It’s already been noted by Barry and Kenny in the comments, and happily, it appears to be the genuine article.
Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck makes Harley-Davidson do a U-turn on woke policies
Conservative boycotts evidently work wonders.Conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck announced on X Monday that under threat of boycott and amidst a concerted pressure campaign, the 121-year-old motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson has scrapped various leftist initiatives.
“We did it again,” wrote Starbuck. “3 for 3. The left fears what I’m doing because it’s effective. The attacks will increase with the plan we have but we have a plan and it accounts for the arrows that will be fired at us. We won’t slow down for anyone.”
Blaze News previously reported that Starbuck and others blasted Tractor Supply, a company established in 1938, for mandating that its employees undergo “LGBTQIA+ training,” for funding sex-change mutilations through its health plan, and for sponsoring so-called family-friendly transvestite performances, as well as for other leftist initiatives.
The exposure was evidently too much to handle, as Tractor Supply announced on June 27 that it had taken the “feedback to heart” and would no longer volunteer data to the powerful LGBT activist group that calls itself the Human Rights Campaign; would ditch “DEI roles and retire [its] current DEI goals”; and would jettison its carbon emission goals.
When similarly targeted for liberation, John Deere similarly traded the LGBT colors back for the red, white, and blue, indicating it would “no longer participate in or support external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals, or events” and would be taking additional steps to shore up customer trust.
Last month, Starbuck launched his latest campaign: a boycott of Harley-Davidson, a once-beloved motorcycle manufacturer founded in 1903.
In a series of social media posts and videos, he provided fuel for a Bud Light-style boycott, alleging that the company:
- supports legislation that would enable men to enter “girl’s bathrooms, sports and locker-rooms”;
- required thousands of employees to undertake training on “how to become LGBTQ+ allies”;
- was a founding member of Wisconsin’s LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce — a group that opposed a law that would have saved children from sex-change mutilations;
- celebrated two additional “Months of Inclusion” beside so-called Pride Month;
- worked on having “less White suppliers, dealers and employees”;
- partnered yearly with “Pride Ride”; and
- partnered with the Human Rights Campaign on non-straight activism, ultimately securing a 90/100 rating on the HRC’s CEI index.
Starbuck also highlighted some statements made and actions taken by the company’s German-born CEO, Jochen Zeitz, that might prickle customers, including:
- his boast that his corporate activism had at least one peer calling him the “sustainable Taliban”;
- signing of a joint letter to the COP28 presidency demanding an end to fossil fuels;
- criticism of President Donald Trump for leaving the Paris Agreement;
- committal of Harley-Davidson to the UN Global Compact; and
- advocacy for DEI.
“I don’t think the values at corporate reflect the values of nearly any Harley Davidson bikers,” wrote Starbuck. “Do Harley riders want the money they spend at Harley to be used later by corporate to push an ideology that’s diametrically opposed to their own values?”
Whatever pressure Americans helped apply in concert with the conservative filmmaker appears to have been enough.
At noon on Monday, Harley-Davidson stated on X, “We are saddened by the negativity on social media over the last few weeks, designed to divide the Harley-Davidson community. As a Company, we take this issue very seriously, and it is our responsibility to respond with clarity, action and facts.”
Harley-Davidson claimed that pursuant to an internal stakeholder review initiated earlier this year, the company has kicked its supplier diversity spend goals to the curb and does not have hiring quotas. It noted further that its “DEI function” has been dead since April 2024 and the company does “not have a DEI function today.”
More yet at the link, all of it heady, enheartening stuff. Sincerest kudos and a hearty Yo Ho Ho for swashbuckling “Normalcy Advocate” Robbie Starbuck, who says he very much digs his new title, as well he might. I know plenty of CF Lifers don’t much care one way or the other about Harley-Davidson, which is their good right. Ultimately, though, the Motor Company being hauled off into Wokester oblivion would have been another resounding victory for the Goosesteppin’ Left—something we can ill-afford more of, greasy, grubby bikers and cage-driving squarejohns alike. So good on ya, Mr Starbuck sir, keep up the fine work.
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My HD store is the oldest dealership in Florida in the oldest town in America. I know the owner and he is very conservative. He knows who his customers are and 90% of the floor staff are good looking young women who know their products and services. Any purchase gets a follow up call the next day asking about their experience in the store and what they can do better. I have an 18 tear old Electraglide and I have been riding motorcycles for over 50 years. This is the only bike I bought new and I have had all different brands of bikes.
