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Comment by abakker | Hacker News Reader

That second point is very important. I know a dozen motorcycle riders (only 1 harley owner), but all the bikes are used. With fewer parts, fewer features, and no phone/stereo/ac/heated seats/navigation/adaptive cruse control, there's not a lot of innovation in the actual ride of a motorcycle to buy.

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Motorcycles have also not kept up with the times on engine technology. They only began switching away from carburetors around 2005. Drag your feet on technological advancement, and your year-to-year product consequently changes less.

Suspension design has also remained really simple to my eyes compared to cars. Maybe it can't be improved, but the last major innovation/change in suspension was in the mid 70's with single shock design.

How many Harleys are still sold with hardtail rear ends? It's part of the aesthetic. It's not supposed to be comfortable. Or "safe".

they just look like hardtails but have hidden shocks.

Lame.

"They" is somewhat misleading. My 1995 BMW R1100GS has fuel injection, terrifying ABS, and fancy suspension-wishbone front and paralever rear (to deal with the shaft drive behavior).

Fair point, BMW has been ahead of the curve. Thank you. You could, in a way, look at them and say to the others, "This is where you should be!"

You say that like moving away from carburetors to complicated, error-prone computerized injection systems is a positive thing...

Modern fuel injection is miles ahead in reliability, but of course you can make shitty error prone versions of it - but so can you with a carburetors.

When you compare the rear suspension of modern mountain bikes to Harleys, it gets even worse. You get the overall impression that it is all about what is mechanically easy, not comfortable or performant.

For sure. I ride a 2000 CBR929RR. 150 horsepower, only weights ~ 435 lbs, and it's fuel injected. Sure, a brand new CBR1000RR has ~40 more HP and is 2 lbs lighter, but 150 is still ridiculous for a street bike. I can't get to the top of first gear at a legal speed anywhere in the state (Road America aside), and wouldn't anyway because you can't keep the front wheel on the ground at WOT passed 8-9k RPM. The only thing I'm really missing out on are the fancy electronics like traction and wheelie control, but who wants those anyway?

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