Alllllrighty Then

Hey Tiger, many of us also ride other stiles of bikes,
I also ride a cbr blackbird and a small ninja 250, so you are not even close to ofend anybody (yet):D
 
I think I know where you're coming from. I also think I can probably answer a lot of your questions as I've owned a Rocket and currently own a Thunderbird and a Tiger 1050. I've never once scraped pipes on the Thunderbird; not sure that's possible. You can, however, grind the hero pegs, curb feelers (whatever you want to call them) into nubs. I've scraped mine many times. That said, the TBird is a fantastic handling bike, for a cruiser. BUT, it is a cruiser and ALL cruisers have that same annoying issue for those of us from sport bike backgrounds and that's lean angle issues.

My tip to you is not to go down the path of trying to make a cruiser into something it's not. I LOVE my TBird, but there's no way I could ever be happy with owning it, or any other cruiser, as my only bike. Do yourself a favor and get another Tiger or get a Speed Triple or Sprint ST or GT. If you still want a cruiser, buy one of those too. If you buy used, you could get a Tiger 1050 and a Thunderbird for around $16-17K.
 
No offense to any T-bird riders out there, but all I could say to the factory rep after I rode the T-bird at my local dealer's open house was; "You'd better check the set up on that bike! I think it dropped a cylinder.":D

No lie... it felt like a kid's tricycle or a really tired old Harley compared to the Rock.:confused:

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

BTW, Catnuts, er, I mean Tigerballs, there is no other stock bike engine made which offers as much potential for upgrading as the three cylinder mill in the R3.;)
 
When the Thunderbird first came out I hated it, primarily because it used a model name from the early Hinckley days - when I cut my teeth on Triumph.

Since then, I've warmed up to it a bit more. Maybe someday ...
 
That was my take as well when I conducted the test rides last summer. AWFULly choppy throttle response on the 104 CI, felt like the timing was really off. I would have bought a Thruxton over the over priced T-Bird. Why do they cost more than a Roadster?


EDIT; Perhaps some one wiser than myself which would be most everyone:eek:can explain why the T-Bird is priced higher than the Rocket III Roadster if I remember what the MSRP tags on each bike said last summer. Two of us don't get it(see next post). They are nice bikes and I like the paint offerings and I think I understand the market niche they are trying to fill.
 
That's a really good question Outlaw.:confused:

Personally, if i wanted to get back on a V-Twin bruiser cruiser I'd be looking at the VTX 1800 (definitely the best out there for the price $7-8K will buy you alot of motorcycle)), an M109R and several models in the Victory lineup. The V-Rod and V_Max are great bikes but I'd put them in a sub-category of their own.

Again, no offense intended to T-bird owners or to Triumph at large, but the Thunderbird really left me flat.
 
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