What up guys? Adrian from YouMotorcycle. The other day a question came in and it was why do so many Harley riders hate the
Harley-davidson Street 500 and 750 cc motorcycles. I think hate is a bit of a strong word
But I'm a Harley rider and I don't particularly like the Harley Davidson Street 500 or the 750
so I felt it was uniquely qualified or maybe not so uniquely qualified to
Answer the question of why I at least dislike it and why other people dislike it. Spoiler alert:
It has nothing to do with liquid cooling
It has nothing to do a small displacement size. I will tell you guys why it is that myself and a lot of other
People don't particularly like those bikes right after this
Welcome back guys keep in mind some of these reasons I do agree with some of them I don't so for example this first reason I don't
Necessarily agree with but a lot of people dislike the street for this reason: the motor is really a
non-conformist and non-traditional Harley motor. Harley Davidson's full name is the Harley Davidson Motor Company
the emphasis in their whole name is and has been for the last hundred or so years on
Their motors. The Street 500 750 represent a huge shift from Harley's typical motorcycle motor
Which is usually has a big
Air-cooled engine with push rods and big cooling fins and the street 750 and 500 are none of that
They don't look like feel like sound like or ride like your traditional Harley motorcycles
so if you're a
Harley traditionalist and a fan of that Harley experience or feeling, there's something really lacking here and that's one major reason why people
Dislike the street 500 750. The second reason and this is one thing that I totally agree with the overall quality and the finished package.
Compared to what you're used to from Harley Davidson, it leaves a really cheap
impressio. It's a really poor impression, you know one of those things where if it's your first motorcycle, you won't necessarily know better
But when you've been doing this for 10 or 12 years
your expectations of even an intermediate beginner bike is that much better, and
The Street 500 750 just really does not live up to people's expectations
Now, any motorcycle manufacturer today can produce a beginner friendly budget-friendly
Entry-level motorcycle, but there's the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it and it has to meet people's expectations
So, for example, I have this Vespa right over here
That's a very beginner friendly bike and it's everything it needs to be. It's an air-cooled bike. It's a very simple single cylinder
It's not going to outperform anything, but people don't expect that from Vespa
But let's say we take a look at Harley Davidson or one of their competitors, Yamaha
We look at Yamaha what they've done with their entry-level bike
I'm talking of course about the Yamaha r3 it's inspired by the r6 which is their super popular
600 cc Super Sport that they're really known for the r3 is kind of a scaled-down
price down version of that but what the Yamaha r3 does really really well is it totally
Outperforms its competition. It beats out the CBR it beats out the Ninja all of its own size
And so it doesn't just have a great quality aesthetic. It has a good fit and finish
It has decent components for the price that you're paying and then lastly it beats out its competitors
so
by contrast we got talking about how does Harley's entry-level bike the Street 500 and Street 750 compared to the competition and the answer is
Not good, see whether we're talking about quality of parts fit and finish
reliability or performance the street 500 and 750 motorcycles
they aren't winning against the competition and I
know there's probably a couple Street 500 750 fanboys who are out there and I want you guys to
do me a favor next time you're looking at your bike take a look at the welds along your frame and
Take a look at
Where the cables go into your hand controls and you see those exposed wires
You see those really thick ugly welds on the bike then take a look at other motorcycles in the Harley dealership and see how much
Better finished and better built all of the other Harley's are and you'll understand why people like me
Expect a lot more from Harley Davidson
It just screams out cheaply made especially in comparison to everything else Harley's doing we haven't seen a bike from Harley Davidson
That's been this bad since the AMF years and that's something else that Harley fans
We don't we don't talk about that
But there's a link in the description below if you guys want to read more and I know what I mean
see in the eyes of Harley Davidson owners your Harley should if not outperform its competition then at least outshine and
outlast it and
The street 500 and the street 750 motorcycles just really do none of these things and guys
It's not just these two big things of you know
A different style of motor and the fit and finish and quality and performance being subpar compared to both the rest of the Harley brand
As well as compared to even its own competitors
There's a lot of other little things that also just really weaken the Street 500 and the Street 750's reputation.
