Stratkat
2013-02-09 12:37:00 UTC
what has happened to visual design? i mean its out there, to my eye Ducati and KTM are cutting edge, they make some great looking bikes that happen to go as well as they look. do you guys factor this in when looking for a bike?
Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, BMW, all make bikes that i could nowhere use their performance to the max, but they just look so bland to me (well maybe not the SR1000R). i im curious as to why Ducati and KTM have great looking machines while the majority of motorcycles today look like, well, Toyota/Nissan/Hyundais.
what do you guys think makes for a bike that stirs your soul and why... and be honest
scamb66
2013-02-09 12:55:00 UTC
Now not saying I overly like it but Honda's new crop of X-Overs with the high waist line is at least something different, whether it will be game changing I highly doubt it. Remember the DN-01?
As for soul stirring, maybe the 675 Brutale (best looking zorsts on the market), Panigale (again Italian) or pretty much any sport v-twin. Hard to get a hard-on for anything non European.
I dont like the look of the early SD but it stirs my soul like none before, bit like getting the best head job you have ever had from an ugly bird (sorry Chicky).
Stratkat
2013-02-09 13:05:00 UTC
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scamb66
2013-02-09 13:14:00 UTC
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TLS_Russ
2013-02-09 13:35:00 UTC
For me nothing made after 2005/2006 has any appeal at all, some are nice to look at but thats about it............
I just bought a new fridge freezer......... kinda reminds me of a BMW S1000R
CEREC1
2013-02-09 15:07:00 UTC
jambox
2013-02-09 15:24:00 UTC
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CEREC1
2013-02-09 15:32:00 UTC
jambox
2013-02-09 15:35:00 UTC
It is nice, in a different to the norm kind of way.
TLS_Russ
2013-02-09 16:08:00 UTC
TLS_Russ
2013-02-09 16:44:00 UTC
tigerstyletroy
2013-02-09 17:57:00 UTC
Stratkat
2013-02-10 11:57:00 UTC
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MADDOG53
2013-02-10 14:02:00 UTC
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TLS_Russ
2013-02-10 15:21:00 UTC
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jmann
2013-02-10 20:58:00 UTC
He likes things that are practical and low tech like magneto's and wheels that are interchangeable. Maybe even
centre stands Today, of course, a vast majority of high performance
bikes are fully faired and I think herein lies the problem: That it is pretty hard to make a fully faired bike have a
shape that remotely different from anything else. Having said that I think that even those manufacturers that
do produce Nakeds have forgotten why it is that people like nakeds.
If I was at Kiska at the top of my list would be "Give them things to look at".
With the 1290 prototype I think they have listened that's why the prototype has no airbox (wow look at the secondary throttles go)
and why it has a SSS. That's stage one of making a bike look interesting/different. The next stage is making the overall
look interesting. Some manufacturers have made their bikes look like insects, some like bulls, some just aggressive. The 05
SD was the latter. It achieved this with the tank shape and that fook awful battery spoiler. On fully faired bikes a lot of
manufacturers settled for paint schemes. KTM made the RC8 which really was a bit different insofar as it had interesting
shapes in the plastic.
I don't know where bike design is going but I suspect that a lot of bike sales are based on performance figures. I think
it is unlikely that we'll see a naked capable of doing 300kph so there are certain economic constraints. I also think that
there is a lot of interest in nakeds and an emerging interest. It's only when that interest is sufficient to trade off absolute
performance that designers will yet again have the freedom to make bikes interesting. Perhaps we'll see some company
offering the same model with or without covers in the near future.
MADDOG53
2013-02-10 21:31:00 UTC
Linga
2013-02-10 22:10:00 UTC
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DribbleDuke
2013-02-10 22:58:00 UTC
Bored is not what I am when waliking through a parking lot full of motorcycles or a salesfloor with new and used bikes. I was just at a coupla local dealers the last couple of days. If I have some tyme to kill, I will peruse the offerings in such.
The last case was drooling over the Ducati 848, KTM 950 Adventure, BMW R1200GS , Niel Hodgson Ducati 999 in Parts Unlimited livery, Kawasaki Versys, to name a few.
There are many bikes that hit homeruns with me. The SuperDuke was not purchased for reasons of design in art excelleance, it was in the fact that the bike just excelled at its intended use. My V-Stroms were three ugly ducklings, yet I will be forever hard pressed to find a steed that handle thier tasks better.
The bike that nails all the artistic requirements to fall into the term beautiful to me, may fall short to others. This particular bike that comes to mind is Desmosedici.
Honda is failing in the spark the fire category for me also. I even think Triumph may have sparkeout a bit.
No blanket statements about design....
Stratkat
2013-02-11 13:45:00 UTC
nampus
2013-02-11 14:07:00 UTC
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Colonel_Klinck
2013-02-11 14:33:00 UTC
TLS_Russ
2013-02-11 14:44:00 UTC
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Aphex
2013-02-11 15:15:00 UTC
Stock:
Modded, would ride:
MADDOG53
2013-02-11 19:59:00 UTC