[Jeff Higgins]

I put almost 120,000 absolutely trouble free miles on my 2000 Road King, an 88 ci Twin Cam. It only died at the hands of an F250 that ran it (and my wife and I) over. I have a couple of riding buddies who topped 200,000 miles with their Twin Cams before deciding to rebuild them. My current 2013 only has 40,000 miles on it, but that's only because if I am riding solo, I usually choose my Ducati...

Really, the "proof is in the pudding". Harley suffers a good deal of criticism, but out in the real world, there are more riders riding Harleys than, quite literally, every other make combined. They have had a 50%-ish market share of "heavyweight" motorcycle sales for an awfully long time (decades, really). Let that sink in - the big four Japanese, the Italians, Germans, Brits, Austrians, and everyone else manufacturing "heavyweight" motorcycles (including Indian, their only "American" competitor) are fighting over what is somewhere around a 50% share. Harley are clearly providing something that riders are looking for, the critics be damned.

Pressed together roller crank? Meh... so what? If it provides a couple hundred thousand mile service life, most folks are going to be quite happy. No, it does not respond well to hot rodding it for significantly more power - it will twist all out of alignment. Is that Harley's problem? I hardly thing so. When used within its design parameters, it has proven to be an exceptionally long lived, trouble free design.

Harley did actually address this "problem" in its last generation XR750. They went to a plain bearing crank in that motor as power climbed over the years. They were able to keep the "knife and fork" rod bearing design, keeping the cylinders aligned longitudinally, so it does appear entirely possible. So why would they not incorporate this on their road bikes? It's actually much cheaper to manufacture. Seems "obvious", doesn't it? But none of us are Harley engineers. We don't have access to their data. Yet we criticize their decisions, believing we know better, and that there are "better" solutions that are "obvious" to us...