Re: HD’s situation: Who cares?
The notable thing is that LGBTQWERTY support is a mile wide, and an inch deep, and HD’s not willing to juggle any more lit road flares in a pool of gasoline, unlike, say, Buddweiser.
Or, if you prefer, they’re not willing to undergo a choppadickoffame operation at the corporate level.
On that basis it’s encouraging.
When they don’t just throttle back (no pun intended) on that silliness, but instead begin to actively repudiate it, that will be a milestone worth noting.
And when they post the press release and photos of the every idiot who led this jackassical campaign, who have subsequently been fired for cause, then it will become actually praiseworthy.
If they’re not willing to display their figuratively-severed heads on their website, with a profound apology for ever undertaking such stupidity to begin with, they’re trying to have this both ways, nobody will buy it, and that still won’t fly.
It’s past time to pretend a tie is a win.
No one’s swallowing that horsedropping sauce since the Korean War.
I for one. While I agree with what you said, I care about all American icons because they are American 🙂
Never owned a HD, have not ridden bikes in many years, but I am considering something for my old age, either a Triumph Bonneville (60’s) or HD Sportster. Every old man needs a two wheel toy with a motor.
The new Thai-rumphs (so called because they’re made in Vietnam; the ones manufactured in Old Blighty stay in-country, the rest hail from Gooklandia) are super-nice, a close friend of mine has/had one for several years, up until the night he damned near killed his fool self on it. All his fault, not the bikes. It sure was a purty, sweet-running and -handling thing up until he totalled it, the dumbass.
As for the Sporties, any Evo-motor XL from 2006 and earlier–ie, before fuel injection came in; God hates computers on H-D’s and will assuredly smite anybody blasphemous enough to ride one–is the way to go. The Evo Sporty mill is far and away the best engine Harley ever made, or ever will make. The last engine that looks like a Harley, feels like a Harley, and sounds like a Harley. My last bike was an 06 Sporty, and I miss my sweet, tricked-out baby every minute of every day. Should have a pic around here someplace, BRB.
Okay, here’s a good ‘un, from my stupid Fakeberg page:
And here’s a better one:
883 bored out to slightly over 1200, Buell Thunderstorm heads, Andrews N6 cams, S&S Shorty carb, Nightster bars, Kerker exhausts built for an earlier model Sporty that ran once, on the Bonneville flats attached to a land-speed record Sportster, then returned to sit around the shop neglected and unloved for several years until I asked Goose about ’em and he said, “Yeah, we oughta put ’em on your bike.”
We did that thing, necessitating a bit of customization, a fascinating tale which I shall relate anon.
Nice!
“883 bored out to slightly over 1200”
Damn. It must come with some mighty thick wall cylinders…
Heh. Funny you should mention that, Barr. I pulled the jugs, removed the pitifully puny pistons and lobbed them into the shop garbage can, and took the cylinders to a legendary auto-performance and repair shop in Mt Holly to see what he’d charge me for the bore-job. Goose had an expensive S&S boring bar in our shop, but it was broken beyond using. So the Mt Holly auto-shop guy tells me he’ll punch out both jugs for 90 bucks, which was a hell of a lot less than what CLT H-D wanted. I left them with him, then checked back after a week as I’d been told. No pestering him all day every day over the phone, “Yuh done yet, yuh done yet, huh huh huh?” By then I’d been a shoprat myself for a few years, I knew perfectly well how to properly conduct myself amongst my fellow knuckle-busters.
Whoever answered the phone, I have no idea who among the four or five people working there it was, said yes, they were done, I could come pick ’em up whenever it was convenient. So off I went, happy as some clams at the prospect of getting my fiendishly fast, full-custom Milwaukee mile-eater back on the road again.
Got there, walked in, went over to the boss, and MAN, did that guy rake me over the coals! “You stupid sumvabitch, if you EVER come in here with another set of these gawddamned cylinders again I’m gonna kick your young ASS for ya!!! I had to make so many passes on each of these things I finally gave up counting!!” OH, was he pissed!!
Which, really, I didn’t get. I mean, when I first brought them in to him he’d looked at the sleeves and seen how ridiculously thick they were, no way he didn’t know what the job was gonna entail. He looked em over closely, agreed to take the job, agreed to the named price, it’s not as if I’d tried to screw him over in any conceivable way. I still wonder sometimes about that one.
