Down But Not Out

Down but not out

EDITORIAL

IF YOU LISTEN TO WHAT SOME PEOPLE are saying, it's all over but the mourning. As far as they're concerned, motorcycling is dead, and we're all desperately hanging onto a memory of what once was, prolonging the final act of slipping the withered remains six feet under.

Well, that's pure bull.

Not only is that one of the most pessimistic and shortsighted observations I’ve ever heard, it’s deadwrong, if you’ll pardon my choice of words. Motorcycling’s ever-changing tides of prosperity might currently be at low ebb, but the situation is anything but terminal.

I guess, in all honesty, that the motorcycle magazines, including this one, have inadvertently contributed to the feelings of hopelessness some people have developed. In our ongoing attempt to keep our readers wellinformed on matters of great importance, we have dutifully chronicled some of the circumstances and problems that have put this sport on the critical list in recent years; and in the process, I suppose we unwittingly sent out the wrong messages to some people, messages of gloom and doom and the impending demise of motorcycling. But as naive as it sounds, we never imagined that anyone would interpret our reportage in that way, because we never believed for a moment that motorcycling was about to dry up and blow away.

And we still don’t. But it’s easy now, in retrospect, to see how some people read more into our coverage of current events than was actually there. Still, the error in judgment was ours and no one else’s, and for that I apologize—on behalf of this magazine, at least.

Fortunately, I think I know how this misunderstanding occurred. See, over the past several years it has been difficult to pick up a motorcycle magazine without reading some reference to the dramatic plummet in new-bike sales and the severe financial impact it was having on the industry. That made it all too easy for people to assume that since the number of motorcycle buyers was at its lowest in decades, then the number of motorcycle riders was also at its lowest. And when sales didn’t pick up significantly, many of those people logically concluded that motorcycling must have one foot in the grave and the other on an oil slick.

But while that might be a logical conclusion, it’s an inaccurate one. Yes, new-bike sales did drop off the end of the earth about four or five years ago and have been languishing ever since. But that doesn’t mean that people have given up riding altogether; by and large, it simply means that for numerous good reasons—escalating sticker prices, increasing machine complexity, lack of model variety or whatever—most people who already owned a motorcycle have decided not to replace it with a new one. But they have continued to ride nonetheless, choosing to invest a lesser amount of money in refurbishing or upgrading their existing bikes rather than dumping a bundle on brand-new ones. They’ve still been riding bikes, even if they haven’t been buying bikes. And there seems to be more of them riding now than there were a couple of years ago.

There’s powerful evidence of this in the aftermarket, where a lot of manufacturers and distributors of parts and accessories are going greatguns, having their biggest years in quite a while—and for some, their biggest ever. The exhaust-system people say they can’t make trick mufflers and replacement pipes fast enough; the tire people are rolling rubber out the front door as quickly as they can roll it in the back; the helmet manufacturers claim that even the expensive skid-lids are moving at an unexpected high rate; clothing manufacturers are pleased at the American

rider’s apparent awakening to the beauties of dressing for the task; purveyors of assorted motorcycling geegaws are amazed at the public’s growing demand for their wares.

Obviously, people aren’t buying all this stuff just to sit and stare at it; they’re buying it to put on their motorcycles, or on their bodies as they ride their motorcycles.

I’ve sensed this for quite some time, and the recent motorcycle trade show in Cincinnati confirmed it. The show’s promoters reported that it was one of the very biggest and best-attended shows ever; and everyone there seemed to leave with a renewed sense of hope for the future.

In recent months, I’ve been seeing and hearing about more and more positive signs of recovery, from dealers, from distributors, from industry executives, from riders, from my own observations. There’s more activity in showrooms around the country as riders who have hung onto the same bike for an unusually long time are beginning to at least think about trading up. I’ve begun to notice bikes being incorporated into non-motorcycling advertising and promotional campaigns more often, both nationally and locally. On a recent 2000mile tour, I saw more bikes on the road than I can remember seeing in years.

I’m not alone in my optimism. This revival of enthusiasm has begun to spread throughout the industry as people finally learn that the light at the end of the tunnel is not from a locomotive coming the other way. When you combine that with the new game-plans the bike manufacturers have developed to avoid the kinds of marketing miscues they fell prey to in the past, it all bodes well for the sport. It’s no wonder I’m feeling really good about the future of motorcycling once again. No, we certainly aren’t out of the woods just yet; but things are really looking up.

So the next time some dark overlord of misinformation starts telling you that the motorcycle industry is about to go belly-up, respond the way Mark Twain did in a similar situation. Tell him that the reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

Paul Dean