When Harley first
Announced this motorcycle one thing that they did that irked
a lot of people was they announced that it would not be necessarily manufactured entirely in the United States.
For foreign markets Harley would actually be building a factory that would be producing them overseas.
This bothered a lot of people because it meant that Harley wasn't
Producing those bikes in the United States to ship to the rest of the world which mean more jobs and more money in the U.S.A.
It actually meant that Harley was shifting production into foreign markets, which was going to hurt American workers
and that was one reason why a lot of people were
Not so hot for the street family
I actually just did a video and story on this that I linked to in the little description box down below
you guys can check it out about how
Harley-davidson actually just closed down another one of their factories in the US while at the same time
They're popping up a bunch of factories overseas
And it talks about what happened and how it's been received by people
even Harley's own dealers don't want to necessarily push the vehicle the street bikes because
You know dealers and the salespeople their business is really reliant on their credibility and they know that they have a product
That's kind of subpar compared to its competitors. So even the guys who are supposed to be selling them
Just don't want to sell them to make betters worse
The brakes on the street are really bad compared to some hot air motorcycles standards and others 750 CC class bikes
Especially but I mean on the plus side the performance is pretty terrible. So you're probably not gonna be going that fast anyway
One common complaint about this bike is that the mirrors are basically useless
a lot of people are replacing them right off the get-go because they just it doesn't really fit the bike and
It just shows you that even Harley themselves when they were making this bike
It was it was something that they made because the consultants came in and said you guys have to do this in the county department
Was like we really need to do this to have an entry level bike
But it shows just the amount of disinterest that the company had in
Making the bike it
They didn't care as far as reliability is concerned. I mean just look up the number of people who have had recalls
There's like this whole street leg and leap issue. And I think there's a couple other known issues with the bike. The
bikes got issues
It's got issues. It's like it's like my ex-girlfriend from high school a lot of issues
*trumpets*
So guys in conclusion
Let me just tell you that I was actually working for Harley Davidson
when the street came out and was available up here in Canada, and I remember just being like
*sigh* like really disappointed because
Before that I had worked on the sales floor of a dealership
And I know that like when you're not crazy about the bike, it really sucks trying to sell it
You're like, yeah, you could buy it I guess
But it's it's a bad experience. It really sucks
And I had high hopes and then I saw the Street in person and I was like, oh... And my boss was like
"It's great, right?!" and I was like, "yeah!?", but it wasn't great. It was not.
Not good. So don't buy into
anybody telling you all Harley guys just don't like the street because it's liquid-cooled or because doesn't have push rods or because it's small and
Dainty, it's not that it's just that as far as products goes
It's inferior in so many ways not just to other Harley's but to other
Bikes in the 750cc class my bike kick-ass 750 CC for like half the price is twice as good check out this Aprilia Shiver 750
I had in the corner. That is a sweet, sweet bike. It's got like ride by wire mode
So you have like a race mode a touring mode with a rain mode
That's a really awesome bike and you can get them on the used market for like a fraction of the price of a new Street
It's a no-brainer. The Street should be so much better than what it is because you can make an awesome, awesome, awesome
750 cc motorcycle and it is not THAT bike. The reality is that
Harley Davidson could have made just that wicked cool little machine
You know like Yamaha riders who ride an r6 or an r1, they don't hesitate to recommend the r3 but Harley riders
We're not recommending the street because Harley could have made something that was really really cool. And
Instead they made an even uglier Honda Rebel. UGH!!
Boom shots fired the rebel owners and at the street owners. I'm getting no new subscribers for this video
So that's it for me guys. I'm getting out of here
If you watch this far and you liked this video, please hit that like button. Please hit the subscribe button, too
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So if you guys can hit that like and subscribe it would mean a lot to me. Thank you guys so much
I'm Adrian from YouMotorcycle.com. I have a full article all about this topic
You can check that out down comments below that is it guys peace ride safe