I shrugged my soldiers, paid him his money in cash, took my cylinders, and walked back out without another word.
The reason for the sleeves being so impossibly thick, the reason Harley even made the 883s to begin with, was thanks to good old Commiefornia bullshit. Harley had originally planned the new Evo Sportsters to be 1200s. Unfortunately, when they submitted two pre-productions models to whatever state board/agency/Kommissariat is responsible for verifying that a new vehicle meets Cali’s exalted standards for emissions, fuel economy, safety, and noise, the 1200 Sportster couldn’t pass the noise test and was rejected.
After much bewilderment and scratching of heads, H-D chopped the Sportster’s displacement to 883, an engine-size that hadn’t been used since the late 50s/early 60s in the right-side-shift XLCH scrambles-racing machines (CH for “Competition Hot,” which in those days they certainly were). They also de-aggressed the cam profile, emasculated the combustion chambers, intake ports, and valve train (if I remember right, it was valve-train chatter and clatter and not the throaty but mellow exhaust note that flunked the 1200), and came up with a more restrictive exhaust system, thus the clogged up, dangerously underpowered, embarrassingly lo-po XLH 883 was born—one of the most un-Harley Sportster-like Harley Sportsters ever produce.
Geez, california screws up everything 🙂
“OH, was he pissed!”
He should have known that his boring machine wasn’t gonna make that big a hole in a single pass. >1/3 larger is a real bitch.
I was 15 when I did my first bore job. I had a Honda Sport 65 that I bought from a friend after the insurance company declared it a total loss. About 6 months after I straightened the frame and replaced the front forks I decided that motor needed a bigger piston. Can’t recall now, but I think the piston from a Honda 90 was what I put in it. The local Honda shop sold me a used jug bored to fit for $5.00. Yes, five dollars. I didn’t like the quality though and ended up building a fixture to bore it myself. And that was not very good as idea’s went 🙂 So, I ended up using the 5 dollar jug with a little better honing job and she ran just fine.
The things boys will do to go faster…
And get there first.
OK, and so if (mind you “if”) I were going to get a Sportster and keep it under say 5 grand or so, what would you get? I see adds for decent looking bikes but don’t know enough about them… I guess I need to do a little study if I’m to consider the all American bike over the Bonneville of old that I drool over..
Okay, about dem pipes: being built for an earlier-year Sportster with a different frame, the exhausts interfered with the footpeg mount you see above. Like, no way to just bolt em up and go, right? Not that such a piffling concern ever daunted Goose; he considered such situations to be a challenge, absolutely LOVED that sort of thing.
So after sitting, staring, and pondering for a short spell, Goose grabbed the portable plasma cutter and hacked the mount off at the frame-join. Whereupon we bolted the head-pipes to the exhaust flanges, fabricated a bracket for the rear of the Kerkers, and then eyeballed the frame to figure out where we needed to reweld the peg mount so’s that front pipe would clear.
Turns out, the peg would need to be mounted to the frame cradle about two to three inches BEHIND where it had been, where it sits in the pic above over the rear pipe bend and in front of the front drive-belt pulley, whose stupid cover I removed and discarded ’cause I liked how gnarly, brutal, and just plain junkyard-dog MEAN it made that side of the bike look.
Ever since I was a kid, I always just HAD to strip every extraneous part that wasn’t either making horsepower, turning the wheels, or providing me with a seat, a handhold, or otherwise directly involved with starting, riding, and/or stopping the darned murder-sickle off the frame. It was the first thing I did when I got a new bike home. Over the years, I accumulated quite an inventory of huge, heavy boxes crammed full of frills, fritters, geegaws, and purely decorative accoutrements from my bikes, going all the way back to my first real motorcycle: a 1972 Honda SL70.
Anyways, on closer scrutinization of this footpeg business, we realized that the peg-bracket was welded in not one but two (2) places: one on the top of the frame rail, and one on bottom. The bottom was simplicity itself, nothing to at all, just reach under and in, and ZAP! All done.
