Nae habeus corpus for pussies . <| sep |> Wonderful post , OP , thank you for sharing . 3 Don ' t have much more to add beyond that it was incredibly comforting and reassuring to read . <| sep |> Could be a laugh . How ' s the cat taking Julian not being there ? I ' d the cat lonely now ? Maybe a hint ? I ' m think embassy cat may have a galaxy like in MIB lol <| sep |> What confused me is she was so horribly anti Hillary . Wonder why the sudden change ? Money or possible suicide <| sep |> I won ' t beat you up about the exhaust stud thing , but I ' ll ask you one question How does having a single point of failure equate to reliability ? Much of what you ' re saying is exactly why I warn people about the mythical unicorn that is the reliable shovel . What you ' re saying is true to a point , I won ' t disagree with you there . However most younger guys aren ' t used to the level of maintenance that a shovel inherently brings with it . You and I are old enough our fathers taught us how to set points on the side of the road with a piece of cardboard and a pocket knife . Shit like that isn ' t covered in the Clymer manual . If you haven ' t experienced the joy that is telling the NAPA guy in BFE , Missippi that yes that old chevy condenser will work you haven ' t ridden a shovel far from home , any factorybuilt electronic ignition is inherently more reliable than points . Don ' t think my leaving out all the cheap electronic ignition conversion kits that people have slapped on shovels over the years is because I don ' t know about them . As you said , very few people spend the money on the good ones and when they do those aren ' t the bikes you see for sale cheap on craigslist . Even if you ' ve found such a rare beast it ' s still going to shake itself apart it ' s inevitable . There ' s a reason solid mounting VTwins isn ' t continued to this day . it ' s hard on the materials which translates to things coming apart despite locktitelockwashersnylon insertsetc . The sympathetic vibrations alone that are transmitted via the frame throughout the entire bike cause metal fatigue in places I ' d never imagined for exactly the reasons you outlined above . I can ' t believe you ' re going to gloss over that by the end of the shovel era AMF was buying the lowestbid contract parts while simultaneously having shit QA while morale at the factory was at it ' s lowest in history . I too remember the days when shovels were new and all the good dealers took the bikes out of the crate and rebuilt it again before rolling it out the showroom floor . Back then it was common knowledge about deliberate sabotage on the lines because mechanics didn ' t like suddenly being assembly line workers . So even if you pick up a pristine , well and properly maintained low miles shovel there ' s a decent chance all the nuts on the bolts holding your fender vibrate lose while you ' re going down the road . Perhaps we have different definitions of utterly reliable . I ' m not unfamiliar with the concept of old things when the weather ' s not good enough to ride I bust out my ' 64 GMC . the only cage I own . Both of my shovels are fine examples of what you said about 30 years of shadetree bs and ineptitude . I ' ve encountered dozens over the years on the side of the road that evidently had the same problem . Usually the guy in the seat is as lost as a babe in the woods as to what to do next because he bought that awesome sounding shovel and it ' s oldschool . If I hadn ' t come along with my admittedly mediocre mechanic skills I wonder if some of ' em would still be out there clueless . This is all what I factor in when I give shovels a reliability rating , so no . They ' re not even as reliable as their equivalent UJMs of the era . That ' s with me knowing the difference in a push rod and a connecting rod . much less some poor bloke who can barely identify the air cleaner cover with a smartphone and google . I still see my earlier comment , but I may have been shadowbanned and not noticed too D