By
Kevin Cameron
January 13, 2021
As we picked up the economic pieces after 2008, we saw motorcycle sales
plummet just as boat and watercraft sales had sunk in 1997. People weren’t
committing to any big purchases, either because they didn’t have the money
or were too nervous over what might happen next.
We all wondered what would be next for motorcycling. There was no shortage
of theories: the ADV, the mythic Urban Transportation Module with its sacred
lockable storage, lightweight 300s as the new entry level. There were some
sales, but none of it took fire.
When I was a partner in a bike shop it was the 16-to-25s who bought
motorcycles with money they’d been saving since their first supermarket
bag-boy job. Then in the 1980s, thirtysomethings sought success, BMWs, and
sharp fashion. Motorcycle buying became the province of born-again
motorcyclists, people who had ridden years before but had given it up for
family and professional image. Older now, they realized motorcycles were
still important to them. And they could afford nicer things. This was the
time of the “CEO Harley rider,” and the Sunday supplements offered countless
stories of how motorcycling had matured in the hands of corner-office
executives. One I knew flew to Sturgis and had his bike driven there in a
van by others. The day he rode without a shirt was liberation for him.
The late 1980s brought the sportbike, an evolution of the dinosaur
literbikes of the late ’70s, offering performance beyond that of any
$100,000 sports car. Custom roadrace style, condescendingly called “cafe”
(short for “cafe racer”) through the 1970s, finally caught the market and
flourished for an amazing 15 years. 2008 killed the sportbike—with so few
today being built, race sanctioning bodies are scratching for new ways to go
racing, such as King of the Baggers. What next? Tour-bike racing, complete
with a passenger?
These waves of change have left us with a lot of motorcyclists who lack
either disposable cash or confidence in the economy in general. Yet the
manufacturers, in their understandable efforts to get the two-wheeled market
going again, have ignored that population of actual motorcyclists in favor
of imaginary new groups of persons with new requirements.
Imagine that national governments suddenly stopped buying ships, missiles,
planes, tanks, and guns from the defense industry. Imagine further that the
defense industry responded by shifting their marketing to housewives, stamp
collectors, and fly-fishing organizations.
When I attended the release of a major brand electric bike at $30,000 a pop,
I was told the following:
1) The future is electric, so we must accept that.
2) America has become an urban nation.
3) Electric bikes appeal to a class of educated persons who are concerned
for the environment.
Therefore we must seek future sales to urban buyers with up-scale jobs and a
taste for quality and style.
Each of the four points seems OK by itself, but taken together they amount
to “Let’s ignore the whole class that actually buys and rides motorcycles,
and shift our marketing to an entirely different part of society, one that
has never shown much interest in motorcycles of any kind.”
Replacing your entire customer base can’t work. A stamp collector does not
set aside his/her magnifying glass and place an order for automatic rifles.
The only thing that can work is to offer a range of products that your
established customer base does in fact find attractive and can afford.
Something similar had happened when maxi-scooters and lockable storage were
hailed as the New Focus: “Let’s forget the motorcyclists whom we know to
actually exist, who have spent real money for years to ride motorcycles, and
instead let’s try to believe in millions of New Urban Buyers who may not
even exist at all.”
Another viewpoint was that motorcycling had to start over, with a new Origin
Myth that sounded a lot like Grey Advertising’s 1962 masterpiece. “You meet
the nicest people…” Millions in that long-ago prosperous America could
afford a harmless and cute $265 step-through. So let’s start over with these
toned-down 300s.
That didn’t carry the freight either. Who’s old enough to remember the
Studebaker Scotsman? Where other cars had chrome, the Scotsman had paint.
Painted hubcaps! This car sent an undignified message: America is booming,
but I’m driving this pile with cardboard door liners because it’s all I can
afford.
Right now it looks to me as if the happening class of bike is the
middleweight parallel twin. Most manufacturers have one on offer, suggesting
they’re getting nibbles and even netting a few. Parallel twins are powerful
enough to be ridden two-up and fast enough to scare most of us, yet their
parts counts and prices are down where we can think about walking into a
dealer, signature outstretched. They are full-size proper motorcycles that
we’d like to ride, but they aren’t 20 grand.
Think about a parallel twin: half as many pistons, rods, bearings, valves,
spark plugs, and coils. Half the number of cams and cam drives as in a
V-twin. Parallel twins with 270-degree crankpin spacing sound just like vee
motors, if that’s what sings your anthem.
Looks to me like there is a good reason for middleweight twins to exist, and
in such numbers: They can appeal to the large number of real, licensed
motorcyclists who actually exist.
