Motorcycling is dying

[guzzisteve]

I really wish otherwise, but I can find no logical reason to be optimistic about the future of man.  We are stacking the deck massively against us, that even given our ability to adapt, I have serious reservations that we can navigate the next 200 years.   The species may make it, maybe, but I suspect there will be Huge losses along the way.

+1 Chad

[Aaron D.]

Perhaps some manufacturers will stop producing what we call motorcycles but that doesn't stop one from riding. Heck the Asian population is just getting rolling!

All these Dystopian views- all very familiar to anyone who has read the silly prattle that Dr. Paul Ehrlich has been peddling.

[DaSwami]

Or Stephen Hawking, who says the earth will be one big sizzling fireball in 600 years or so.  Better work on that "light-years fast' space travel in the meantime...

[jas67]

When the cyber drones start hunting us all down for operating an illegal internal combustion vehicle, I vote we make our last desperate stand on the summit of Beartooth Highway...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAvQSkK8Z8U

[Mr Pootle]

The Simpsons will reveal all. The show predicted your present president and the Disney takeover of Fox. It’s the latter day Nostradamus.

[Murray]

Had a quick read, n.b. if anyone is in marketing might want to go and have a drink and read something else :) .

Is there no fathomable depth for marketing types where their on self belief in dribbling garbage or marketing will fix everything. The opening line we don't need better products we just need to spend more money on dribble! Do you think the current generation are that naive? You do realise they teach media awareness in schools for the last 30 odd years. People can cut through the bull!@#$ yes people are less mechanically inclined although the thread on why do we still have dealerships reflects how far mass produced mechanical devices have come.

People will often complain that various magazine articles are pandering to the advertising dollar yet a magazine article online saying you need to spend more money on advertising is not somehow. I think Motorcycling is at a bit of an ebb although dying seems to be an exaggeration. Although here and I'd say in the US the lack of a champion since Nicky Hayden and here Casey Stoner is reducing that uncontrived mass media profile.

The article claims everything can be fixed with more marketing but doesn't outline what form that marketing will take surely they don't simply mean more of the same. Actually they probably do because in my limited experience with marketing types they'll quiet happily claim they have a solution ,it's almost always the same solution they've been peddling for the last 40 odd years and according to the article its not working.

[Rough Edge racing]

It's not unlike every generation since Socrates predicting the decline of civilization because of the next generation.

  Exactly.....And it seems many here own multiple late model bikes ,trucks , cars, expensive homes and discuss European vacations....A Fine Decline I would say   

 

[Sheepdog]

I look upon the motorcycling downturn as a windfall. I have been able to assemble a nice collection of machines at a big discount...bigger than was ever possible before. I really don’t worry about the future much these days; nor the past. I have more than enough to keep me busy today.

Young people will return to motorcycling as soon as it is no longer a definitive part of a previous generation’s identity. Adventure never goes out of style...

[Lannis]

Young people will return to motorcycling as soon as it is no longer a definitive part of a previous generation�s identity.

I was sort of struggling to put this thread all together; when I saw this statement, a great white light went off, and I realized I was seeing The Truth!

Lannis

[Bonaventure]

How are autonomous vehicles going to "push motorcycles off the road" altogether as the article suggests?  Given the inattentiveness of human drivers due to too many distractions, I think I'd rather ride in traffic around autonomous vehicles given that their sensors reliably detect motorcycles in a full 360 perimeter, and at all distances.  Won't take much for cyber logic and manipulation of a vehicle to exceed the perceptive ability of the avg human driver who's adjusting their sunglasses in the mirror while talking hands free (or not) on the phone and eating a burger (or booger) as they careen down the road oblivious to everything except themselves.

[kidneb]

Or Stephen Hawking, who says the earth will be one big sizzling fireball in 600 years or so.  Better work on that "light-years fast' space travel in the meantime...

Last november he gave us 1000 years left on this planet,- now he`s down to a 100    😳

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/stephen-hawking-100-years-on-earth-prediction-starmus-festival

[Tusayan]

I look upon the motorcycling downturn as a windfall. I have been able to assemble a nice collection of machines at a big discount...bigger than was ever possible before. I really don�t worry about the future much these days; nor the past. I have more than enough to keep me busy today.

Young people will return to motorcycling as soon as it is no longer a definitive part of a previous generation�s identity. Adventure never goes out of style...

I've done the same in terms of collecting the (used) bikes I want at reasonable prices, but instead of seeing that as indicative of a downturn, I see it as a result of bikes that may now be 20 or 30 years old having been built to last, and to be easily maintained. There are a lot of them out there. Same thing is true with light aircraft, except in that case they may be 60 to 70 years old.

