" On an XS you won't pass yourself every day." LOL
At any particular show around here I have seen at the most 3 XSs. Once in awhile I see one on the road. Not often. And these are a bike that was produced from 1970-1983. According to Motorcycle Classics mag 250,000 of all styles were produced.
You members here on the forum are the only ones I know of locally . That includes member cheftay who lives out in Lenexa. I don't know where they are hiding.
Looking at it from a production standpoint, 250,000 bikes would only supply one tenth of one percent (0.08333x%) of the current U.S. population at 300 million. Obviously the percentage is significantly less when you take the populations of other supplied countries into account. Maybe .050-0.075%?
Other parts of the equation are your location, how much you ride, and what type of culture you submerse yourself in. This isn't the only forum I'm on regularly, but the forums I'm on tend to reflect my preferences in the real world. I frequent scoot and metal-working boards mostly. In real life I hang out with bikers (the real kind, not the RUBs
OR the ridiculous SOA caricatures a lot of people get in their heads), guys that work steel and turn wrenches for a living and live on two wheels.
I've seen a lot of XSs over the past few years, more probably than in the previous 20 years combined. I hardtailed one back in 2000 and back then I hardly ever saw ANY choppers outside the guys I already knew, much less a "little yellow brother" or the resurgence of XS chops that are happening now. The current trend is completely courtesy of the internet. If it weren't for forums like this one, the XS chopping "fad" would never have happened.
As far as the "same old hardtail" subject; first, it's more like the "same old TC Bros weld-on hardtail and Sporty peanut tank combination" to me but that's my opinion (no matter that my opinion is absolutely right). Second, it doesn't really matter that you only see one or two others if you go to a show or whatever. If you all have the same weld-on prefabbed tail and the same list of bolt-on accessories, you might as well be riding a Honda Fury; at least it has some rake. (That last was for xstwin
)
I have a '90 CBR1000 and I never see anyone else driving one. It doesn't change the fact that it was a production bike and looks exactly like all the other red, white and blue Hurricanes manufactured that year.
