Interesting conversation this weekend

[tkd]

I was fortunate enough to escape to a climate this weekend where motorcycles still roam free away from the confines of snow and ice and I ran into an interesting gentleman.

He was in his 70's and and ridden over 156,000 miles on bikes since retirement, always 2 up with his wife and they rode every single day even if it was just to the store and back, so I would say that the gentleman has a fair amount of saddle time.

He was riding a 2009 HD Heritage Softail, which alone is a beautiful bike. I showed him a pic of my Nomad and he commented that he had just traded a 2006 Nomad on this Harley, which he had gotten rid of at 38K due to a couple of problems and a lack of local dealer support.

I asked him how he liked the HD and he pulled me aside and told me that honestly, he didn't care for it. He said that on every bike he had owned, he always found a few things that he didn't care for but that on the HD he had a list a mile long. He also said that to be honest, he wished he had never bought the HD and that in his opinion, the Nomad was a much better bike than the HD. I found that interesting because this gentleman was totally honest and offered that unsolicited. I felt bad for him as I know the bike was at least 20K the way he had it equipped.

I asked him what the issues were on the Nomad. He said that at 38K, the clutch was ready to go, which I found to be possible. He also said he had a "flat spot" in the steering bearings that had developed from so much highway time in a straight line that it felt like he had to overcome a hump when turning. I have no clue if that is even possible, but he obviously felt it was true, so I chose to believe him. He also mentioned that he had a clutch "blow out" and be replaced by the dealer due to and overfill during maintenance that they acknowledged and replaced.

I just thought I would share another story about Nomads vs HD's