| Author | Message | ||
     Choptop |
I'm perfectly aware that Japan makes great motorcycles at subsidized prices that no one else can compete with ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ oh wait... I cant resist... I KNOW I'm gunna hate myself for doing this lets hear this pearl of wisdom... So how is it Japan makes great motorcycles at subsidized prices that no one else can compete with? strap in boys... this one is gunna be a Dussey !!!! | ||
| Daves |
Jeez Chop, can I be a 40 year old, know it all squid too?  And I'm 42 | ||
| Choptop |
Dave, yer in the Club.  | ||
| Eeeeek |
To clarify, Bkw_bmw, three of the people in those pictures are 40, the rest are low to mid 30's. Vik | ||
| Bkw_bmw |
hey, Vik, If you have any pictures of a 40+ year-old about to crash, actually crashing, or in the aftermath of a crash...that would be me.  Bcube | ||
| CJXB |
HAH! I should have known better. All they sell is stuff that says SACborg. You call it a Buell site and not a single thing in there that says Buell on it. And where do the profits from those go? Gosh, there sure are a lot of posts bad-mouthing Badweb over there. I guess there's no reason to feel bad about this thread. And good old two-face Dyna, I've sure noticed that he takes a whole different tone over here than he does there, and when I rode him so hard at CF. I like his friend dbird, has some funny posts. I also noticed he was threatened with being edited when he tried to 'tell it like it is'. So much for freedom of opinion at SAC. What’s the deal X ?? Who cares what they sell over at Sacborg, and why would it matter to you where the profits go, why would you even think it’s your place to ask Chop ?? It appears that Chop was content to let it go and finally move on to posting about something other than repeating the same argument with you !! And it appears to me you’re just not going to let him, why the aggressive stance, sheesh let it go already !!! You’re just rambling from one issue to another, grasping at anything to prove what point ?!! | ||
| Xlcr |
No, the Japanese don't make a profit on their race replicas. They take a loss on them and make it up on cruisers, ATVs, and hundreds of thousands of mopeds , step-throughs, and scooters sold all over the world. It simply isn't possible to design all new RRs every two or three years AND spend tens of millions of dollars supporting them with massive race programs and make money at the prices they are charging. The Japanese may be good, but they can't rewrite the laws of economics. They do it for the advertising value, and because to them 'corporate face' is a serious concept. There are rumors that Kawasaki's motorcycle arm doesn't make a profit at all and hasn't since the '80s. Same with the dealers. I know the local ones, and they all say they survive almost entirely on ATV sales. If they had to rely on selling motorcycles they would have been out of business decades ago. And I see how well you support Buell events. On your 'Recent News' board, the 'next' Buell event you are supporting happened in 2003! Nothing like being up to speed. As for the rest, ahhh......you know, you're kind of making a fool of yourself over this. I think you'd probably better off to quit while you were behind. You are beginning to sound hysterical. | ||
| Spike |
Jeez . . . we can't even talk about SacBorg without an argument. | ||
| Mikej |
(Walking softly into the room for a comment or two....) XLCR, If there was no profit on the race reps then they wouldn't build them. At a recent Tuesday night bike night here in Milwaukee the largest representation of any make/model was the Hayabusa, more of that make/model than any other model bike on that particular night I was there. But what do I know, I own two Buells, and currently there's a Sportster 1200C in the garage, and I've had a wide variety of bikes in the past, and I'm also basically poor (but working on that issue). If you do go join SacBORG they'd probably welcome the screen name Grave-pisser, and if you get past the "welcome" you may just find that there are some good folks over there. I don't see this as comparing a "country club" to some rogue bar, more like the chasm between IBM/MicroSoft and Apple/Mac. To me a bike is a bike is a bike, don't matter if it's pedal powered, or engine powered, it's all good. I've lost track of where you folks are in this dialog, didn't really keep track, I'm just requesting that if you do join up on SacBORG that you at least let us know over here so we can follow the discussions. Should be fun. By the way, I'm member #51 over there, just for the record. And ps, you've got a nice looking bike. A guy who used to work here where I do has an early prototype'd XLCR that he bought off of a Harley engineer with the standing offer that the engineer would buy it back if he ever wanted to sell it. Nice bikes. Have a nice day, whatever everyone is currently talking about. (softly walking back out of the room slowly scratching my head wondering what all the hoopla is all about....)  | ||
