Easy there Malcolm.
Most of this so-called "Harley bashing" is just all in good fun. Or at least it is when I ride with my Harley buddies. I don't know how many times I've been ribbed about riding a Triumph, but I give it right back to them. Underneath it all though there's some respect given by both them and me.
Occasionally though I will come across a pack of rubs who think if it isn't a Harley, it isn't worth owning. I just blow off people like that and ingore them.
You do bring up an interesting point about the sport bike riders though. I like to think of them as the bikers/riders of 40 years ago. Back then pretty much all motorcyclists were seen as a bit nuts by the general public and scorned by most people. Today's "stuntas" have the same sort of stigma attached to them. They're seen as lawbreakers, punks on two wheels.
And just last night I was watching that new show on Speed, Super Bikes!. They had some guy on who says he gets paid thousands to do stunt shows, and he just ripped on Harley riders saying he couldn't understand why they put $40,000 into a machine. He said something like; "They throw all that money at their bikes so they can look good...I'd rather have a junky looking bike and show them how I look good actually riding the bike, taking it to the limit." What was ironic about this is that the next segment on the show was about blinging out a asport bike. They showed this guy working on a bike that had who knows how much money into a pair of spinner wheels, paint job, and all kinds of other nonfunctional mods.
Oh, and by the way...I have 42,000 miles on my 03 Speedmaster.
