I see the same thing on the road as you do Scott — Harley Davidson is by far the most common motorcycle on the road.

And you’re absolutely right about each rider’s personal story being unique regardless of which “rider group” they belong to. And with few exceptions, every rider I’ve ever approached, or been approached by, regardless of what they were riding has been friendly and open and without anything negative. And they were all different. Even in a couple.

You raise a great point about dealer support. It’s definitely important if you’re making long trips far from home. It’s nice to know that you can find help. Harley Davidson dealers and independent mechanics who can work on them would be far more plentiful than someone who could wrench on an Aprilia, or Vespa. Especially getting parts.

If I had the money to buy a second machine, a motorcycle, I certainly would consider a Harley. Along with a Triumph, BMW, Kawasaki, Honda and Suzuki. No Ducati or URAL though… 😉

I suppose you’re describing how the idea of moderation, or deliberate choice versus automated habit might work. There’s probably no technology that’s intrinsically bad until it’s misused. (Straining to think of exceptions) And there’s also a big tendency to jump on judgement and lump everything together into one nice little package — “All Harley riders do this” and “All scooter riders are this”. All the evidence points to the uniqueness of individuals but perhaps it’s human nature to want to categorize so it’s easier to make decisions.

While I don’t have any feature to listen to music as I ride, I’ve sung a lot of songs in the helmet. That’s really no different that you listening to Haggard or Strait is it? Aside from them being a couple levels above me on the singing skills..;

Maybe motorcycles will become like film and paper is in the photo industry — an antique process…

I wonder how big a “scooter” has to be before they wouldn’t consider it a motorized wheelchair?

I was interested in the comments about riding alone with one’s thoughts versus listening to music. Until I got my first HD Ultra with a radio, I wouldn’t have given two figs for a music device on a motorcycle. But it quickly worked its way into my comfort zone. I don’t listen to it all the time, but it’s nice on long trips or sometimes when I’m just out riding. Much more often, I’m of the “alone with my thoughts” variety — even when on the Ultra; you can turn the music off, you know. There’s no way to express the number of issues and problems I’ve worked out in my head while two-wheeling it , and that is still one of the most enjoyable aspects of riding for me. But every once in a while a little Merle Haggard or George Strait while tooling around on a Saturday afternoon is enjoyable too.

Whether its enough to keep some marques alive, that’s another story.

You could install a sidecar on a Zero. Then you could ride your cross-over right into Walmart. No need to bring a wheel chair… 😉

No worries about writing a book here — you’re welcome to post as much as you like, especially since you have first hand insight into the changing demographics, particularly as student riders go.

It’s good to hear that young people are showing interest in learning to ride. I wonder how carefully the manufacturers conduct market research to guide their moto making activities. I’m sure some will offer that designing and building motorcycles is an art and should not fall prey to the marketing staff. There’s wisdom to that but not to the extent that it ignores the customer. Your musings of the lack of offerings for women is a good example. Seat height alone is crazy. I’ve sat on things tall for me at 6’2″. And after riding a totally agile scooter whenever I get on a big motorcycle the first thing that strikes me is the lumbering weight. Ugh.

Used bikes are deals and I suspect a lot of new riders go that route. I’ve met a few younger riders with new machines but that’s rare. At our local moto hang it’s usually old guys in attendance. A woman or younger rider is a rare sighting.

It will be interesting times ahead for the moto industry. I wonder if it will try and capture the aging boomers that drop off with some sort of transition machine between motorcycle and wheelchair. I think URAL has cornered that market!

I do think the motorcycle industry is changing because newbs are buying smaller cc bikes that have a more affordable purchase and cost less to insure. Just to give you perspective on Canadian bike insurance my 2012 Honda NC700 costs me about $1100 for a year and that is with my 42% safe drivers discount, so without that the bike would be well up around $2k to insure as a new rider or someone without many years of driving experience.

Last year our riding school purchased a Honda CB300 and CB500 and through the experience of riding these bikes 33 new riders bought one of these bikes, so Honda Canada did well.

I don’t see many new riders buying HD, I think their play with the HD street 500 & 750 was aimed at new younger riders looking to get into the market at $7 to $9k market and it completely missed the mark with design, fit and overall poor finish of the bike. I rode one for 8 hours and it was ‘meh’, there was absolutely nothing special about it and by the time you spent money on accessorizing it to meet the “HD experience” that most seek you are back up around the $10k-15k price which is insane and if you looked at a comparable cc Japanese bike it comes in $2k to 3k less with more bells and whistles, so why would a consumer pay more & get less and HD needs to take that into account in future.

If you look at the Japanese bikes Honda, kawasaki, and Yamaha , they have a great spectrum of bikes to choose and generally there is something for everyones riding style and budget. Their sales may be slumping a bit, but I Think they are continually innovating and more in touch with their customer base and are hitting the mark with women and new young riders.

Then you look at the prestige brands Ducati, Triumph and BMW, and they are matketting to a more income based demographic. Ducati is trying to capture new riders with the Scrambler and of course those who want the fast race bikes, but again it is a smaller economic demographic. Triumph has lovely bikes more of them retro based, but again it is an income based demographic and that translates to people in their 40s & up. BMW is catering to the same crowd with a basic 650 coming in around $10k without farkles. They have in my estimation missed the mark with the fastest growing new riding demographic – women, their adventure touring bikes while drool worthy are just too tall and heavy, but at least they are making more factory lowered offerings.

But I can say this same thing about all of the motorcycle brands, the biggest complaint from women riders is seat height and weight, by manufacturers doing this they are limiting their market just by virtue of their stubborn unwillingness to make bikes that have a lower seat height or lower centre of gravity. We bought 10 Honda CRF250Ls for our school training bikes and we lowered 8 of them with links and we probably could have lowered all 10.

Victoria has a vibrant and healthy scooter community from 50cc right up to larger maxi scooters. Again it is generally Japanese scooters Yamaha and Honda. There is a huge vintage Vespa and Lambretta following here. The Honda grom is also getting a cult following here, it is a fun peppy bike.

Another component to the younger and new rider demographic are those buying used bikes and you can generally pick up an older or barely used bike for a $2k to $7k. Most are really good deals because they buyers aren’t dealing with the loss of depreciation that you’d get with a new bike.

Last thought on this from my regional view is that we have pretty much year round riding here so I think that makes a difference as well. I think socioeconomic factors have a huge impact and also it is regional where climate dictates practicality of owning higher priced bikes. Bikes are landbased money pits.

I think North America is turning the proverbial corner on big, heavy, high cc’d bikes and we are going to see more of the phenomena that is in Asia and Europe with bikes with smaller engine displacements, which are more affordable in all aspects. Sorry about writing a book here.