HD is catering to a dying segment of motorcyclists who somehow see themselves as ‘bad ***es”, yet are typically 60 year old wanna be weekend warriors who almost never ride.
I recently attended a rally, which shall remain unnamed, only to find that the majority of ‘bikers’ spent more time in the pubs and bars, than they did riding. This same group trailered their bikes to the rally and spent most of their time stationary.
I sampled two dozen or so riders’ bikes, all more than five years old. The oldest had approximately 12,000 miles on it, while half a dozen had less than 1,000 miles. It’s obvious that their riders are essentially driving to their favourite coffee shop once a week to spend time with their other ‘riders’. Less than a quarter of the two dozen ‘riders’ actually rode more than once or twice a week. Interestingly, not one of these riders was under 55 years of age.
It’s obvious that HD has a real and persistent problem. Young riders aren’t buying Harley Davidson motorcycles, and those that do are buying the smallest, cheapest HD’s sold or used HD’s, selling for half the price of a new one.
If HD continues to cater to their increasingly shrinking group of older bikers, they will become extinct. To their credit, they have attempted to appeal to women and younger riders, but electric motorcycles, which HD derided for decades, aren’t selling with a HD logo. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is HD continuing to spend over $100 million every year on a motorcycle that doesn’t and won’t sell.
With continued shrinkage and increasing competition that is making great motorcycles at reasonable prices, it looks like HD will require a miracle to see it recover. Other manufacturers are rapidly increasing in popularity, and now HD has further increased the production of its motorcycles offshore.
Thailand is increasingly becoming the place producing HD’s products. As for the US, its large and ever-increasingly expensive large displacement bikes are essentially non-competitive. Worse for HD is the fact that the Chinese are now producing large displacement ‘baggers’ that will enter HD’s historical market in 2025.
A shrinking production base, shrinking sales, shrinking market and unhappy workers is a recipe for either bankruptcy or a sale of the company in the not-too-distant future.
The last thing the company needed was an internal fight between those looking to a different future for the company and its historical base, yet the old school buyers are in the process of denigrating ‘woke’ thinking and changes that HD are making. Desperation seems to be in the air and HD is not in a position to do much about its current state.
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