Re: The True End is Near - Harley sales fell !!

by **NevadaGhosts** » Wed 13 Apr 2005, 18:30:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hawkcreek', 'N')ews flash!! Harley Sales Fall I think the non-essentials will be the first to go, so a motorcycle really doesn't qualify. (You have to have a bike to have a decent life)
I have also noticed a lot of Hogs in the classified lately. Maybe the idea of riding a 30 MPG bike doesn't seem too smart anymore.

by **Overlyhonest** » Wed 13 Apr 2005, 19:42:41

New Englanders love to hide things in their barns. Inside one of these barns I once saw what I was told was one of the first harleys. It was a pink little girly motorcycle that makes me think of Europe.
If peek goes slow motorcycle sales are going to boom but it will be the small bikes not the big ones that sell. Harley "if it really was a harley I was shown" will need to go back to their roots.

by **generikan** » Wed 13 Apr 2005, 20:05:34

maybe Dodge Tomahawk could help boost bike sales.....

by **generikan** » Wed 13 Apr 2005, 20:08:54

maybe not

by **BorneoRagnarok** » Wed 13 Apr 2005, 21:28:09

In the movie 'Time Machine', someone said "Buy a horse" to the first New Yorker who owned an unreliable car. The same phrase will be spoken again 110 years later.

:lol:

Website · by **Yavicleus** » Wed 13 Apr 2005, 21:34:52

not surprising...their Buell line is pretty shoddy. They don't make any bikes smaller than 500cc, and most of their bikes are so expensive that only aging hippies and yuppies can afford them.

Sorry, they may look beautiful, but I'm not a big fan of them, or their snobby, fresh off the lot squid riders with their "Harley Davidson" matching pants, t-shirts, jackets, helmuts, and sunglasses.

...because, you know, low-class, Hells Angel 'bikers' can really afford a $20k bike and matching apparel. :roll:

by **linlithgowoil** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 05:38:50

harley davidson bikes are for poofs. i disapprove of motorbikes in general though. what a total and complete waste of time, especially in a country with crap weather like Scotland where i live.

i have a friend who simply must own a motorbike. he has one, and he rides it about 1 week out of every year i would say. and yet he has to pay insurance for the whole year, still get it serviced, store it, and all that crap. what a complete waste.

by **Carmiac** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 06:09:03

I disagree. Motocycles can be quite practical. Where I live there are less than two weeks a year that the weather is too bad to ride.

by **SD_Scott** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 10:23:01

I bought a new Triumph Bonneville last summer and it's a very practical bike. Harleys are a marketing scheme. The Harley image doesn't stem from Sturgis or the California roads. It comes directly from Madison avenue in New York.

by **Roy** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 10:39:51

I agree with the idea that Harley's have become a status symbol per se.

I know Harley riders from both "sides of the tracks". The new wealthy yuppy types with the $30k bikes and all the goodies.

Then there are the old school bikers that really live the lifestyle. Blue collar, long haired, hard drinking guys with older bikes that they restore. maintain, and ride for transportation.

My background in motorcycles is off road. Never even ridden a Harley.

Small dual-purpose motorcycles are cheap, very fuel efficient, nimble, and easy to ride.

In fact, I just bought a used Honda XR250L. 60 mpg and great for short trips. Very practical, and can go off road where most 4wd can't go. Not to mention they could be handy in a bug-out situation.

Not all bikes are a waste of time/money. Look at countries like India where motorcycles are a primary mode of transportation. They're just cheap to operate, cause less wear and tear on roads, make less emissions, cheaper to insure etc etc.

Don't count them out as an "alternative" form of transport in a world of expensive oil.

Roy
re-discovering my lover for two-wheeled motorized vehicles.

by **Free** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 12:50:08

Motorbikes are the future of fuel efficient individual transport. It just makes no sense to move 2 tons of steel around for transporting one person.

Admittedly I never was a big fan of cars and even only have a drivers license for motorbikes (which I only made recently). My first motorbike is a Honda CB 500, a cheap, ugly, handy, practical bike. It uses about 5 liters on 100 km and is great fun to drive.

But for the future I think Diesel-bikes will be great, with one tank filling they are able to drive about 1000 km! Plus they can take almost every kind of biodiesel, even plain salad oil which you buy in the supermarket! Imagine driving with your own homegrown fuel!

by **eastbay** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 15:30:19

Hey wait a minute here...

A Harley Sportster will get over 50 mpg at a steady 62 mph... and that's better than almost any car sold in the USA. At about $8 or $9,000 it's very economical and fuel efficient transportation.

A de-restricted and otherwise stock larger HD with the Twin Cam will get low to mid 40's if held at a steady 62 mph... which also beats almost every car sold in the USA and betters the average of any country in the EU.

A stock HD Sportster will get better gas mileage than almost every European or Japanese one liter sport bike.... and better than almost all 600cc sport bikes too.

I've owned several large HD's and they all regularly earned low 40's freeway as long as I rode at 60 to 65 mph.

I now own a one liter Aprilia sport bike and at 40 mpg it ain't for the gas mileage lol. For the best gas mileage on a larger bike get a Sportster.

EastBay

by **RiverRat** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 16:35:06

Backing my roadracing days, one of the track instructors would always enter his race prepped HD 883. Man… was that toad an utter grenade. It would throw it’s chain … the carbs would foul … it would over heat … the clutch would slip …

But man … did he love to turn laps on it. It was comical in a really sick kinda way.