New rider

[WMarshy]

...They don't wail like a screeching ninja, the don't rumble like a harley. They just growl like a spactic, stressed out badger waiting to rip your face off and eat your soul.

Trainzz that is the funniest thing I have ever heard. It took me 5 min's to stop laughing! Seriously funny stuff.

Grinder, my advice to you is use the search bar and dig through this site. Its likely that all your questions have been answered by a previous post. I took a long time reading before making a post, and its important to read the stick posts at the top. If there is something that you cannot find, then make a post. You will find more help than you can imagine if you do it properly, and reading past threads will familiarize you on how to do that. If you happen to get that XJ I’m certain that you’ll be too busy riding the heck out of it during your first season of ownership to make any changes on it, cosmetic or otherwise. Welcome.

[egleaves]

Please forgive me for ruffling your feathers, but if you are going to bother to post a reply, can you please make it constructive?

Show me one person my age that thinks this bike looks great and I'll take back the "Butt ugly."

I'm 36, when this bike was new I was seven years old, what do you think I was wearing then? I'll tell you. A polyester snap down shirt and corduroy pants, my hair was parted down the middle and feathered. AC/DC was in the top 40 and Atari was awesome stuff. We have come a long way since then.

No one my age is going to say this bike looks beautiful. But the smart ones, like myself, just might appreciate what it does have and find a way to make it stylish again.

So please, if you are going to reply, may I ask that you have at least one piece of pertinent information to share? That is what this forum is for.

Ruffled feathers rarely result in positive feedback.

It appears you have already been introduced to several others, but I'm 33 and I LOVE the way my bike (and every bike here) looks. I wouldn't trade it for any $30K lump of chrome.

Ask yourself, what exactly is "stylish"? Is is what others think about your ride, or what you think about it? Do you feel it has to meet some sort of current social standard to be accepted? In my opinion, today's "style" is all about plastic covers and chrome doodads, hiding the true heart of the machine. As for how far we've come, who's to say we even went in the right direction?

Smarts have nothing to do with appreciation. I've met plenty of smart people who don't appreciate anything they have. I think you'll find that everyone here appreciates at least one thing, the XS1100.

Welcome to the site, it's the best the internet has to offer.

[Grinder3]

Excuse me

your right guys ,some people are better left out of the conversation.
well, i could not be happier, just got my 80 special running today
and took my first ride on a 1100 .nice!!! love it. could not have
done it without the help i got from this website, many thanks to
everbody at xs11.com!!!

garbnod627 (freebie)

Um yeah, hi, I do believe I've apologized for any misinterpreted offensiveness and have been forgiven. If you want to beat a dead horse and continue to be intentionally nasty to me, then at the very least be intelligent about it.
First of all - sentences begin with capitals. As do the names of people places and things, even one's as short as "i".
Second - "YOUR" is a personal pronoun describing the person being spoken of - "YOU'RE" is the abbreviation for "YOU ARE" a hyphenation of two words descriptive of an action taken.
In addition "yore" means the days of old, and "yor" is hillbilly for all of them used interchangeably.
Third - "i got" is improper english. If you want to indicate that you have gained something from a given source, you say "I've gotten" or "I've received"

This is an english speaking country isn't it? Sometimes you have to wonder.

Also, while I'm at it, I suppose I can give you guys some insight into my personal perspective. Since there seems to be such interest in it instead of bikes. If the horse is to be beat, I'm going to finish it.
Not only am I a dropout, I have had a very rough time my entire life. Abandoned by my father, severely abused and neglected by my mother, bounced around the remaining family and living for many years on the street. I have seen the bad side of everything in life. I have struggled with everything from poverty to mental illness. I've been on drugs, I've been beaten up and screwed over and almost killed by criminals. My genetic makeup saw fit to give me an entire half-row of extra teeth all jumbled together in my mouth, and a severely advanced case of acne that left major scarring. I was for all intents and purposes, in the mind of a kid, a living monster. I learned to live with ugliness not only on the outside, but on the inside. After years of misery pain loneliness anguish and rejection, I somehow, instead of killing myself, learned to laugh at myself. Life is messed up and crazy sometimes, but apparently I'm made of something stronger than what shows on the outside (kind of like these bikes, hence my attraction to them). maybe as pasrt tof my suvival mechanisms I have become somewhat crusty aorund the edges. Who wouldn't. Ever been to prison?
I was never given, in this life, the choice to do anything but look at the underlying motivations and intentions of things. And because of the face that god gave me, if anyone has the right to use the word ugly, it's me. people need to get over their commonly held perceptions and usages of supposedly negative connotations. I love ugly things, myself being one.
If anyone finds it personally satisfying to continue to misinterpret my words, take them as personally offensive, or fire back any more negative comments, just know that I've seen it all. I've lived all over the country and different parts of the world. I've been invited into some of the richest homes on the face of the planet and I've hopped trains and eaten with bums.
Hm, why do I care so much? Because I like these bikes. I'm fairly obsessed with them now as a matter of fact, as I am with motorcycles in general. I feel like a rush of energy has overtaken my mind and a new chapter in my life has begun, a pleasure I've been searching for but have previously never known. Nothing in the world gives you the sense of exhilaration and freedom that riding a bike does. And I know this from only the few rides I have taken.
You don't own the rights to these bikes guys. Like anything else in the world they are there to be enjoyed and used, collected and refurbished, or modified and ridden to death. And the fact that you study them and work on them and get together with others who share the interest, doesn't give you the right to be nasty to others who don't think and act and speak exactly the same way that you do. It's very common to join groups to feel a sense of camaraderie and mutual admiration. But the only way you'd have the right to judge others' opinions of the bikes - positive, negative, or indifferent, would be if you'd designed and manufactured them yourself.
We're all just fans and all of our words are just opinions.
And if you want to make snap decisions about the depth of a person based on what is written in an online forum, then you might be missing out on the friendship of a deep and loyal, loving and wise soul.
The best presents come in an plain brown package.

