Total Motorcycle Community Forums

honda599 wrote:Harley's are the last in cubic inches...every where else in the world is metric....cc's

That is like saying my grocery store is the last place to buy a gallon of milk, everyone else is selling it by the liter. It is a unit of measurment, nothing more or less.

And the metric system is based on water, not the size of the earth. One CC of water is once ML which is one gram. Or something like that. I am too lazy to look it up. And it is based on tenths... moving the decimal point over. 1000 grams = 1 kilogram, rather than 16 ounces to a pound.

honda599 wrote:Harley's are the last in cubic inches...every where else in the world is metric....cc's

victorys are in CI as well

Well, we Americans are very fond of our Imperial measurement system- At least, the lay American is. All proper sciences are based around SI now, even in America.

The only reason that new American bike builders are using CI's is because it's 'the American thing to do'. I guess it's a matter of pride (however silly that is) for some people. To start measuring our bikes in CC's would be just as bad as calling a Harley an import.

CC isn't even a proper unit, even in
metric' anyways (well, maybe in 'Metric', but not in SI). The proper term for a VLX engine would be a 600cm^3

Suzuki's step into CI was obviously a marketing ploy designed to get all those Americans who say "CC's are for chartreuse." Funny, how they call it the Sportster 883 and 1200. Some people just don't know any better, but I bet their plan will work.

Itzamna wrote:Suzuki's step into CI was obviously a marketing ploy designed to get all those Americans who say "CC's are for chartreuse." Funny, how they call it the Sportster 883 and 1200. Some people just don't know any better, but I bet their plan will work.

Oh, absolutely. It's all marketing and demographics and whatnot.

Probably the same reason Victory motorcycles don't use their parent company's name, Polaris. Who wants to be the tard-biscuit driving around a 'Polaris motorcycle'?

Or, further more, (was it someone in this forum who said?) the new Dodge Ram Daytona. I think it's the Ram, at least. They go off and use the 'Daytona' markings from the iconic Charger on a new powerful pickup, just to boost sales. Or how they made a new sedan, and decided to call it the 'Charger'- a four-door luxury driver based on a uber-powerful sports coupe? Please.

It's about oil, money, and power, all of the time. I think we all know who to thank for that tidbit.

allawybiker wrote:Itzamna is correct, the Boulevards are rated in CI hence the C50/M50 and C90 model names. That threw me off when I was shopping for a bike as I was used to cc

I stand corrected.....sorry guess you can learn something new everyday although no matter how you look at it everything else on the bike is metric......isn't it???

Magnum wrote:And the metric system is based on water, not the size of the earth. One CC of water is once ML which is one gram. Or something like that. I am too lazy to look it up. And it is based on tenths... moving the decimal point over. 1000 grams = 1 kilogram, rather than 16 ounces to a pound.

Correct one cc is one gram, But if the distance of a centimetre is calculated incorrectly, that means that a cubic centimetre is also the wrong size, hence when defining the weight of a gram, it should have used a slightly different weight of water, so the gram and kilogram are also flawed

Ps Telesque, thanks for the proper info from wikipedia, as I was being too lazy to find the actual definitions.... I knew it was something like that...

Nibblet99 wrote:

Magnum wrote:And the metric system is based on water, not the size of the earth. One CC of water is once ML which is one gram. Or something like that. I am too lazy to look it up. And it is based on tenths... moving the decimal point over. 1000 grams = 1 kilogram, rather than 16 ounces to a pound.

Correct one cc is one gram, But if the distance of a centimetre is calculated incorrectly, that means that a cubic centimetre is also the wrong size, hence when defining the weight of a gram, it should have used a slightly different weight of water, so the gram and kilogram are also flawed

Ps Telesque, thanks for the proper info from wikipedia, as I was being too lazy to find the actual definitions.... I knew it was something like that...

Actually, the whole idea of Metric being based on an 'improper calculation' is moot, really.

Sure, they thought it was something that it wasn't... but the idea behind creating a 'measurement standard' is to take a specific size (void of measurement units) and to say 'This shall now be known as _________', and then to take that same size and force (or persuade) everyone to use it.

So, basically, the only thing which makes a measurement important (aside from obvious function) is if people recognize it.

The 'foot' was, after all, based on the size of a king's foot (and occassionally changed from time to time), right? How is that at all important to the employment of the 'foot' as a standard measurement? Well, basically because it was enforced as a standard by the King, and the people had no option (aside from treason) to accept it.