Re rejecting symbols of an earlier generation, the marketeers handled that for station wagons by creating the SUV.

[Triple Jim]

Re rejecting symbols of an earlier generation, the marketeers handled that for station wagons by creating the SUV.

Funny, isn't it?  And the latest "SUVs" I've seen look more like old fashioned station wagons than what used to be an SUV.

[Lannis]

Or Stephen Hawking, who says the earth will be one big sizzling fireball in 600 years or so.  Better work on that "light-years fast' space travel in the meantime...

The stuff that he predicted that would happen in "our" lifetimes never has happened, and predictions about 100 or 600 or 1000 or a billion years in the future are easy to make.   No one's going to check.

Paul Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb" 45 years or so ago.    EVERYTHING he wrote was B.S., none of it came true, some of it off by orders of magnitude ... and yet he's still got a tenured university chair.   Spends his time sounding like Obi-Wan Kenobi "...so what I told you was true, from a certain point of view".

Easy to make predictions, but when you call someone on a failed one, it's all like "Why are you digging up ancient history?"    Good racket to be in; like the weatherman predicting a 10% chance of rain, you can NEVER be wrong .... !

Lannis

[Yukonica]

Last november he gave us 1000 years left on this planet,- now he`s down to a 100    😳

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/stephen-hawking-100-years-on-earth-prediction-starmus-festival

From the article: ... over due asteroids...
? they are scheduled ? Wow.There's a colossal job.

Living in the sub-arctic I can tell you the globe is warming faster than you middle-lat's want to know.
Our maximum daily temperature for the past two weeks has been above zero C. That is scary.
~ If I look for a positive ; the fuel bill is lower.

[jas67]

How are autonomous vehicles going to "push motorcycles off the road" altogether as the article suggests? 

Simple, do to people proving that they are not responsible enough to drive vehicles themselves, either governments, or insurance companies (through insurance prices) will regulate ALL human vehicles off the roads, because "autonomous vehicles are much safer."    And "all human vehicles" includes motorcycles.

Gone will be the days of making the commute to work suck less by riding a motorcycle.   Motorcycle riding will be limited to track days, and off road riding.

Hopefully, this won't happen until I'm too old to ride anyway.

[Lannis]

Our maximum daily temperature for the past two weeks has been above zero C. That is scary.....

If not-freezing-your-ass-off is "scary", then scare me all you want ... !

Lannis

[DaSwami]

The stuff that he predicted that would happen in "our" lifetimes never has happened, and predictions about 100 or 600 or 1000 or a billion years in the future are easy to make.   No one's going to check.

Paul Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb" 45 years or so ago.    EVERYTHING he wrote was B.S., none of it came true, some of it off by orders of magnitude ... and yet he's still got a tenured university chair.   Spends his time sounding like Obi-Wan Kenobi "...so what I told you was true, from a certain point of view".

Easy to make predictions, but when you call someone on a failed one, it's all like "Why are you digging up ancient history?"    Good racket to be in; like the weatherman predicting a 10% chance of rain, you can NEVER be wrong .... !

Lannis

Preaching to the choir, hopefully you caught my sarcasm in this case.  Weatherman job is great, you can be wrong half the time and still keep your job.   That and your tenured professors are great examples of being able to say almost anything with little consequence for being wrong. 

[Aaron D.]

Simple, do to people proving that they are not responsible enough to drive vehicles themselves, either governments, or insurance companies (through insurance prices) will regulate ALL human vehicles off the roads, because "autonomous vehicles are much safer."    And "all human vehicles" includes motorcycles.

Gone will be the days of making the commute to work suck less by riding a motorcycle.   Motorcycle riding will be limited to track days, and off road riding.

Hopefully, this won't happen until I'm too old to ride anyway.

Legally untenable- ex post facto.

[oldbike54]

 Fellas , we are veering off into politics here , and we all know the rules , right ?

 Dusty

[Aaron D.]

I edited to remove possible political content.

[Darren Williams]

Things come and go, just the way it is. When I go to a major race (COTA MotoGP, Springfield Mile for example) or designated off road riding area and see all the bikes there, it seems like it is pretty strong still.  I have been riding for 45 years and it's always seemed riders were well outside the norm. When I was in high school, there wasn't that big of a percentage of kids who rode to school. Even if the percent of riders drops 20%, that is probably a sub 1% change of the total population. And this is from a US perspective. Rest of the world is a lot different in participation/use. A more telling breakdown is toy verses transportation.

