Cross What?

As noted on here many times, I like a wide variety of bikes.  As long as it has two wheels and an engine, there's a pretty good chance I'm going to like it.

With that said, though, I tend to gravitate toward classic bikes and fast bikes.  I like the classic bikes for their looks and character and I like fast bikes because they're...Well, because they're fast.  Sometimes, though, something comes along that goes against all logic that I find myself attracted to.

An example of that is the Harley-Davidson Cross Bones, a Hog dressed-up to look like a 40s-50s bobber.

Yes, yes; I can hear the groaning already.  Before you start throwing tomatoes at me, allow me to explain.

I don't care at all for choppers and bobbers.  The idea of taking a capable machine and then removing all the capability of it seems ridiculous to me.  The Softail, though, was never meant to be capable.  It wasn't meant to carve corners, tackle rough terrain or tour the face of the Earth.  It was meant to look like a 40s Harley and it does that very well.  A Softail with a springer front end really goes the vintage route by using an obsolete front suspension system. 

In the sense of the Cross Bones, a "capable" bike wasn't ruined for the pursuit of style, thus allowing me to like it.  It's nice when you can make up your own rules.  That must be what being a politician is like.

Anyway, I like the Cross Bones because it's ridiculous.  It has next-to-no lean angle, there's not much in the way of comfort and the Softail is soft compared to getting smashed by a steel bar.  It also has the tires from a Willys Jeep.  Oh, how could I forget the factory apes and the all-covering black paint?  As if all that wasn't punishment enough, the Big Twin is rigid mounted to the frame.  This means the vibes go straight up your spine and into your brain, making you believe you're Chino from The Wild One.

Before you laugh and call this bike a dinosaur, there is some technology.  It has fuel injection, a security system and...Um...Rubber tires.  Okay, so high tech isn't high priority.  It's supposed to be a dinosaur.

I sat on one at the Progressive motorcycle show a few years ago and immediately felt that a bike like the Cross Bones was perfect for an irreverent ingrate like myself.  I don't take myself seriously at all and the Cross Bones is a bike I could never take seriously.  Even the name is ridiculous.  Cross Bones...That sounds like the name of a bad pirate from a bad movie.  I would so watch that movie, too.

I thought how funny it would be riding one around.  I then looked at the price and my eyes began to water and my sphincter clenched like I was on Riker's Island.  For strictly a laugh, then, I'll just buy a few Monty Python DVDs instead.

But I still like the Cross Bones.  It has that middle finger attitude the teenage rebel in us all finds attractive.  It isn't trying to outmaneuver or out-tech a Ducati Panigale; it isn't trying to be a green commuter bike or a globe-trotting adventurer.  It's take-no-prisoners attitude on wheels.  It thumbs its nose at convention, common sense and logic.  It makes you step back and question what it is about motorcycling that draws you to it.  Some, like me, enjoy riding a motorcycle because simply for the fun of it.  I think a bike like the Cross Bones is for people like that who want a laugh and who are not serious.

They better have deep pockets, though...