I am seriously embarrassed. I've been so preoccupied with other things I've forgotten all about Highland. The have a production facility in Tulsa Oklahoma, and will build to order. And apparently they have tall seats. The other details such as bike weight, HP, or even where to find a dealer I cannot find. It seems they are doing a couple of things fairly innovative such as an 'ordering kiosk'. Their website is a bit hard for me to navigate. I will pay more attention to them!
I was pretty excited about these a few years ago when they were still in the prototype stages. The final product doesn't look all that more refined than some of the proto's we saw earlier. It is cool to see another player in the game though. That dirt tracker calls my name everytime I see it. :ride:
Colo, I agree the mechanics are super tough and no doubt well engineered, but it looks like she needs a little bit of modern styling polish, the look needs more bling/flash (my opinion only). Black and Yellow are a great singular color combo ( the caution/beware colors), just think she needs a little more flash to let her presence be known.
Ya, from everything I have heard and read they are real strong runners. I think performance wise they are in the ballpark, they just need to work on the fit and finish a little. It still looks like a first gen prototype.
They done suprisingly well in the few GNCC's they raced considering their rider had no previous GNCC experience. Here is a little video from the florida racehttp://vimeo.com/9927992
Isn't that the motor the old Falon motor from the late 90"s. I rumored to put out big numbers and little weight.
Who I believe also designed a great motor for the Cannondale before in their infinite wisdom of never having built a motor before Cannondale thought they could do it better. Had they stuck with Folan we might all be riding Cannondales.
^^ yep, it was in the original test mule for Cannondale and I totally agree....if they kept the sourced Folan motor, things probably would have been a lot different. Anyway, these Highlands are very interesting, that 507 is looking pretty good, especially with the built to personal spec stuff. Couldn't even imagine the 950 Dez sled, that pipe looks awfully vulnerable though.
Wow...I thought our Husky's were tall...these babies are almost 40"! They might be good bikes, but they have a long way to go when it comes to polish.
Their 350 Trail is only 33.5 at the seat. Looks like we have to wait until the 3rd quarter for additional info.
Will be interesting to see if they make any waves with these bikes. I have a friend that does some contracted work for them and says the bikes have a long ways to go to be as refined as the usual production motorcycle. The stainless steel frame makes no sense to me from an engineering standpoint. The bikes look coby and old school. If they refine them they might have something but there is sure a lot more refined and proven bikes out there for a lot less $$$. Time will tell.
I thought the same thing. So about a year ago I asked someone in the "highland loop" about it. He said that it was a new steel alloy, but they were calling it stainless for marketing purposes. Not sure how much water that holds, but that's what I was told. I'm with you, if I was designing a bike from the ground up, the last two materials I would consider for the frame would be stainless and wood.
Calling something 'stainless steel' covers a wide range of alloys, just as in Aluminium. I make bicycle and motorcycle frames, in a variety of metals. Check out Reynolds 953 tubing for an example of just how good 'stainless steel' can be. It is an incredible material to make a frame out of, so far even surpassing the 853 I've made frames out of for years. But it is frighteningly expensive stuff.