And, as far as promoting motorcycle riding, the vast majority of people I know have no business riding a motorcycle! Many have no business driving a car either, but do it out of necessity, not for pleasure.

[Lannis]

Preaching to the choir, hopefully you caught my sarcasm in this case. 

I did, just extending it a bit with only a little sarcasm ... !

[clubman]

I would hate to see motorcycles disappear and I'm very sure they won't in my lifetime, although big changes are coming. On the other hand: after 50+ years of riding when I think back to all the times I was dissed or just plain ignored when I walked into a MC dealer I find it hard to have any sympathy for them. There's several I will be quite tickled to see take it in the shorts. A friend of mine who rides Harleys says I complain too much and if you really want to be treated like crap go into his dealer, especially before the "bubble".   

[ITSec]

My uncle has a country place
that no one knows about.
He says it used to be a farm
before the motor laws...


I started reading science fiction when I was about 5, and I've been quoted as a 'futurist' once or twice, but I take a lesson from a couple of famous SF writers. They pointed out that predicting the future was always a risky business, since less than ten percent of your predictions would come true, and the biggest changes and events would all be things you hadn't thought of.

We have sports cars and motorcycles, and even light recreational aircraft - but people still ride horses and bicycles because of the joy of it.  What was one of the most spectacular sequences in the original Star Wars trilogy? The speeders racing through the forest of Endor...

The form may adapt as the world changes - la plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme vieux merde!

[oldbike54]

^^^

 Yep , horses are still ridden , and there are certainly some horses in the wild and some that are kept as working horses . However , some of you know that Rocker shows horses , and he tells me that attendance and participation at horse shows is half what it was 20 years ago . If you have spent anytime in cattle or farm country , you would have noticed the horse has been replaced by 4 wheelers and side by sides . Point is , using the horse as an analogy to motorcycles is not accurate. Or maybe it is in that motorcycles will become obsolete , dunno .

 Once again , don't worry about what future generations do for fun or transport , a decline in motorcycle sales , or even their complete disappearance does NOT represent a decline in civilization , that is nonsense .

 Dusty

[Testarossa]

I spent my career at the intersection of two doomed businesses: print magazines and skiing.

Print magazines dedicated to doomed business are blowing away -- note the recent thread on the parlous state of motorcycile magazines. Ski magazines are in even worse shape.

Back around 1978 the ski industry awoke to the reality that the population of skiers had plateaued. The trade groups hired a consulting firm that came to the unsurprising conclusion that the general population of nonskiers regarded the sport as uncomfortable (cold!!!), expensive (yeah!), and inconvenient (far away). The firm recommended a massive advertising campaign to encourage folks to try it. For context, I need to point out that people who ski with some frequency comprised less than 1% of the U.S. population. The marketing geniuses estimated that there might be another 1% who were potential skiers -- that is, who matched the demographics of people who already skied.

Well, the industry wasn't about to pay for a massive advertising campaign to 99% of America, just to reach a possible 1%. Instead, marginal companies folded or were sucked up into larger ones. Today about a dozen large resort companies and equipment manufacturers get about 80% of all the business, and another dozen or so pilot fish live on the scraps. Clothing companies, which require much less capital investment, do better. The industry remains small and survives on the passion of its vendors and participants.

As will motorcycling. I learned that there are two opportunities to recruit new skiers: As kids, when their families ski, and as young adults looking for freedom, adventure, romance. Same for motorcycling (except there may be a third opportunity at midlife crisis/early retirerment). The growth of motorcycling as practical transportation in Asia will to some extent subsidize the survival of the sport in developed countries. To recruit new riders in developed countries, factories need to sell freedom, adventure, romance, and not just for young men. They need to convey this message in visual media directed to youtube, netflix and adolescent-audience movies. And with appropriate product, which may mean lighter "urban adventure" bikes with autotrans and abs but forgoing expensive electronic monkey dust.

Meanwhile, as many have noted, I'm very happy to see depressed prices for good used bikes.

 

[Arizona Wayne]

My son Jake who tried dirt bikes but didn't stick with them as a teenager as  an adult snow board skis in the winter time.  But skiing is very seasonal unless you live in like Alaska.

[jas67]

And, as far as promoting motorcycle riding, the vast majority of people I know have no business riding a motorcycle! Many have no business driving a car either, but do it out of necessity, not for pleasure.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 :1: :1: :1: :1: :1: :1: :1:

[Yukonica]

If not-freezing-your-ass-off is "scary", then scare me all you want ... !

Lannis

We are northerners. Our asses don't start freezing off until -43.5C.