" No my old timers are not for sale.
My early 99 has and will be my all-time favorite bike.
I hope the G5 will insure me not wearing my 99 out doing basic transportation tasks."
CJ
Interesting comment, CJ. I think the new engine will be just what is predicted, something that no one will have to worry about "wearing out".
In the meantime, if I buy a G5 and if it has a kick lever, great, but if it's as poorly designed as the one on my Electra, I'll take it off so it doesn't get in the way of my leg and store it on the bike somewhere. If it doesn't have a kicker, that's also great.
Electricity has been around a lot longer than motorcycles, so I'm glad this is ONE issue that ain't even on my radar screen, and I'm just glad my Ford V10 truck doesn't have a hand crank like a model T, or chain drive like some other old trucks.
As far as selling the bikes, the lack of a kicker is not gonna hurt sales, because old heads will still buy one, they will just gripe and hold onto the old bikes, and the new crowd, which is the future, won't be in the least bit concerned that there's no kicker.
What will hurt RE, at least in America, is what was one of the nails in the original Brit bikes' coffins in America a long time ago (not the only one, to be sure, but one of them) and that was its inability to put sufficient product into the hands of the consumer.
If you want to sell here, people need to be able to see the product, and there needs to be plenty of dealers. It's a business axiom; insufficient product to sell, at least insufficient relative to ambitious expansion plans, means big trouble in little China.
Based on the sales growth RE wants in the US, as stated in the Cycle World article, RE needs to do more than just make a good machine.
The Studebaker Avanti was a wonderful car, since we're talking classics, but it didn't make it, when Corvette did, because they just couldn't get put enough of them into the hands of consumers like Chevy was able to do with the Corvette.
I'm NOT anti-anything or anybody, and I would love to see a vastly improved presence of RE on the streets in America, not only the UCE, but also a v twin RE, and a big side by side twin. I suppose I'm just personally disappointed concerning supply and product availabity problems that I've had, and I fear that RE's investment in the UCE could be threatened if it doesn't place product on showroom floors, and plenty of it.