[gilla]

Hi,
this is andreas from germany. I am a little bit more than 50 years old, married and we have together two boys.
I ride motorcyle since it was allowed for me. In 1983 i bought my first new superglide. Later on i stoped for a while and drove only roadster from some brands, because our kinds are small. Then i started again with an russian sidecar, just for fun. Later i bouhgt on a trip in america an old Kawasaki Z900 and exported it to germany, renewed all and had a lot of fun with the bike, because with the age of 19 in the past i had the same as a brandnew bike. I thougz i could catch the age back, but it did not work! But every time i was watching the noise from a Harley. My wife said: "Buy it, otherwise sometimes it is too late". So i bouht in 2008 a new fatboy in vivid black, fit other exhaust and an hypercharger and some chrome parts. Happy! Then my wife said: It is also a dream for me to ride by myself". So she make her licence and we bougt for her an Sportster 1200 custom from 2007.
Thats all! Good trip for everyone and back my pardon for my english
andreas

 

[Dylan's Pop]

Don't worry about the English, it's better than most of ours. Great story, congratulations to your wife. I hope you guys are getting a lot of enjoyment out of riding together. My wife is going to start riding, I can't wait.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[gilla]

Thank you for your welcome.
I ride a lot in the past with my kids. With the younger nearly 20.000 km. Now both are riding Vespa scooter with 125cc. They are not willing to ride again with mom and dad! So i am very happy that i can now ride togehter with my wife. I ride my fatboy now only with the soloseat and my wife is also loking for a soloseat, it lookes cooler
wishes
Andreas

 

[HugoBetz]

Vielen gruss aus America.
I was born in Tauberbischofsheim and came to America as a young boy with my family. Glad to hear from a fellow deutscher. Willkommen!
:beer:

 

[Michael Psycle]

gilla - Welcome to the site. What kind of reaction do you get from other German riders when they see you riding an American bike?

 

[07 STREETGLIDE]

Hi,
this is andreas from germany. I am a little bit more than 50 years old, married and we have together two boys.
I ride motorcyle since it was allowed for me. In 1983 i bought my first new superglide. Later on i stoped for a while and drove only roadster from some brands, because our kinds are small. Then i started again with an russian sidecar, just for fun. Later i bouhgt on a trip in america an old Kawasaki Z900 and exported it to germany, renewed all and had a lot of fun with the bike, because with the age of 19 in the past i had the same as a brandnew bike. I thougz i could catch the age back, but it did not work! But every time i was watching the noise from a Harley. My wife said: "Buy it, otherwise sometimes it is too late". So i bouht in 2008 a new fatboy in vivid black, fit other exhaust and an hypercharger and some chrome parts. Happy! Then my wife said: It is also a dream for me to ride by myself". So she make her licence and we bougt for her an Sportster 1200 custom from 2007.
Thats all! Good trip for everyone and back my pardon for my english
andreas

Willkommen bei San Diego Ca

 

[gilla]

Dear gent's, thanks for the warm welcome. Vielen Dank für die freundliche Begrüßung.
Ich wünsche allen eine gute und vor allem unfallfreie Fahrt ( good ride without accident)
Hello Michael, i want to ask about your question what the people think from american :
The most of them think " bad quality with a very high price"!! Quality compare to yapanese bikes. But all of theme know the mythos "legendary Harley Davidson" and if the could, most of them would also buy a harley. But, compare to the price, it is not possible for everybody. If we compare the price in USA, for us it feels absolutly cheap to ride harley in USA! In my case, i bought my fatboy in the netherlands and the sportster for my wife in UK, because cheaper. Also i ordered parts from ChicargoHarley and a friend of mine in Florida, including tax and transportation quite cheaper. So, back to the question, to ride motorcyle in germany is a kind of luxury, to top this is to ride Harley.
It is so exclusive, that everyone accept the "poor" quality.
Resümee: i and all of my friends like and enjoy to ride Harley and a lot of people wish and dream the same.
good ride
andreas

 

[Michael Psycle]