Unfortunately, after some fiddling and finagling around, we discovered welding the top was gonna be a whole ‘nother kettle of fish: after grunting and straining ourselves sweaty heaving on the big pry bar trying to hike the engine case up, up, and away from the frame to get adequate welding room (the 06 engines were rubber-mount, a real blessing for a Sporty, which gave us just a little give), it was a definite no-go. The only way to do the upper weld was to pull the engine, doable but a big fat pain in the ass which would take all damned day.
Oh HELL no, I wasn’t about to go to all that trouble for a stinkin’ Kerker exhausts! So Goose laid a long, solid bead on the bottom rail (which he was an absolute master at, one of the most skilled welders I’ve ever known) and let it go at that. I didn’t care; I expected that, with my, umm, intense riding style, the peg bracket was bound to come loose or even break off entirely before too long, and we’d just have to re-weld the blasted thing.
Cool, then—LET’S RIDE!!!
Sure enough, it was no more than a few months when the peg went all mushy and floppy under my foot, forcing me to prop my boot heel on top of the points cover until I got to the shop. Luckily, I was almost there; the railroad tracks on Central between Hawthorne and Pecan provided the perfect opportunity for a little asphalt-motocross action, which I never failed to avail myself of. Standing up on the pegs like Roger DeCoster, a hard blip of the throttle to pick up the front wheel, over the mound of pavement by the actual tracks, and ZOOOOM! Not a Supercross-level jump by any stretch, I’d get maybe a foot or so, maybe a tad less, under my back tire. Land, yank the bars hard right and lean to pull my snarly, scrappy little jewel into the long dirt ‘n’ gravel driveway winding around back to where the MM&R shop was, shut that bitch down, and just sit there and grin for a few seconds.
At that time, mind, I weighed in at 225. Nope, that poor lonesome bottom-rail weld never stood a chance. Hell, I was shocked it had lasted as long as it did before giving up.
Funniest part of all was, what with the right peg being relocated a few inches back of where it originally was, if you straddled the bike and looked down at your feet you saw that you were riding goofy-foot, with the left foot slightly ahead of the right. No biggie at all, it was barely even noticeable when riding, but it did kinda freak out some of my fellow biker-bros who noticed the unusual arrangement.
I actually came to like the setup pretty quickly; to my way of thinking, this bizarro customization just made the Sporty even more “mine” than ever, which when you get right down to it is the main reason people ride Harleys in the first place. Harleys, with a veritably limitless range of customization options, are tweaked, tricked, and re-worked to reflect the owner/rider’s own personality.
An H-D that’s still skinned in plain-jane factory paint, all badging, fender trim, and lights intact, with OEM exhausts; bone-stock bars, mirrors, levers, wiring; no chrome airboxes, switch and/or button covers, battery boxes, and so on is a rara avis indeed. In fact, in all my years of being a dedicated Harley-jockey I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. Setting your ride apart from the rest and making it your own is the point of the whole exercise, even if it’s no more creative or original than just dragging the poor bike through the Custom Chrome catalog.
I’d never be able to understand such a restricted, unimaginative mindset, I don’t think. For me and all the other H-D fanatics I’ve known, ridden, wrenched, and partied with over lo, these many years, the fabled Harley-Davidson mystique didn’t so much center on their being the last American-made motorcycle maker standing, but on the rugged independence and individualism they represent to those of us who love them.
The long, slow, hands-on process of wrenching on your ride—tightening and lubing the chain, changing the oil, the plugs, all that sort of thing—forges a relationship between man and machine that is personal, powerful, and very, very real. You can dive just as deeply into that man-machine relationship as you want; me, I went all the way, eventually rebuilding my engines, clutches, transmissions, front forks, stripping the entire bike to the frame and then re-assembling it just for the sheer fun of it.
Others of us remain aloof, preferring instead to limit themselves to minor maintenance and upkeep, outsourcing the big jobs to their local independent shop or dealership and keeping their knuckles unscarred, the underside of their fingernails clean, the wrinkles of their palms and fingers unstained by ground-in oil, grease, and dirt.
But even so, every biker I’ve ever known had at least SOME personal interaction with his Harley-D; never have I met anyone who did nothing more than roll his bike out of the garage on Saturday, putt around on it a while, maybe hit a few bars or a run or a swap meet or a cookout or some such, then go back home and put it away without ever once picking up a wrench, a screwdriver, a shop rag, or a polishing cloth. Or who would admit it, at least.
“…designed to divide the Harley-Davidson community”
Seems to me the community was of one mind. One that was different than management.
🙂