Are we witnessing the end of motorcycling?

[Knifemaker]

Anyone notice the changes in Motorcyclist and Cycle world ? I have dropped them both.

Hard not to notice the changes, much harder to find any content worth reading. I do not plan to renew, until then they might be useful for cat litter....if I had a cat.

The photos are very good. It's now similar to my Playboy subscription back when I was a teen....don't really read much of it, just look at the pictures...

Back on subject. I try to avoid crowds, so never been to any motorcycle related event, other than the races I was participating in. I don't even like "group rides".

 

[Chiefblueman]

Texting drivers has cut down my riding time. Ok, getting older and more pussified when it comes to weather is a factor, too. Going to sell the KTM 950 Adventure 'cuz I can't pick it up when, not if, it tips over off road. More pussification, or maybe mummification.

If a self driving Uber can kill a ped just think what it could do for your bike ride. I learned many years ago how to watch a driver's eyes or see where they are looking to help stay upright. Now there's nobody in there. Second guessing a chip could be fun. Maybe get your own chip, a self driving motorcycle. Then I could be free to enjoy two wheels while texting or ordering stuff from Amazon!

Got my coffee table edition of Cycle World the other day. Meh. Remember when bike mags had interesting stuff about bikes​? Like performance stats provided by the likes of "PeeWee" Gleason? I kinda liked the puff piece on the 2001 FZ1 'cuz I had one. Ivan's carb kit, Traxxion Dynamics suspension. One bike I wish I still had. They lost me with the article about Dave Ekins and Bill Robertson Jr conquering Baja in '62 on Honda CL72 Scramblers when they said the bikes were outfitted with "Girdling" shocks. Were they made by Playtex and somehow wrapped around you? I'm a bit picky about stuff like that.

My '74 Suzuki GT380 triple 2 stroke had a kick starter. After I let the local hotshoe port the cylinders for me it kickstarted pretty easy. It also lost all semblance of low end and midrange grunt, then gave a mighty surge in that last thousand RPM.

Good times!

Maybe we're not yet witnessing the end of motorcycling, just the end of motorcycling as we ​knew it.

Nostalgia button off.

 

[HaulinAshe]

Look at my avatar. That's my (now) 26-year old oldest daughter on the back. She has always been "good for whatever" I want to dial up. Most people are appalled at the level of risk she's willing to take and I'm willing to share with her. However, she's the first to tell you that she fears going to work in her monster SUV way more than riding hard on a motorcycle with me.

Yet, she's never had a bike of her own for more than one very brief time. She's short and nothing other than a boring-ass cruiser fits her. She never learned to drive a stick-shift, mainly because I never owned one during her lifetime. I have electronic paddle shifters on the Mini and she can drive the balls off that thing.

With the growing percentage of potential and possibly interested first-time motorcycle owners being female with inseams less than 30", perhaps motorcycle design technology hasn't identified the right path to develop a new and growing market? The cost of lowering almost any bike with a decent suspension system is HUGE. Electronic shifting with automatic overrides for brain-glitch prevention can't be THAT expensive to produce. I'd be interested in flipping a shifter lever on a 400-lb 800cc bike if the damn software didn't get in my way (the Mini Cooper does an excellent job of it).

There's still a lot of boys (and a small count of girls) that are motocross racing. They eventually make it to 250cc or 450cc MX bikes around 14-16 years of age. What they need is an affordable street-legal motorcycle to make the transition from dirt to street. My Ducati Hyperstrada is almost the right thing, but you have to remove the "affordable" parameter. Otherwise, it's a lot like taking a YZ-450F and making it street legal. Conversion kits maybe? I don't have the answer formulated in my mind, but the question deserves to be asked again and again.

Our sport/passion needs new blood or we too shall pass into history and be forgotten.

 

[PapaUtah]

Because this my friends is the world within one more generation provided we don't engage in a civil culling of the heard...

The last election provided us with the choice between communism and President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. I am not picking either side but I have been saying we are on a path to Idiocracy for the past 20 years. It just arrived 485 years earlier than the movie predicted. With that as my frame of mind and witnessing that we have a generation of detergent pod eating children on our hands I am kind of glad they are not on the road. Historically motorcycling was the counter culture activity...a symbol of freedom...individuality...those traits are no longer valued by the latest generation. I don't want this to be a political rant, but once they are done destroying private autos, motorcycles are next followed by all forms of private property. Nostradamus I am not, but I think we live in strange times...

 

[Fred W]

Something Jeff said rings true. Back in the day, we used to run out after school and ride the crap out of our old beater dirt bikes on the local power line trails and socially accepted riding areas, of which there were many. And this was in suburban Boston of the late 60s. Sure we flaunted the law and rode the dirt bikes down the side of the street to get to those areas before we had drivers licenses, but we used trailers after we did. The point is that we learned to ride long before we learned to drive.

Fast forward 50 years. Kids arent allowed to have dirt bikes out on the power lines, and all the riding areas of our youth have been developed into shopping malls and industrial developments. Even moving 40 miles further from Boston to the southern New Hampshire area, people are anti-dirt bike noise, they get all upset when a kid goes out and has some unsupervised motorized fun. The legally sanctioned riding areas are few and far between, even up here, and you have to buy an annual OHRV sticker at some ridiculous cost ($70 last I knew) to use those over crowded areas.

Much better to keep those kids behind a big flat screen playing virtual reality games. Real life is just too dangerous...

Dont blame it on the young millennials. They didnt get that way on their own. Blame it on the idiot parents (of our generations) that trained their little darlings to become what they have.

 

[FJRay]

When my son comes to visit with the grand kids the electronics get confiscated and put in my gun safe. He tells them they are not living on a 4 inch screen while at my place. I'm about 100 yards from national forest land and there are dirt bikes and quads to ride. ATGATT applies. If they don't want to ride they can go to the river about ten minutes away or do some organized target shooting with me. Every year they shut down more of the forest land to wheeled toys so it's not going to be long before I can't let them out of the yard.

The electronics don't come out until after dinner and chores are done. I admire his efforts to add some real reality to their lives.

We have raised to many generations of entitled fools and in most cases we need look no further than the mirror to find the problem.

 

[mech 1 twa]

I have to agree with Fred W. in many ways. I started riding dirt bikes and had a lot of good times. Areas are disappearing so many never get the chance ride.

Money and time are the others. Parents don't have the time working to much and riding areas are far away. I could say more but won't go there.

 

[redzgrider]

For me, today has pounded the last nail in the coffin. Better half just rememered to hand me my new issue of Cycleworld. crap, crap, crap. Bad enough that Motorcyclist degraded itself to every other month, but now the once tried and true Cycleworld is freaking quarterly? As in four times a year. I subscribed to 12 issues a year. No word on how the remainder of our subscriptions run out -- but I don't get the impression we get the same number for a longer period of time...

 

[BakerBoy]

Interesting red. My guess is the fine print [the contract of service] doesn't say 12 issues per year, but more likely states a duration, such as "one year". But I don't know for sure and no doubt it feels like being cheated.

The less frequent publishing is perhaps linked to a declining motorcycling community, but also likely to the decline of paper magazines in general. Times sure are changing.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Something Jeff said rings true. Back in the day, we used to run out after school and ride the crap out of our old beater dirt bikes on the local power line trails and socially accepted riding areas, of which there were many. And this was in suburban Boston of the late 60s. Sure we flaunted the law and rode the dirt bikes down the side of the street to get to those areas before we had drivers licenses, but we used trailers after we did. The point is that we learned to ride long before we learned to drive.Fast forward 50 years. Kids arent allowed to have dirt bikes out on the power lines, and all the riding areas of our youth have been developed into shopping malls and industrial developments. Even moving 40 miles further from Boston to the southern New Hampshire area, people are anti-dirt bike noise, they get all upset when a kid goes out and has some unsupervised motorized fun. The legally sanctioned riding areas are few and far between, even up here, and you have to buy an annual OHRV sticker at some ridiculous cost ($70 last I knew) to use those over crowded areas.

Much better to keep those kids behind a big flat screen playing virtual reality games. Real life is just too dangerous...

Dont blame it on the young millennials. They didnt get that way on their own. Blame it on the idiot parents (of our generations) that trained their little darlings to become what they have.

When I worked swing shift, I couldn't tell you how many times we got called because "kids on dirt bikes are making noise and dust." 99% of the time I wouldn't mess with them or let my guys mess with them. We usually just asked them to keep it chill until they got away from houses. I actually ride with two guys who are now adults, that I first met in 2006, when I stopped them after a neighbor complained. Every now and again we'll have a small group that acts like ass holes, but we can't win them all.

We have one area where there's a good sized BLM open area between houses. Probably 40 acres of desert and ravine. We had a Federal Agent with either HSI (Homeland Security) or DEA or something that was constantly bitching. It's been since 2013, so I don't remember. He and I got into a huge pissing match about him always calling and expecting us to treat those kids like criminals. He called my boss and tried to throw his weight around. He thought that shit was funny until I called his boss with a recorded phone call where he cussed me out, threatened my job, and called me every dirty name you can think of. I also relayed that he was trying to use local law enforcement to harass kids on property he had no jurisdiction over. The phone calls suddenly ended. Clown!

I've never fucked with anyone for not having an OHV sticker. I know it's state statute, but I don't even know if we enforce that. Of course, some of our forest rangers are total douche bags and are all over that stuff. I'm not sure what's wrong with those guys, but I hear stories about all kinds of shenanigans. My bike is plated and insured, so they can suck it.

 

[Pterodactyl]

My neighbor has 40 acres of land. For several years he had some grandchildren living with him. Two of the boys, ages 8 and 12 had mini dirt bikes and would spend hours riding around. No adult supervision, no instruction and evidently no fear of learning in the school of hard knocks. I used to get really torqued-off when they were riding, but I never opened my mouth. Nope, I just quietly endured the constant sound of them racing around and jumping their bikes. What burned my butt was that I never had 40 acres of land and a mini-bike when I was their age. I bet either one of those boys can out ride me in the dirt already, but I am concerned about their video game skill development.

 

[rbentnail]

Many fond memories of "back then". Our (3 boys, we shared everything!) first REAL bike with 3 gears and brakes and a seat and everything was a little Suz 50, the one with big balloon tires. Learned to ride in old sand pits, always with a helmet & gloves, so crashing wasn't too bad. Cops didn't mess with us too much going & coming on the rural roads and in town they'd let us kinda sidesaddle on the side of the road as long as we behaved.

 

[Walter]

So alot of industry media is saying that motorcycling is dropping (aka dieing). Sales are in fact down. I don't nessesarly believe this is a good litmus of the health of the motorcycling community. I think several factors are at play. First modern bikes are built much better and we're seeing more bikes with higher miles even ones not properly cared for. Also a popular movement in restored older bikes. Last as far as meet and rally events I think perhaps the "younger crowd" are a little less social and so don't get into the whole social aspect of motorcycling as much.

 

[FJRay]

Practicing distracted driving on a bike is tough. Once they developed the autonomous motorcycle sales will return to normal.

 

[BakerBoy]

^ Aint that the truth!!

Just this weekend, I was taking a selfie to see how cool I would look in my mirrored helmet visor. As I did that, I found I should have slowed down to ~50 mph first... darn near had to lay it down when grandma started backing her Prius out of her driveway into my path at the same time some neighbor kid's soccer ball rolled across the street in front of me!! Grandma flipped me off. And it appeared the kids started yelling at me, but I couldn't tell for sure because the music in my ear was at my favorite rockin' part of the song. The Prius driving grandma and the soccer ball playing kids both endangered me--so I called the cops on both of 'em. Plus, I'm writing my congressman about putting laws in place to protect me from such idiots.

 

[08FJR4ME]

Well if it helps any, one of the young Millennials just bought a KTM 690 this week.

Bastard, I had to wait until all my kids grew up before I could buy a bike.

Good for him, LOL
Dave

 

[Bugman]

Motorcycling is definitely changing. And so are the motorcycle magazines. My new favorite is RoadRunner Magazine.

https://www.roadrunner.travel/

 

[Fred W]

Well if it helps any, one of the young Millennials just bought a KTM 690 this week.
Bastard, I had to wait until all my kids grew up before I could buy a bike.

Good for him, LOL

Dave

Blame his parents for his upbringing. And share your secrets with all your neighbors please.

 

[bigjohnsd]

I was pleased to note a welcome influx of younger riders, both men and women, at Daytona Bike Week this year. Granted they were all in substandard motorcycles, but at least they were riding. Many of them took a look or asked about my FJR sitting in front of the booth all week. There is a chance some will see the light. Our sales were up 30% over last year.

 

[bigjohnsd]

Why is the Harley Davidson not popular with millennials?

By Clay Nicholson on Quora

The current answers, while all essentially correct, fail to address the core problem. On the other hand, the core problem is rarely addressed, so this is not unusual.

To clarify what the word millennial means, it refers to all Americans born between 1982 and 2000. No, it does not mean everybody I dont like, which apparently is the normal usage these days. Before anybody starts with how millennials are all self-entitled, whiny crybabies, still living at home, waiting for the world to give them a living, let me remind you that those birth dates apply to Americans who are roughly 2038 years of age, which includes probably 90% of all active duty US military personnel below the rank of roughly E-8 or O-4, and probably 75% of all Law Enforcement Officers who arent driving a desk at headquarters. Insult them at your peril.

Since the question asked why Harley-Davidson motorcycles are not popular with a group of approximately 80,000,000 Americans, then, obviously, the question asks a general question about a group of Americans that are not generally all identical. So the answer will involve a generalization. So dont get insulted if the generalization does NOT APPLY TO YOU. Trust me, it doesnt apply to me either. At all.

Im an old, retired white guy, currently riding my fifth Harley. Which makes me, basically, a classic Harley owner. I also have two college graduate millennial children, who are doing just fine on their own.

While this is my fifth Harley, it will be my last. Heres why:

Harley owners and the Harley owner culture, (generalization alert), represent the worst of white supremacy, racism, homophobia, misogyny, religious bigotry, and general poisonous, ignorant, hatred. The definition of patriotism is basically that you love your country. Hating every other country on the planet and every person who was born in another country is not a requirement for considering yourself a patriot. Unless you own a Harley. Look in your mirror, look at the other guy. Different? Hate.

Back in the 1980s, when the Motor Company was on the verge of failing, they embraced the bad biker image as an attempt to differentiate themselves, from a marketing perspective, from the You Meet The Nicest People On A Honda image.

It worked. In fact, it worked so well it was an enormous part of why they survived. Unfortunately, now theyre stuck with it, and now that their badass customers are dying of old age, younger people want no part of the toxic, poisonous, hatred.

Think a moment about the probable political viewpoints of the typical 6080 year old white male, as compared to the typical 2038 year old of any color, any sex, any religion. Im guessing, and its a guess, (but keep in mind I personally know a LOT of Harley owners), that more than 90% of Harley owners voted for Trump. What percentage of millennials do you think voted for Trump?

Harley owners HATE blacks, hispanics, and middle-eastern ragheads. Harley owners HATE fags, queers, homos, bisexuals, and transgendered. Harley owners HATE Muslims. Want to see a Harley owner completely lose his shit? Just put on your innocent face and ask: No, really, why cant somebody use the restroom they want to use? Then stand back.

As a Viet Nam era veteran, (US Army, 19711974), I participate in a 10 day, 3,000 mile motorcycle ride from southern California to the Viet Nam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. The purpose of this ride is to honor all veterans, and those who support veterans. The ride consists of approximately 1,200 bikes. The group is roughly 60-70% Harleys. Along the way we visit elementary schools and high schools. We visit American Legion halls, VFW halls, and VA hospitals. Think about this, while Im telling you something: Heres what happens when we visit a school, or anywhere there might be younger children. The members of the leadership team pass out rolls of duct tape. For the Harley owners. No, its not to tape up the parts falling off their bikes. Its to cover up the patches on their vests. Its to cover up the patches on their vests, so the children dont see them. So the children wont see:

Dial 1 for English, Dial 2 for GET THE FUCK OUT

JANE FONDA, FUCKING TRAITOR BITCH

DO I LOOK LIKE I GIVE A FUCK?

How many owners of any other brand of motorcycle on the planet will need to use that roll of duct tape? Almost zero.

Walk into your local Harley-Davidson dealer on a Saturday, and take a look around. Youll see old white men, dressed up like theyre going to a Halloween costume party, where the theme is Dress like a Hells Angel. Black leather vests, covered in patches, black leather chaps, black leather boots, doo-rags, and trucker wallets, sharing suggestions on where to carry extra ammo while riding, and laughing at fucking libtard millennials. Keep in mind, these are NOT tough guys. The joke about Harley riders being accountants in chaps is closer to the truth than you realize. And those are the guys with the most patches on their vests.

Living the dream.

Now, imagine youre the potential customer who just walked in the door, youre a gainfully employed 30 year old millennial, with enough money to buy a new Harley, but you didnt vote for Trump. What do you think is going to happen? Youre going to look around, youre going to listen to the conversations, and youre going to turn around and walk out. And thats exactly what millennials are doing, by the thousands.

Now, as the other answers correctly pointed out, when you buy a Harley you pay more and get less, compared to any other motorcycle in the world. You pay more and get less performance, fewer safety features, fewer technology features, fewer comfort features, and less reliability. Harleys dont even sound like Harleys anymore. Believe it or not, millennials understand arithmetic, and they know what less horsepower, more weight, and higher price means. I committed the cardinal sin for a Harley owner; I added up all the money Ive spent trying to fix what was wrong, deleted, crippled, or missing on my brand new Harley-Davidson touring bike. Holy shit. Stupid me. Never again.

The bikes are too expensive for what you get, you can get far, far more motorcycle for less money in any other brand, and the Harley-Davidson culture is rife with racist, homophobic, poisonous, hatred.

Im out, and Im not even a millennial.