[egleaves]

Wow dude, for a minute there I thought the ruffled feathers had been smoothed down, but you are really not doing a very good job of making friends here.

Even if you feel like you've been attacked personally, it is no justification for turning around and attacking someone else. Especially over trivial matters like spelling and grammar.

[oseaghdha]

"There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this has been one of them."

[catdna]

....
This is an english speaking country isn't it? Sometimes you have to wonder.
....

The internet is an english speaking country ?

We do get it over here in blighty, but I've heard those dang foreign types get it as well !

[fredintoon]

Um yeah, hi, I do believe I've apologized for any misinterpreted offensiveness - - - -
This is an english speaking country isn't it? Sometimes you have to wonder. - - -
You don't own the rights to these bikes guys. Like anything else in the world they are there to be enjoyed and used, collected and refurbished, or modified and ridden to death. - - - -
And if you want to make snap decisions about the depth of a person based on what is written in an online forum, then you might be missing out on the friendship of a deep and loyal, loving and wise soul. - - -

Hi G3,
this here is the XS/XJ discussion section.
You are welcome to start a new string in the Members Lounge concerning your life and times and I'm sure you will have many interested participants
" I'll see your snaggly teeth and raise you my Spina Bifida." kinda thing.
About correct grammar:-
Most of our correspondents use bad grammar on purpose to emphasize a point, rather than not knowing any better.
Then there was e.e. cummings who didn't believe in capital letters so never used them.
And who is to say that a world-famous poet was wrong?
(Note the "And" starting that sentence? Wrong, but effective.)
While nobody has the right to tell another that his modifications are a mistake, if you hack the rear suspension off your XJ to make a hardtail out of it, stand by to receive mockery and derision from this old fart.
It's not my right, no. I consider it my duty.
And you are absolutely correct. There is no way a brief flurry of e-mail messages will tell you if a person is a wise soul or an arsehole.

[randy]

This thread is going nowhere, and becoming a personal pissing match from BOTH sides. It should be closed before it continues to escalate. I know, I started one of these myself last year and regretted it so much I asked the moderators to erase it.

Start over guys, and please, for the general good, try to stay focused on why we are here

[CatatonicBug]

Wow... This is one scary thread!! Of all the "Welcome to the forum" threads I've seen here, I've never seen one so negative. The guy just wants some assistance. Yes, he has opinions that may not match all of ours, but I think we can all claim that description. He has been forced to become WAY too defensive because of the constant drilling about his opinions of "beauty" and "styling".

Come on guys... Give the man a break, and just help him with his bike!

[b.walker5]

..... Ever been to prison?..

Yeah, I Have! Twice actually...didn't turn me into a self obsessed arsehole angry at the world. Many of us have had a hard start in life and I could tell you my life story as well, (it's not that much different to yours) but one apparent difference between you and me is that I don't use my past as an excuse for a bad attitude today.

Come on guys... Give the man a break, and just help him with his bike!

Normally I would agree, but this guy needs to learn some things like Manners, Respect and, as someone else mentioned, Tact.

I wont be adding any further comment to this thread, for two reasons. 1. I have nothing further to add without becoming too personal, and 2. I dont know if my English is up to it.

[Grinder3]

Um yeah

All I can say is that half of the guys on here have been great, half of them have been terrible. Once again (repeating myself is so much fun) I have never lowered myself to name calling or offensive attacks, everything I've written has been in response to your attacks against me. I find it tiring and dull, this is supposed to be about bikes.
I'm a big Bill Maher fan and I can see why he gets so much guff from closeminded people. He brings stuff up that people don't want to think about, can't face, or just never thought of before. And he crosses his T's and dot's his I's. Proper grammar goes a long way. He also doesn't take any crap off of anyone. Personally, I think those are good things.
I find it ludicrous that anyone would call anyone names over something like this. If anyone should be excluded from an online forum it's those who abuse it, like you have.

[Bigfoot]

I think that it would be a great idea to just let this thread die and move on.