hero-history
Thanks Larry, I couldn't figure it out. I was tempted to wait on the wing, but didn't expect much improvement in bags or knee bend, so went ahead.
Mike
Very nice Mike. Nice bike :yes:
The fit and finish of the Indians are superb. In it's genre.. a quality product.
.
Happy miles, Mike!
The biggest problem with ANY Vtwin as of right now is-
Will the company be here tomorrow?
Even HD is going to be suffering financial hardship.
Who is going to buy these archaic ancient romantic things?
Thats the question to ponder.
The old V twin lovers are retiring from the road.
Hipsters, dipsters, the live at home crowd until one is over 40 is not going to subscribe to the luxury.
In fact, even New car sales are suffering.
37 thousand dollars ?? :shock: Are you kidding me?
http://i64.tinypic.com/bbmmv.jpg
I'm concerned about longevity too, but willing to chance it. It took me a long time to finally get the slow down and enjoy the ride mentality. Maybe someday, the millenials will too.
Yeah, it's their version of a cvo. Extra speakers, special paint, accessory floorboards, & a gauge cluster on the tank. It is pretty in person, just not 37k pretty to me!
Mike
E........$1600
L........$1600
I........$1600
T.......$1600
E.......$1600
_____________
$8000 MORE :yikes:
a LOT Of money for two pistons and a 120 lbs TORQ !
Mike............
To clarify, I'm not :bsII: on Indian and your purchase, just the price they want for the Elite. There may be a few more items on the Elite than the model below it, but for the most part, it looks like they are asking $8000 more for hand applied 23ct. gold striping. At $1284.00 per ounce this morning, I can buy 6 American Gold Eagles for under $8,000.00. It also only comes in one color. Hard for me to see the marketing behind it other than there are some that have to have the most expensive model out there, regardless. Here's a nice video up the coast highway on a red Roadmaster. Report back on the Springfield with updates and PHOTOS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDg6JoJxvw8
So a business should keep making a product that is redundant to another of their own product lines, even though the numbers aren't there; i.e. people weren't buying it?
Whew! I hope you don't have any money in the stock market, as you are really going to be disappointed in how business actually works.
Victory was making money. The design and product was top of the line--it was a quality product. It was the poor support by Polaris and the sudden purchase of the Indian brand that caused them to dump Victory. I owned 2 and was a on the different boards for a few years. They had very loyal customers in spite of refusing to back their warranty. Most bikes gave very little trouble and ran forever.
They didn't even try to sell of Victory---probably because somebody else would grow the company---like they refused to do---and make them look foolish, so they just killed it off and left thousands of loyal customers and vendors up the well known waterway without any propulsion device. I sold mine and got a B about 2 years before all of that happened.
Not gonna say I will never buy an Indian---but it won't be a new one and it will have to be a heck of a deal.
You pretty well summed it up for the uninformed. You shit on your loyal customer base and you lose your loyal customer base. Simple economics. They didn't even have the professionalism to give their dealers a heads up beforehand. Their dealers had to find out the same way the customers did.
Yea--I owned 2 of them and was on the forums and talked to the guys at Daytona every year. May have even talked to your buddy, you never know. BTW---did you ever own or ride a Victory? Just curious. If you had, I think your view would be different.
It was easy to see after the purchase of Indian that all of the focus and attention was going somewhere else. Again, no support from Polaris. All of the Cross bikes AND steel frame bikes got their choice of 1 single backrest and luggage rack from Victory and the Cross bike were about 1K for the combo. It was left up to Witchdoctor and other aftermarket companies to give owners what they wanted and needed---Polaris wasn't gonna do it! Now, you can outfit an Indian Scout 50 different ways with ALL Polaris parts---bars, seats, bags with fringe and bags without fringe hard and leather--take your choice. Then you get into the Chief models and the choices explode. I remember when Victory dropped the Kingpin and started with the new Boardwalk----same bike with different tins. Now that is real promotion. :icon_rolleyes:
When you buddy said they lost money the last few years, he was probably correct in that Victory offered nothing and current lines were left to die on the vine---UNLIKE INDIAN. It is more about where you put your effort and energies. They can't build Indians fast enough and the factory can only make so many bikes per year---- I get it! That still don't make it right to the guys that owned them. Of course if you never owned one, you could never relate. JMHO as always.
