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Harley Davidson will sell sport and dirt bikes, they say

Beginning next year, HD will face beginning of the end
13108520_web1_170704-WPF-M-editor-Stu-Salkeld

As a journalist heading into his 26th year in the industry, you would likely guess that I enjoy reading. And you would be correct.

I read many dozens of news articles per day; many online, some in newspapers and magazines. My love of motorcycles is well known, and I spend a fair bit of time reading motorcycle news. Something I read last week made me look twice.

I read an article about Harley Davidson. Yes, the famous American motorcycle manufacturer, the original Bad Attitude Guys themselves. The ones who pride themselves on manufacturing the only motorcycles outlaw gang members will ride. The motorcycles that some say define cruising on two wheels, hair freely billowing in the wind, engine generating enough noise to strip paint off nearby homes. The manufacturer whose sales were down 12 per cent this year over last.

Well, it looks like HD is making the move I think is going to place them in bankruptcy court: they’re going to start manufacturing sports bikes like the one I ride, and dirt bikes that people ramp off sand dunes.

I was shocked when I read it. Harley Davidsons, or rather to be more accurate, HD’s fan base are rabid cruisers; that is, they want their heavy, chrome-laden dreadnought cruiser bike and nothing else. But they’re not looking at the most important factor that HD themselves should be aware of: that rabid fan base is shrinking.

With pretty much the only motorcycles in North America that can range in price up to $50,000, Harley Davidson has justly earned a reputation for being expensive. Therefore, only the older riders who have the disposable income and the extremely loyal fans who’d sell their own children to but a Hawg can afford one. Not surprisingly HD has had trouble diversifying their fan base and the company has known this since the 1970s. And to make things worse their fan base, mostly older people who can afford their products, are entering their autumn years.

The Baby Boomers are getting up their in age…well over 60 years, and into their 70s. Not all HD fans can ride anymore; some are struggling to ride. That’s why you’re seeing so many strange three and four-wheel bikes (well, they’re not bikes, I don’t known what to call them really) out there on the roads. I would imagine you’ll see wheel chairs with air-cooled engines on them soon.

As a publicly traded company (New York Stock Exchange name HOG…jeez, why don’t you give it a break?) HD answers to share holders, and I’m sure for the better part of a decade or two the company has been looking at its limited customer base, glancing at the calendar and wringing its hands saying, “What do we do when they’re in the old folks home?”

Well, the current management thinks the way to bring in new customers is to offer new products that the Harley Davidson traditionalists would never consider: high-speed sport bikes, street-legal dirt bikes (do a Google search for Harley Davidson Pan-America, ugh, horrible looking), an electric motorbike called the “Livewire” (sigh) and bicycles. That’s right. A Harley Davidson bicycle.

Just like someone revving their straight pipes at 1 a.m., Harley Davidson has vociferously promoted a hard-core, smash mouth, biker gang look, feel and reputation. Producing motorbikes that aren’t part of that culture is going to annoy the loyal Harley fans, and isn’t going to attract people like me who prefer the Honda CBR series of sport bikes.

I’m predicting that, 10 years from now if Harley Davidson even survives this debacle, this move will be seen as the worst mistake the company ever made.

Stu Salkeld is editor of The Wetaskiwin Pipestone Flyer and writes a regular column for the newspaper.