RE: oilheads-digest V1 #49

["Stan Rife" <srife@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Don MacQueen wrote:

> Current styling is stale.
> 
> 100 honest RWHP
> 
> At least 75 fewer pounds.
> 
> The ability to have ABS exclusive of linked brakes or servo assist.
> 

Which manufacturer comes closest to giving you the things you would like to
see in a BMW? Is there a bike that you consider the perfect one? 
 

> 
> >Like I said in my previous post, BMW is
> >not going to make a tailor made bike to anyone's specifications.  They
> >make
> >them to their specifications and you just have to live with it.
> 
> No, I don't.  I'm living with their 1975 and 1995 specifications just
> fine.  I want their 2005 specification to be technologically and
> aesthetically in the same half decade as the rest of the industry.

Well, if you want a BMW you'll have to live with it. BMW sure seems to be
selling a lot of those technologically, and aesthetically challenged
machines.

> 
> >	What do you find in other bikes that you have bought that BMWs do
> >not have.
> 
> Sadly, what I have found is most of what BMW offers (excluding the
> "mystique") at lower purchase and operating costs, with equal or
> greater reliabilty.

Well, there you go! Sounds like you have found your bike. Which brand and
model would that be?


> I've said it many times.  I probably couldn't be closer to BMW
> Motorrad's core demographic, particularly since I'm a multi previous
> owner.  I should be an *easy* sale for BMW.  Smart companies please
> the core first.  BMW seems to be ignoring that group, *and* seems to
> be standing still technologically and stylistically.  If they do
> that, my RS (and apparently for him, Robert's two RSs) will be just
> fine.

Well, it is a shame that we can not all have exactly what we want in a 2
wheel mount. But, as a wise philosopher once said: You cant please all the
people all the time. I think the manufacturers try to give the public what
they think they want. Sometimes this works out and sometimes it doesn't. If
BMW makes enough people unhappy, sales will suffer and then they will HAVE
to change something. Currently, I would say that is not the case.

Stan Rife
Houston, TX
1999 R1100RT

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