| Choptop |
lets get deeper into your knowledge of Japanese motorcycle company profits. you know they loose money cuz.......? rumours? stock reports? your local dealer told you they make all thier money on ATV's? | ||
| Choptop |
heck this is worth its own thread... Do Japanese motorcycle manufacturers make money on thier bikes? and where did you get the info from? | ||
| Choptop |
actually CJXB had the KEY question to all this... what are you trying to prove XLCR? lay it out. in a short, easy to read sentance that even I would understand. what is your main point in questioning the Buell-iness (is that a word?) of SacBorg, me, or any of its readers/posters? | ||
| Tramp |
MMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW-BOWWWWWW-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!! !!!!!!!! Dude, yer killing the page width. Have mercy. Blake (Message edited by blake on October 12, 2005) | ||
| Choptop |
you go hungry. | ||
| Eeeeek |
Wait, I just read something. Where do the profits from SacBORG go? PROFITS? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! SacBORG looses money every month. The profits from a T-Shirt are $2.00. We'd have to sustain a rate of 15 T-shirt sales a month to break even and that's just the hosting. Then there's the cost of software and the time into maintenance. It's a money pit, plain and simple. So why do we run it? Call it a hobby. Vik | ||
| Choptop |
I run it because I hate Buells.  | ||
| Xlcr |
How about all of that money from your parent company, Suzuki Motor Corp?  But seriously, thanks Mikej, for the compliment on my bike. However, I think you should know that a Hayabusa is not a race replica, and they don't redo it every two years. By now they may have even paid for the tooling on that model. | ||
| Choptop |
Hey XLCR, I guess you fall under the made up 'here's MY excuse' category of yer own poll. talk about looking silly | ||
| Road_thing |
Aren't you guys tired yet? rt | ||
| Choptop |
heck no. just geting warmed up. And starting to get down the real nitty-gritty. | ||
| Jon |
Wowweee Kazooweee... I just checked in to this thread again. Be back tonight. Share the love!! | ||
| Koz5150 |
Jeez . . . we can't even talk about SacBorg without an argument. That may be the funniest comment here! You know cause it's true... Do you see the irony of it all???? No??? hmmm, well ok, whatever, go back to complaining again... P.S. DaveS is not a squid (I have never heard of any seafood coming from Iowa) and there ain't no good fresh seafood in WI | ||
| Crusty |
Did Dawg ever tell you about the fat chick from Minnesota? | ||
| Tramp |
yeah- he put a carb on 'er..... | ||
| M2me |
Why does the fat chick always have to be from Minnesota? There are 49 other states that have plenty of fat chicks. Take Delaware for example. Who likes Delaware?  | ||
| Jb2 |
M2me, Dude you're exactly right! Ray Wylie Hubbard has a song called Screw You, We're From Texas" and it has a line in it that goes like... "Now I love the USA And the other states, they're OK Texas is the place I wanna be and I don't care if I ever go to Delaware anyway" If Ray Wylie Hubbard don't like Delaware then I don't either. Besides Texas is bigger and has more oil wells. And the fat chicks are fatter in Texas. And... | ||
| Jon |
I'm really enjoying the banter. Sometimes opinions are served hot, no need to worry. This is the healthiest thread we've had about Badweb, Sacborg, and our perspectives and ways. Blood, sweat, and honesty. Hats off to all who are participating in this. Let's keep it relatively civil. No name calling is a start. b (Message edited by jon on October 12, 2005) | ||
| Snail |
WHAT?! Sacborg is a Buell board? I was sure it was a Busa board. GravePisser, would you like to buy my '99 S-3 so you can be a real Bueller? I hate to let 'er go, (its the best bike in the world, and I can prove it) but a man of your esteem deserves the best. With that bike, and a good word from me, maybe Blake would make you a moderator. You'd be good at that, and you could ban Chop! Send money. | ||
| Xlcr |
Snail, thanks anyway but I'm not interested in a tuber. If I wanted one of those I'd have my choice. I have one friend that's been trying to sell my his X1 since he got a new V-Rod, and another that bought a KTM 950 Adventure last year to go with his X1, and now realizes he could sell both and get a Ulysses. Also, I'm already a moderator at Gigabikes, which is a private board by invitation only operated out of Wales. It is not brand specific, and while there are occasional tete-a-tetes, for the most part we all get along fairly well. My Welsh, English, and Scots M8s seem to be more open-minded in general than American riders, and for the most part, more serious and more skilled. Some of them don't even own a car. SO....What's my purpose, Sacman? To end your form of psychological apartheid. You have gone to great lengths to create an atmosphere on your site of; "yes, you can like Buells, but first you have to be a REASONABLE person and admit that they can't possibly compare with Japanese bikes in any meaningful way, and can only ever be an irrational, even stupid, purchase." That's what you seem to mean by 'getting it'. And if that's it, then here's my message. I GOT it, I just don't WANT it! Nor do I believe it. It's really the only logical explanation of your foaming-at-the-mouth, knee-jerk reaction to the Bike article. It's almost religious, the way you reacted to what you obviously believe is heresy, and Torquemada himself couldn't have risen to the defense of the status quo with more righteous anger than you displayed when you put us all through your own personal and lengthy inquisition. IF you recall, I asked you what your motives for doing such a thing were many posts ago, and you refused to answer. You seem to have learned that it's much easier to switch back to the attack than to answer uncomfortable questions. Here's a little story: Back in the early '50s when the British invasion was just getting into gear, the Brits and the American network that supported them seem to have been intelligent enough to figure out that perception is more important than reality! So the whole British sales approach was based around convincing the buying public that Brit bikes were the modern bikes of the future, and Harley and Indians were pre-war relics, past their time and doomed to die out. Brit bikes were lighter, faster, and cheaper. And it was working! Old timers I used to sit and have a beer with back in my early riding days would tell me that in the early '50s Harleys and Indians in good condition could be had for next to nothing. Everyone was selling them to pick up a new Triumph or Norton, they were new (to Americans) and cool and winning races and everyone had to have one. It was also big time BS. Compare for a second a '46 EL and a '46 Speed Twin, both were air-cooled pushrod, OHV dry-sump, non-unit twins with spring forks and hard tails, no tech advantage at all on the Brit side. The only real difference was that the Brit bikes were smaller and lighter because they came from a country where the roads were tighter and twistier and the distances were shorter. The Harleys of the day, on the other hand, had evolved to suit the long distances and straight roads of the American midwest. BUT people bought it, and that's all that really mattered, perception again. Everyone knew at the time that Indian was already finished, and Harley would soon follow. Ironically, Indian attempted to follow the Brits and build Brit clones, but that merely alienated their previously loyal followers and hastened their demise. So what saved Harley? Well, first they tried the K Model, the Buell of its day. It was a state of the art chassis wrapped around a dated flathead motor. (sound familiar?) At a time when most of the Brits still had non-unit motors, girder forks, and spring hub or slider rear suspensions, the K had a unit transmission, a telescopic fork, and a swing arm rear. It didn't go over, for most of the same reasons that have recently hurt Buells. But Harley kept on plugging, and eventually turned the bike into the Sportster, and a star was born. The Sporty offered better performance than the K, but not that much better. Once again, it was mostly a matter of perception. The Sporty had crossed over that invisible line into cool, hip, and modern, especially when the stripped down XLCH model appeared in 1959. The whole British argument of superiority seemed to fall apart, the Sporty seemed to turn it into the lie it was. Harley almost instantly lost its fuddy-duddy image, at least for a few decades, and regained its reputation. The perception that it belonged in the pre-war era abruptly disappeared. Ironically, a decade later the Japanese would use that whole lighter, faster, cheaper, and more modern sales pitch against the Brits with great effectiveness, much helped by the fact this time it was actually true. It would only take a few years for them to blow the Brits out of the water. The lesson here, though, is that in the end the Sportster saved the company not be being a really superior motorcycle, but by changing how the riding public perceived The Motor Company. The bike succeeded in changing the company image. Once again, it all hinged on perception. Fast forward to the '90s, and we have Harley suddenly buying into Buell's tiny kit bike operation and telling him to take it into mass production. He was in over his head, and predictably, he did poorly, and the reputation of his bikes suffered. He soon discovered that kit bikes do not lend themselves to mass production. It wasn't until he could design a bike from the ground up that these problems were solved. That bike was the XB. And that, friends, brings us up to the present situation with Mr. Suzuki and his henchmen, whom he seems to take everywhere he goes, safety in numbers, I guess, and his so-called Buell board. What he and his friends at Sacborg have accomplished is to create and attempt to perpetuate a perception, using the dated engines and build problems of the tuber bikes, that buying a Buell is an irrational decision, and that people who buy them should think of their bikes as second-class motorcycles that need to go to the back of the bus whenever 'real'(read: Japanese) bikes are present. And of course they can recite their HP figures, track times, and list prices over and over ad nauseum to back their own little version of 'reality'. This is why is was so necessary in their minds to fight this whole winning comparos in the magazines thing tooth and nail. The whole idea of a Buell winning ANYTHING is anathema to the perception they are trying to preserve. The idea is to convince young riders that are considering Buells that only losers buy them, to keep sales down, and to eventually convince Harley that they are wasting their time and money on Buell, and that they should cut their losses and give up. I see Sagborg as much like those phony family planning clinics where you go in and instead of finding doctors and RNs you find religious fanatics that lecture you about talking responsibility for your 'sins' instead of doing anything to really help you. I suspect that they have already failed. The XB is a huge technological step forward from the tubers that they have never managed to fit into their arguments, only its engine works in their favor. Everything else is actually as good as or better than what the Japanese are doing. You could compare it to the '57 Sporty as a bike that was almost there. I think the Ulysess may well prove to be the '59 XLCH of our day. Like that bike, it seems to have broken through in the public's perception. It's 'cool' and 'hip' and in the words of General George Patton, it's 'hitting them where they ain't'. It really doesn't matter if it sets sales records, all it really has to do is change people's perception of the Buell company, and it seems to be succeeding. Moreover, it's pretty much out of Sacborg's reach. The Uly owners are already congregating at places like Advriders, where they have carved out a secure niche, and arguments based on HP, racing results, and lap times are less than meaningless. Even list price isn't much of an argument when its main competitor, the BMW GS, costs thousands more. Notice that Chop and his boys have said nothing so far about the Uly. That's because they were blind-sided by Erik's unexpected change of direction, and their whole construction of 'fact' which is based around sport bikes and racing, has no resource against Buell's new direction, where all that simply doesn't matter. Not even the engine matters that much for a bike that completes with BMWs and KTMs that make roughly similar amounts of power. Still, for all that, I believe that as long as Sacborg exists, it is a poisoned dagger in the side of Buell, simply because of the negative perception it perpetuates. Whether it became that way by intention or chance, it is truly an anti-Buell board, a place any true fan of the marque should avoid. So my advice to you is simple, Mr. Chop and Co, if you are REALLY Buell fans as you claim, do Buell and all the rest of us a favor and get honest, and openly turn Sac into the Suzuki board it already really is, and while you are at it, stop trying to perpetuate your arrogant and smug second-class Buell 'reality'. All you are succeeding in doing is turning yourselves into liars and hypocrites. It is in your own best interest. I suspect if you don't you will find yourselves eventually presiding over a board that exists in a time warp, left behind and becoming hopelessly out of step with the 21st century. Have a nice future. | ||
| Doughnut |
Please, let it go people. Is there anything that the other could say that would change your mind? I'm guessing not. I like to think that you are all up standing guys, you just are dug into your trench. This is going no where. Let it drop, I'll even buy first round.  Move along, move along. Nothing to see here.  |
