Motorcycling: Why I have a Kawasaki not a Harley

I really don't get asked this question very often by people who know me. But "Why don't I ride a Harley Davidson."? Instead I am currently riding a Kawasaki 900 Vulcan LT, which I bought at a store. I also own and sometimes ride two 1970 Honda CD175's, and sometimes I can be seen riding Mary Ann's Burgman 400 step-through. And, to be fair I have ridden Harleys, a couple that belonged to friends and one I rented in Florida. I don't have anything against riding a Harley, I just happen to ride something else that strikes my fancy more.

But the question is directed at the bike I currently would call my main ride, that Kawasaki Vulcan 900. It looks like a Harley, and sounds like a Harley, the only thing is, it is not a Harley and therefore I lose out on all the credibility that I might acquire by owning a genuine Harley, and for another it is unpatriotic to own a vehicle from a country that bombed us at Pearl Harbour.

First let me address the patriotic issue. Japan didn't bomb "us", Japan bombed the United States naval station at Pearl Harbour. The United States is a separate country that has not yet given me permission to vote, and I am not even allowed to visit because I don't have a passport. A lot of Canadians are confused on this issue, at the big Toronto bike show, Harley Davidsons are registered as "domestic" motorcycles while Kawasaki is "foreign". This is the same problem we have with movies, where we also don't understand the meaning of domestic or foreign. To rent the movie "Jesus of Montreal", you must look in the "foreign movies" section at Rogers TV.  In case you were wondering, Montreal is in Canada, and the movie was made in Canada, by all Canadian people. Yes, we Canadians consider ourselves to be foreigners in Canada. But getting back to Harley Davidsons and patriotism, we have been bombed by the USA more than by Japan (who never bombed us), and we still get bomb threats from the USA, compared to none by Japan. So I will let the patriotic issue drop for now, although there is still a lot more to say on this issue.

Why does that Kawasaki have to look like a Harley?  The Kawasaki Vulcan does not look like a Harley to someone who knows bikes, it looks more like an Indian. Of course that's splitting hairs. But for sure it doesn't look Japanese. I have seen bikes designed by the Japanese for Japanese people, and they do not look good to me. Honda and Kawasaki figured this out in the sixties, and decided to make their bikes  look somewhat like British bikes, to boost sales. That's when British bikes were the most popular in America. Then, as the fickle western tastes changed in the eighties and nineties,  the Japanese switched to making their bikes look like American bikes from the thirties.

The Japanese produce bikes that are shape-shifters. Essentially they can design a bike in ten minutes to look and sound like anything you want. Apparently we want bikes that look like Harleys, so that's how they make them. Inside, the Japanese bikes are completely different. The "look" is achieved by sticking plastic covers all over the engine to make the engine look old American style. Internally, under the plastic outer cover, the engine is actually very good: reliable and efficient.

So a recap: I buy Japanese bikes because they are slightly better bikes than Harley at about half the price. I don't worry if people think I am not a patriotic American, because I am not, I am actually Canadian. I am not a person who buys a bike for the brand recognition, as I need a bike to ride, not to attract chicks. I also worry about money, and I would rather rebuild a 35 year old Honda 175 with my own money and tools, than borrow money at no dollars down, zero percent financing to buy a shiny new Harley. I don't want to rebuild a 1970 Harley because it would still not be reliable, and I own metric tools and don't like the fractional measures of the SAE tools.

And that's the short answer to why I don't ride a Harley. The picture is a Photoshop of me getting a push on my Honda, which you can tell by the smile, is easier to push than a Harley.