From up above, the purchase of Indian made sense for Polaris.
The Victory brand was meant to compete for HD buyers. Pretty obvious in their badging of their products, and their marketing.
HD buyers are fiercely brand loyal, and are buying an image and/or reputation as much as a motorcycle.
Victory, starting from scratch in 90s, had quite an uphill battle to make a dent in the V-twin domestic cruiser market.
Here comes Indian, with a for sale sign on it, an established name, distinctive features, offering Polaris the package they always hoped to establish with Victory (and probably would have with enough time) a brand and reputation already developed over many decades. I bet the day Polaris closed the deal to buy Indian, there was a conversation in the board room about dropping the Vic line.
I've known my friend since 1985, and he's worked for Polaris for over 20 years, so yeah, I've ridden a few Victorys. Attached is a picture of the year we rode the brand new Visions, which I named the Bozo bikes, due to their appearance from the front. I'm not a V twin guy, just like I'm not a guy that sticks baseball cards in my spokes to make the vroom vroom noise, so I was never impressed with Victorys. I'm pretty sure I rode more different Victory models than you did, over the years, but is was simply because I didn't want to haul my FJR from Texas to Minnesota, just to ride. Instead, I flew up, he grabbed one from company stock, and away we went; beggars can't be choosers. They did improve substantially from the first year to the last one that I rode; a Cross Country in June of 2016. The transmissions no longer felt and sounded like the ones in the old Farmalls I drove as a young lad in Minnesota, but am I damning with faint praise? Yah, youbetcha.
https://i.imgur.com/zwv4otol.jpg
My whole point to people that piss and moan about Victorys; specifically how Polaris shut the brand down, is that it's just business. If you don't like the way business works, be sure and pull any money you may have in the stock market out, because all businesses operate the same way. Victory had less value to Polaris than Indian did, so Victory was killed off. You bought two Victorys, and that entitled you to ride two Victorys. That's it; no more and no less. You didn't have a relationship with Polaris, you weren't buddies, you simply bought two motorcycles, and were able to ride them.
I'd hate to see how the folks that whine about Victory handled their first breakup...
http://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/...y-anything.jpg
I am not exactly sure why every one of my comments seems to get a sarcastic arrogant response. I am just trying to express my thoughts on bikes that I owned and a company I dealt with. I have my opinion and you have yours. I respect that.
I don't give a rats rectum about Polaris. I bought 2 used bikes and just made the point they were quality machines in my opinion. I sold them and did not do too badly. But I do have forum buddies that bought high dollar Magunums and Cross Countrys that got hosed big time by a company that said over and over they were not going anywhere after purchasing Indian. They feel deceived and I agree with them.
Going to the prom and getting dumped for a better person is funny to a lot of people---unless it happens to them. That is all I am saying.
Actually, you do give a rats rectum about Polaris; if you didn't, you wouldn't be here bashing them. Polaris is Victory, just like Polaris is Indian. To say you have no feelings on Polaris is simply disingenuous. And we've all been dumped by a gal, my point is that that isn't business, but what companies do with their product lines are.
That's a nice bike and I've ridden them. The power in the Indian's engine blows the HD's out of the water.
I can't give up my six cylinder B after having 4 Harleys. Enjoy, that's a beautiful Indian.
I must say that the quality fit and finish of the Indians is much better than the Victory's. They definitely have made the Indian one of their premier product lines.
I do miss my Vision.. it definitely had some quirks though... did any of you guys ever try to change out a headlight bulb on one of them? A serious pain in the azz for sure... :shhh: