Help save motorcycling!!! They are looking for input!!!

[cowpuc]

 

 

 

I did my part by placing my comment in the comment section of one of these video's (read below)- now it's YOUR turn!!!

 

and I wrote:

 

My history pretty much echo's that of the writer of this post - I owned and operated a Dealership for years and gotta say - it was the best of times (sooo much fun!!) and , when the crash came - the saddest of times.. I am retired now but still actively involved in our sport with lots of YouTube activity of my own documenting for fun, our geezer time travels and avidly encouraging geezers like myself to learn to ride as shown in one of my video's like this:

Personally I think there are LOTS of things that can be done to help bring our industry back around to a sustainable level.. I have 4 children that were raised as employees of our bike shop (family business = child labor laws didnt apply LOL). Having raised 4 millennials and having interaction with them and their friends to this day has given me some insight on how they think and that insight is part of the basis for my advice for attempting to help our industry with what follows..First of all, millennials seem to be less likely to just buy into something because someone says it is so - they are amazingly intuitive.. They tend to be critical thinkers - at least thats my experience in dealing with them.. Dishonesty, lack of transparency and poor business ethics are something that most millennials will not tolerate and will run when they smell it happening - they really do not like fake.. It is interesting that the head of "Give a Shift" is none other than the ex p.r. guy for Polaris. Because of our business and because of my passion for our industry, my kids were directly effected by Polaris Industries when with their Victory motorcycles, during the beginning years, Polaris chose to turn their backs on their warranty's of those early bikes and dealerships were stuck with the choice of either turning their backs on early buyers with tranny problems or eating the costs internally in an attempt to support consumer confidence/the industry.. Those were ROUGH days!! In the later Victory models - Polaris's name totally disappeared from the emblems on the side of the bikes in an obvious effort to hide the fact that Polaris was the manufacturer. Recently, Polaris stuck its franchised dealerships again by handling the closing of their Victory line in a less then stellar method of common ethical business practice. They are currently promoting the erroneous idea that "Indian Motorcycle Company" is once again producing Indian's while these bikes are actually a Polaris Motorcycle with an "Indian" emblem on its tank = there is no such thing as I.M.C - it does not exist... Polaris's continual P.R. work in this method of less than truthful marketing has now had the outcome showing up with present Polaris Indian motorcycle riders today being offended if, when talking to them about their bike, you happen to refer to their bike as a Polaris Motorcycle (once a name to be proud of). This is really sad, especially during a time when companies should be building their names and consumer confidence in them. Another point of interest is that Polaris chooses to claim great gains in their competition with HD (and we ALL know that our industry NEEDS competition) but they refuse to disclose factual unit sale numbers to support their claims.. Instead they like to follow the rules of secrecy instead of open, honest, clear transparency that assists in building consumer confidence.. Please know that I am NOT just picking on Polaris (loss of business ethics is something that ALL companies should be concerned with). I only bring this up because of the link to Polaris that "Give It Shift" obviously has and, hopefully,, possibly, maybe these words will somehow have a positive effect on correcting the slump thru returning to wholesome honesty within the industry.. If our industry is gonna come around it is gonna happen thru honesty, integrity, transparency and fairness - the millennials will have it no other way - in my opinion..Millennials are also EXTREMELY tech oriented.. Video games are their obsession and their world!! How about instead of comments that tear them down for this,, we unite and use this to the advantage of our industry? I have talked and talked and talked about this with my dealership friends and to date, this idea has fallen on deaf ears but its worth another try here.. How about creating a Bike Simulator similar to Flight Simulators used in air craft training? Something high end that would record braking, clutching, throttle control and visional responses to road/intersection activity while the "rider" rides thru actual roadway interactions? Scoring could happen depending on how the rider performs at each intersection. A reduction in costs associated with riders training could be linked to scores achieved thru these high tech machines.. Maybe even insurance discounts? Part of the reason for millennials choice to stay away from bikes has to do with the dangers associated therewith.. One of my kids, who was an EXCELLENT rider on a Motocross track and spent hours and hours touring the country with me on touring bikes, is now a Doctor. "Doc" is fully aware of the dangers associated with biking and chooses to not get involved with street bikes because of this.. Instilling confidence thru proactive use of technology with full blown bike simulators installed at various dealerships would certainly help in building confidence of the newbie rider and,, because of their kinship to video games - I can not help but wonder if millennials wouldn't just flock to dealerships to get in line to test their skills! Definitely Economics plays a lot into all this.. My youngest asked me the other day if I had any idea of how the economy "polls" got so screwed up.. She was referring to the idea that the current polls show the US median income to be close to 60k a year when, in fact,, that is actually an extremely high figure.. Fact is,, those days of high paying manufacturing shop jobs are long gone and it is amazing how many millennials are working 2 jobs and earning far less than 30k a year.. A person does not have to travel far to notice all the empty shops of days gone by that are closed and/or replaced by Wendys or Taco Bells = 25k a year at best.. I see it and understand it.. I look at those wages and chase back in time to the point where 25k was the normal blue collar shop workers wage and then take a peek at what was happening in the economy at that time.. I come with the mid 80's.. A new touring bike was 6 grand TOPS - 5k was average.. Gas was .85 a gallon and on and on.. A person could afford to have some fun as discretionary spending was there for pretty much anyone who wanted it... Times are a little tougher, take it back,, a LOT tougher.. Maybe it's time for folks up the ladder of these large corporations to take a look at whats going on under them and be happy with just a million dollar a year income........ Oh brother,,, I am headed down a bad road here cause I am headed into politics... I wont do that but I will end by saying that with a little thought, some unity and working together as an industry, maybe some sacrifice on behalf of industry leaders in cost cutting to lower prices, a lot of hard work and sleepless nights thinking about how we can build the gen x's and millennials up instead of tearing them down - I think our industry can be saved,, I REALLY DO.. Puc

[saddlebum]

My youngest asked me the other day if I had any idea of how the economy "polls" got so screwed up.. She was referring to the idea that the current polls show the US median income to be close to 60k a year when, in fact,, that is actually an extremely high figure[/color]

I agree. I believe when they say average they are including all wages including the billion dollar income class which would of course raise the average, instead of just averaging out the number of low to middle incomes. Its kind of when a company claims to have lost money when in fact they just simply don't meet their projected goal but in truth they still made tons of money. Edited February 17, 2018 by saddlebum

[grubsie]

While I put some of the blame on the manufacturers, I also put the blame on the times we live in and it's our own fault. I have been saying for as long as I can remember that no one, and I mean no one, should receive a high school diploma unless they pass a "mandatory" rigorous course on money and budget management. Anybody at any income level could be doing better if they only knew how with the proper skills.

 

Nothing is going to save the MC industry or so many other industries until the following problems are dealt with.

 

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2018/01/18/could-come-up-with-1000-tomorrow-more-than-60-americans-cant.html

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/few-americans-have-enough-savings-to-cover-a-1000-emergency.html

[djh3]

Ah shYucks. I got no answers for sure. But cost has to figure in. Plus you need to focus on the job at hand RIDING. Not pissing around on a phone. Roads are not what they were when I started riding long distances either. Way more jammed up seems no matter where you go.

[saddlebum]

Ah shYucks. I got no answers for sure. But cost has to figure in. Plus you need to focus on the job at hand RIDING. Not pissing around on a phone. Roads are not what they were when I started riding long distances either. Way more jammed up seems no matter where you go.

Except they shouldn't be pissing around with the cell phone while driving a cage either. Lets face it the younger generation as a whole is more into parking their butts in chairs in front of artificial intelligent devices and letting virtual reality live their lives for them than to actually taste a piece of grass roots living.

Fact in point when we got into a good old fashioned scrap win or loose you had the bruises to show for it. Now I hear guys talking about kicking somebody's butt only to discover it was never real it was virtual. Or listening to some guy that drives like a little old lady brag about his driving skills pulling drifts and 180's only to realize he was sitting in front of his computer the whole time or playing at super stunt driving on his cell phone at work instead of working. But then if you ask them I am the one from another planet.

Edited February 17, 2018 by saddlebum

[baylensman]

I Don't think its a price issue, a good full dress HD was always similar in price to a good mid sized car. We've had two income families since the 60's become the norm, those people competed in the market place for the same houses and cars and motorcycles as the single income family. That alone drove up prices, apples have always cost more down town than they did over the tracks.

 

I don't think its a generational issue either, when I first took a bike on the street legally we were a very small percentage of the total ridership, if anything I think there are more bikes out there than ever. A small group of young people will find the lifestyle attractive as before.

 

I think the real issue is longevity of motorcycles! I think sales have dropped because all the bike makers build a better machine. When i started riding in the early 70's there were no 50's bike and very few early 60'sbikes on the road, there were a lot in garages! If we look just at this board we see people riding bikes from the early 80's, which i'm sorry to say are 35 year old bikes. These are in many cases driven every day, in 1980 you didn't see any 1945 bikes on the road! In 2000 we didn't see a lot of 1965 bikes either. Since that time though we've seen more and more people pulling the old bike out of storage and fixing it up or keeping the old bike on the road. When I go to bike nights now its not uncommon to see 20 and 30 year old bikes every day.

 

So its really a sales issue! There's not enough NEW in new bikes to attract a lot of us.

[snyper316]

So its really a sales issue! There's not enough NEW in new bikes to attract a lot of us.

 

I have got many of comments nice bike, several others saying Keep it on the road they like the older bikes. I have seen more and more this year of 80's bikes up for sale then ever before that need work, Yes its hard to source parts for them because of age but people love the old bikes. If I want GPS on tinker i refer to my phone in my ram mount, which is also video camera, camera, radio, radar, anything i need is in my $80 phone. Sure I wished I could get a newer bike, but why I can't do my own maintenance or work. Me having to something to do is therputic therefore I don't see doing maintenance to my bike any work. I can cuss, hit and scream at it and it will never call the cops on me!! Very theraputic if you ask me....

[cowpuc]

and then there are story's like this young mans that make me just shake my head in amazement at how blind to proper "customer service" some dealerships/manufacturers can be (this is a tragic HD story but, IMHO, HD is far from alone in this type of improper business ethics).. Ethically speaking, this young guy should have gone no more than 2 days without a brand new replacement bike IMHO.. When watching these two vids, dont forget to remind yourself that the question of the day that our industry experts are asking us to help them answer is "what can be done to help save the industry" = now watch these and remember = this can/does happen to anyone:

 

 

[Condor]

You're damn right it can be saved, but folks ain't gonna like it.... Change the pumps to liters, and raise the price of fuel to $5.00 bucks...