Automatic motorcycle trannies?

[scumdog]

Not so much business smarts as a protected market and the police specification tailored expressly to suit one brand of bike. Ducati tried to break into this market with the Apollo V4 but the bike made too much power for the tyres, which the police specification stated had to be of one particular size only.

How DID Kwaka, Honda get in on the act then? My comments come from touring the U.S. and speaking to m'bike cops, none mentioned protectionism or such but maybe being mere minions they were not privy to the "big picture'.
Some places they were still on big Jap 4's, other places on H-D, neither group voiced any particular brand loyalty and the nearest thing to a negative comment was the trade-in value of H-D vs the rest.

[vifferman]

How DID Kwaka, Honda get in on the act then? My comments come from touring the U.S. and speaking to m'bike cops, none mentioned protectionism or such but maybe being mere minions they were not privy to the "big picture'.
Some places they were still on big Jap 4's, other places on H-D, neither group voiced any particular brand loyalty and the nearest thing to a negative comment was the trade-in value of H-D vs the rest.

There are several issues here, one being that the HD's are much lower, so easier to get on/off, especially for shorter cops. Also they are used for parades and other slow-moving stuff, and the HDs were better for this. I'd imagine too that HD give the cops a good price on bikes. They have YEARS of experience with manufacturing police bikes to the police specs, and have a division set up specifically for this. That gives them a huge advantage when it comes to supplying bikes.

[FROSTY:Me]

My memory might be getting a lil foggy here but.
As i recall the yank cops diddn't like the jap police bikes because the forks were too weak. Puzzled the hell out of the japs I tell ya
Untill they saw a cop using a HD to literally shove a broken down car off the freeway.Thats wot the chrome bars over the front fender are