quick and dirty grist for the mill

[Moto]

Just because I ran across a table and could quickly make a graph of it:





This is from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, at https://www.iihs.org/frontend/iihs/documents/masterfiledocs.ashx?id=2145, where you can find more details including their definitions of the types.

Tourers and "unclad sports" (like the Griso, RIP) are on the way up, cruisers and supersports on the way down.

Sometimes overall trends like these enter our discussions. Note that these are not new sales, but instead are currently-registered bikes, so categories with longer-lived items (tourers?) might look better in these data than in new sales.

What say you all? Portrait of doom, or room for optimism? Or not enough information to be relevant to our morbid preoccupations?

Moto

[Toecutter]

Well, boomers are the biggest drivers of cruiser sales and use, so their slight fall in registration is no surprise.


And everything else seems to be on a slow climb. So I'd say it matches my expectations precisely.

[Kiwi_Roy]

Yes but lately the boomers have been dumping the cruisers for dual sports, that category has more than compensated for the drop in cruisers.
Just think how many Stelvios you saw at the last John Day National.

[Toecutter]

Are they? Youngest boomers are 55+ right now, not saying you're incorrect, just seems contrary to my own experiences, in that I see the Boomercruisers all sticking with what they know, or stopping riding altogether (or switching to trikes).

 I just don't see a lot of "genre-swapping" going on, no matter the demographic.

[rocker59]

I agree with toecutter.

Boomers (and older) riders aging out is what's the biggest driver of the downward trend in Cruisers.  Yes, some of them are going to lighter bikes and to ADVbikes, but the biggest driver is boomers who jumped into the cruiser/chopper craze in the '90s and '00s are getting out of motorcycles.  I have several friends in their 60s and 70s who have checked out of motorcycling in the last year, or so.  They came into motorcycling in their 40s, riding the crest of HDs huge wave from the late '90s through the late '00s.

We can see proof of the smaller demographic of boomer downsizing here on WG.  Though I think it's a drop in the bucket, many long time Guzzi 1000-1100 Tonti riders have (and are) downsizing to the smallblock V7 / V9 range, and I'm sure that is probably happening with other brands.

I think it's the GenXers (like me) in their 40s and 50s who are driving a lot of the downward trend in supersport sales, and switching to ADVbikes.  We've gotten older since the '90s and '00s, when we were cranking out the miles on Ducati Supersports, Superbikes, Guzzi Sport 1100s, and JapanINC superbikes, etc., and we've slowly but surely been transitioning into bikes that are more comfortable.  Some cruisers, sure.  But the Ducati folks I used to ride with have been transitioning to ADVbikes, nakeds, and retro standards.    In addition to that, I'm sure cost to purchase, cost of insurance, and a general lack of interest in motorcycles by millenials is also helping to drive down the supersport sales.

[Toecutter]

I agree with toecutter.


I think it's the GenXers (like me) in their 40s and 50s who are driving a lot of the downward trend in supersport sales, and switching to ADVbikes. 

Yeah, as a fellow GenXer, My eye was always on standards and Dual Sports (with a portion of my love for the choppers of the 70s that I saw as a child), and it's pretty much where my Moto-lust has stayed.