Someone else's discretionary spending makes you that emotional? It's only a bike. Not my cup of tea, but I don't lose respect for someone because of their 2 wheeled choice.

I do. Especially when it's loud and attention seeking like what a harley is.

The noise they make is kind of annoying, but this is sort of balanced out by getting to laugh at middle aged male menopause cases dressed like that guy from The Village People.

I'd much rather put up with the odd Harley than the boys with their boom box tin can cars

I don't mind that so much. You get those idiots here too, but you can only hear them when they are within a few cars length. I can hear those harleyfags several miles away.

You don't have to. Harleys are junk and they're outpowered by every other cruiser in it's class. Japanese manufacturers make a better Harley than Harley does.

People who buy them are buying their first bike, much like people who go to Ikea for the first time and buy a complete bedroom set.

Gotcha. Higher power means it's better. Heritage and brand counts for nothing. It's a lifestyle choice, just as buying a Ipad over another tablet often is.

Purchasing logic doesn't really apply to lifestyle brands, otherwise why are Royal Enfield still in business selling low powered archaic machines?

I don't know where you get your facts about first time bikers purchasing habits from, or how it equates to low end furniture, but you obviously need some way to justify your logic.

Well I just don't like Harleys.

Heritage is just another fancy way of saying brand.
Brand loyalty is for suckers who want to over-pay for things.
Selling a "lifestyle" is just another way of charging more for the same thing.

Not necessarily - but a brand usually means something, and the owner/manufacturer invests to maintain its value. Sometimes the brand is about price and value e.g.Walmart, sometimes it's about prestige and comfort e.g. Rolls Royce, but Harley Davidson isn't about value, or fuel economy (my Accord gets better mileage), or performance (just about any other bike manufactured in the past 50 years could out perform a brand new Harley on a race track or mountain road), or practicality (it's a motorbike FFS), or ease of use (it's about as manoeuvrable as a sofa), or prestige (it's way too common). IMO it's an empty shell of a brand - it's about image and nothing else, like Gap or Benetton, overpriced and simultaneously ordinary. Buying a Harley seems to be about buying membership of a club, and the pipes are there to let everyone know what a sad sack you are!

Sure. Some brands are associated with quality and you know you will get something good. Take Apple for instance: they generally make good (if pricey) stuff, but anyone who purchases an apple product because they are buying into a lifestyle is an idiot. Buy that ipad because it meets your needs and you don't mind paying a premium for quality and design.

Edit: maybe that's what RICH meant..

Maybe in 2007-9 Apple kit was the "best". These days it's probably still the nicest looking but the hardware (and iOS software) are lacking compared to the competition.

I just wish Harleys would go a bit faster. They pottle along two abreast swaying all over the road making them a bugger to pass. Bad as caravans.

DILLIGAFF it says on the back of the helmet of a Dennis Hopper clone I get stuck behind now and then. One of these days I'll flatten him with me pastel Beetle, then I expect he'll GAFF.

I don't think it's the "Harley's" fault that it isn't going faster, it may be the "mid-life crisis" that's driving it.

Kinda the same as the amount of "old" farts driving zoom zoom sports cars being passed by mini-vans while taking the kids to school.

I don't believe I've ever seen anything passed by a mini-van (nor a SUV for that matter). That seems as probable as being passed by a Reliant Robin or a Toyota Corrola.