Dear gent's, thanks for the warm welcome. Vielen Dank für die freundliche Begrüßung.
Ich wünsche allen eine gute und vor allem unfallfreie Fahrt ( good ride without accident)
Hello Michael, i want to ask about your question what the people think from american :
The most of them think " bad quality with a very high price"!! Quality compare to yapanese bikes. But all of theme know the mythos "legendary Harley Davidson" and if the could, most of them would also buy a harley. But, compare to the price, it is not possible for everybody. If we compare the price in USA, for us it feels absolutly cheap to ride harley in USA! In my case, i bought my fatboy in the netherlands and the sportster for my wife in UK, because cheaper. Also i ordered parts from ChicargoHarley and a friend of mine in Florida, including tax and transportation quite cheaper. So, back to the question, to ride motorcyle in germany is a kind of luxury, to top this is to ride Harley.
It is so exclusive, that everyone accept the "poor" quality.
Resümee: i and all of my friends like and enjoy to ride Harley and a lot of people wish and dream the same.
good ride
andreas

Interesting what you say about relative prices. In America, German cars and motorcycles have a reputation for being very expensive to maintain. Things like general maintenance seem to run higher on German cars and bikes then they do on American or Japanese products.

Earlier this year I did a cross country motorcycle ride. Because my FXR is almost 20 years old, I decided I wanted something newer and with less mileage. So I purchased a 1999 BMW K1200LT with 36,000 miles on it for the trip. I was fortunate that I was also given a folder which contained all the service records of the motorcycle from the previous owner. I went over what had happened to the bike, and what it had cost the previous owner to maintain the bike. My impression was that it cost the previous owner a lot more to maintain the bike then if had owned a Goldwing or an Electra Glide. Over the years he had all sorts of small leaks which required replacing of gaskets, seals, etc. And it was very expensive for each of these repairs. All these repairs were done at one of several local dealers. I was able to talk with the mechanics who worked on the bike over the years and they confirmed that it cost a lot to maintain a BMW because there are so many complex systems where if a little thing went wrong, it often too many hours of labor charges to repair.

I sold the bike after I completed the cross country ride in May when I put on 7,000 miles (10,000k) and passed through 16 states in 23 days. I didn't really like the bike. There were a number of nice things about the bike but it was too big for me and too unwieldy.

So next summer when I plan on doing a 4,000 mile trip all over the western part of the US, I think I will take the fxr. It is simpler in a way I like. It now has 95,000 miles on it and I am quite happy with it. I've had it since it was new so I know the cost to maintain the bike over the years. My impression is that it would have cost me a lot more to ride the same miles on a BMW.

This is not meant to cast any aspersions on the BMW. It is a fine motorcycle. I just like my fxr more.

 

[LarryM]

Welcome to the Forum.

Should I say 'Guten Tag' or 'Gross Gott'?

Lots of great motorcycle roads in Germany, especially in Bayern und Schwarzwald.

 

[gilla]

Hi Larry,
Guten Tag( Hello) is absolutly correct in whole germany. In Bavaria the people say "Hello" with Grüß Gott not Gross Gott. Meaning is a little bit diff. Gross like great but "Grüß Gott" means " if you see God say Hello to him" Grüß= Hello to the other.
I hope this expanation is ok for you. But i am happy, that so many people knows some german words.
Hi Michael: intresting information! In case of my friends who ride BMW, for everyone in example it is no problem to remove the rear wheel by semself if a new tyre is nessersary. It is easy and logical. In case of Harley, itis a little bit diff. If i remove my rear wheel from my fatboy the first problem is the tool with inch. You have to buy, because nobody need it. Next step it is a heavy job, not easy. So automaticly many of the users went to a dealer for every thing. And this is expensive. Harley Europe also did everything to tell the customer "yor are one of the best" and you have to pay. I think the maintenance cost for an harley are more than double than the cost for a ***-bike and higher than a bmw.
andreas

 

[Michael Psycle]

If i remove my rear wheel from my fatboy the first problem is the tool with inch. You have to buy, because nobody need it.

Andreas,

In America, many Harley owners have also owned metric cars or motorcycles, so most of us have two sets of wrenches.

Michael