Harley-Davidson Judgement Day II

[Paul in NZ]

Like the 48 hour film festival here in NZ.....but with bikes.

Yup - chuck in a few street kids with attitude for a different take as well.

Its a lot more 'real' if the bikes are not perfect show pieces but rather reflect what people ride. Or would like to ride. The danger is over egging the pudding by tons of super special stuff (for its own sake) that very few people can aspire to. ie try and get a tasteful result simply.

[lakedaemonian]

Yup - chuck in a few street kids with attitude for a different take as well.

Its a lot more 'real' if the bikes are not perfect show pieces but rather reflect what people ride. Or would like to ride. The danger is over egging the pudding by tons of super special stuff (for its own sake) that very few people can aspire to. ie try and get a tasteful result simply.

Agreed...sometimes that "little bit extra" times 3 or 4 can actually take away from the main effort substantially.

I also like the idea of something like that being done from actual Man Sheds

Because I think a lot of folks would be even more interested if they knew if was genuinely possible to be done in their own Man Shed.

We have a big video project on in 2012 next year...if it works, we might look at extending ourselves a bit further with video and try to do something like that hubbed around our shop.

I really like the idea of a couple skate rat kids thrown into the teams as well......from a business stand point we don't want to keep getting older....good to throw some youth into the mix.

[Paul in NZ]

Get some graffiti artist to do the tank for you. You might be amazed what they can do!

But seriously a Pacifika flavoured bike?

What about a KB team? Social media is a valid 'family of interest' grouping.

High school bike? Let a shop class loose on one....

You guys might do a 'Quake' bike (thats a bit OCC though)

One build might happen at the Bert Munroe or HOG rally?

Definately grass roots simple is the thing.

[lakedaemonian]

Get some graffiti artist to do the tank for you. You might be amazed what they can do!

But seriously a Pacifika flavoured bike?

What about a KB team? Social media is a valid 'family of interest' grouping.

High school bike? Let a shop class loose on one....

You guys might do a 'Quake' bike (thats a bit OCC though)

One build might happen at the Bert Munroe or HOG rally?

Definately grass roots simple is the thing.

Some solid ideas.....we seriously considered a Quake themed bike for the Judgement Day 2 Comp....but dumped it to avoid being accused of milking sympathy votes.

A couple lessons we learned from doing these two bikes is that a good team is key......being decisive(at times) can be better than managing by consensus...and when time gets tight, the "good idea fairy" has to be shot on sight.

I like the idea of a "real time" build......say if it's 48 hours......and you have a bunch of teams.....run live webcam streams....

[The Lone Rider]

I like the idea of a "real time" build......say if it's 48 hours......and you have a bunch of teams.....run live webcam streams....

I expect to be doing a 1 hour live stream of an assembly in about 6 months to a years time, depending on how long it takes the rest of the fabrication. Just got the rear fender tacked on this evening but a lot more to do.

Everything will already be fabricated and painted however. But it will be a full assembly from a roller, streamed off one camera, with several others running at the same time.

There's no way I could get all the welding, grinding, machining and finishing done in 48 hours.

But the 1 hour assembly on camera will be interesting; and will release a tube version with original music and some decent editing. Probably will take longer than an hour.

Edit --

And depends if I can get a team together to do the video shoot. 'be fucked if I'm gonna assemble an entire bike in an hour on my own!

[lakedaemonian]

I expect to be doing a 1 hour live stream of an assembly in about 6 months to a years time, depending on how long it takes the rest of the fabrication. Just got the rear fender tacked on this evening but a lot more to do.

Everything will already be fabricated and painted however. But it will be a full assembly from a roller, streamed off one camera, with several others running at the same time.

There's no way I could get all the welding, grinding, machining and finishing done in 48 hours.

But the 1 hour assembly on camera will be interesting; and will release a tube version with original music and some decent editing. Probably will take longer than an hour.


Edit --

And depends if I can get a team together to do the video shoot. 'be fucked if I'm gonna assemble an entire bike in an hour on my own!

That sounds pretty cool.

When you get closer to the date I can fill you in on what we've got planned.

We might be able to help each other out

[White trash]

And depends if I can get a team together to do the video shoot. 'be fucked if I'm gonna assemble an entire bike in an hour on my own!

Put me down as a starter if you need a hand mate.

[The Lone Rider]

Put me down as a starter if you need a hand mate.

All Blacks joke with the 4 million backing reserves? lol

Theres only room in my workshop for one or two people to work on a bike, unless I push the tool and service trolleys out. A few of the "team" will be errand boys to go out and grab things or grab the next piece to go on.

[lakedaemonian]

Added some YouTube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_H7IB_UQ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anozi...eature=related

[lakedaemonian]

Looks like we won it.

The Boss, overall winner:

#1 with a Bullitt(Mustang)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1816139&type=3

Harley-Davidson is quite receptive to the idea we presented for having a customer centric focused bike build competition......customer(s) teams hubbed around and supported by each dealership...I reckon that has far more scope to build an audience across a more level playing field....as well as eliminating systemic flaws we saw these past two years.

[BIG DOUG]

Gee you won again, how predictable and boring

[lakedaemonian]

Gee you won again, how predictable and boring

It's a shame you feel that way......

We put a lot of time and effort into bringing our "A game" into this competition....some felt the same as you....the results show more than enough didn't.

As stated, we have also been working hard to offer solutions that might provide a broader appeal and a more level customer(rather than dealer) centric playing field down the track that engage Harley riders/buyers with HD dealers taking a secondary role/back seat...so we are listening to feedback and assertively putting it forward to The Motor Co.

[White trash]

Congratulations to Rolling Thunder once again doing the business.

It's a great competition that could be made a little better but good all the same.

[ellipsis]

....bloody good result for your shop to win again...congratulations to you and your team...boring and predictable?

[lakedaemonian]

Cheers guys.......personally, I think there is definitely some serious room for improvement, such as:

*Requiring vetted voting(to eliminate counterfeit voting which has to be investigated/wiped by Harley after the fact, rather than before).

*Making the competition more about the bike competition and focused less on dealer popularity and dealer marketing horsepower...a more level playing field.

*Expand customer involvement as much as possible.....including the option of customer-led bikes/teams.

*Keep comments(positive and negative) to vetted users using genuine names....no anonymous slagging.

I'm sure there's more good ideas as well.....those are the key ones we've put forward.

I think there's a LOT of scope in this space...especially if you chuck in a requirement for webcams or video updates or something like that.