Give a Shift, MC Industry troubles

Saw this on the beeb. Whoohoo, Markie Mark is going to save the industry.

http://beta.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-motorcycle-summit-20171214-story.html

 

He should stick to selling shitty burgers

 

You saw this on the beeb so you're reposting it on the beeb? I don't get it.

 

From my experience working in a multi line dealership I felt that the industry totally misses the mark on the new rider market. Not a ninja 300, a crf 50; not 18-30 yr olds, 10-16 yr olds. Hook 'em while they are young, get them to learn on dirt where it is safe, and promote it as a wholesome family activity, as opposed to some sort of badass image and a new rider learning on the street where risks are greater. But what do I know.

I do understand not everyone has a place to ride dirt, but you still have to get them young. A gixxer 600 is not a good starter bike.

Is this more bad marketing or bad economy or both?

Motorcycles could also be viewed as more utilitarian in this country as opposed to a luxury item, but this would be a difficult paradigm to shift in the United States.

Still, I don't care to ride on the street as much as I used to due to retards and assholes with cell phones in their face, it's not as much fun as tooling around on a dirtbike at the house.

I should ride just to promote riding though, when it warms up.

 

Two things:

1. If motorcycles will not be compatible with autonomous cars, will bicycles be phased out, too?

2. Motorcycles boomed when they were inexpensive, reliable transportation. Go back to the roots.

 

Why would they not be compatible?
It will probably be better for motorcycles if most regular commuters were in autonomous cars.

 

Except the profit margin on those starter bikes is much smaller.

 

Low testosterone levels in the youth is the problem.

 

Profit margin on unsold bikes in the dealership and no motorcycles on the road is even smaller. I get what you're saying. Maybe the industry has been too short sighted in developing a customer base.

 

Question: how many sales of a unit does it take to cover R&D on a bike, and the company start making more profit?

With a bike like the Z/XR/CRF50, which has used basically the same motor from day one, there has to be a point where Honda can lower the cost to the dealer and increase profit margin.

When we were closing and I was moving all units at cost, people couldn't believe I was only knocking the CRF50's down $26.

 

When I was a kid in the seventies, everyone rode a dirt bike because we had plenty of places to ride one. We had trails in the woods, we had trails in the fields, we rode the piss out of the power lines and railroad tracks. We rode all over, all of the time, and no one batted an eye.

Then we grew up and bought street bikes.

Everywhere that I grew up riding is now either built up or completely off limits. No one dares ride on the tracks or along the power lines for fear of prosecution. No one dares ride in what woods or fields are left for fear of becoming a trespasser. Kids have nowhere to ride, at least in much of the northeast anymore. Well, at least where I grew up in the northeast.

And when you combine less riding areas with our newly hyperprotective society and you have (I believe, anyway) fewer kids growing up on two wheels.......and with fewer kids on two wheels, you may very well end up with fewer adults on them as a result.

 

You know, a big part of that is people are afraid of being sued if your kid gets hurt on their property.

 

I grinned when I saw the part about selling to women. Remember when Kawasaki was giving support to Jessica Zaluski? A couple of the hotshots right here on the Beeb were crying "Foul!" because they were much faster than some girl and they deserved the support more than her. Gotta work on seeing the big picture.

 

This. We used to ride all over: fields, gravel roads, side streets, and nobody cared. Do that today and your dirty bike will be in the impound.

 

Couple of facts (at least to me...). The margin on the small kiddo bikes is $50 according to my local dealer. No room to negotiate or deal on price....Who takes a risk to earn $50 bucks?
We will never overcome the general public's dislike of kids hooliganing on public streets so the cops will always chase them down. Truth is I dislike the local kids with their loud dirt bikes and 4 wheelers ripping up and down my lane and I live way out. I don't call the cops (not that we have any out here) but i wouldn't anyways. Now, if they started ripping around in my woods I would take action...just some random thoughts...

 

Many of my friends started on B&S or Tecumseh powered mini bikes, and went from there. We rode on the streets they were grading for the now older subdivisions. Don't see many of those at all anymore.

 

The good old days! The report wants to remove umbrella girls and MX racing product models to treat women as human beings instead of sex objects.

 

I chuckled at the "millennials bubble wrapped for safety" line...


Truth is funnier (as opposed to stranger) than fiction.

 

Except in Baltimore