As aging riders hang up their leathers, Harley Davidson and Honda pin their hopes on smaller, affordable bikes for a new generation.
For Fed Pacheco, it was a long journey from motocurious ti motorcyclist.
There was a ride years ago in Texas on his uncle's Suzuki Boulevard, not long after Pacheco had emigrated from Venezuela.
A few years later, he decided to take a riding course and got his motorcycle license, though he still did not pull the trigger. But when Honda unveiled its new Rebel 500 in November, the 27 year old finally went all in.
"I just started obsessing about it, to be honest," he said. "The riding season was coming up and I thought "You know what? Maybe, it's not that crazy." Pacheco traced one of the first Rebels on the market to a dealership in New Jersey, walked in and paid US$6,800 on the spot.
With a starting price of $6000, Honda's Rebel 500 is aimed at younger, first time riders. It is the latest entry in a parade of new bikes designed for first time riders; almost every company in the motorcycle industry has scrambled to make one.
They are smaller, lighter, and more affordable than most everything else at a dealership and probably would not look out of place in the 1960s - back when motorcycling was about the ride, not necessarily the bike.
They are also bait for millennials, meant to lure them into the easy rider lifestyle. It all goes as planned, these little rigs will help companies like Harley Davidson coast for another 50 years.
"They're new motorcycles, but they're also new thinking," said Mark Hoyer, editor in chief of Cycle World magazine. "They're selling this perception of lifestyle (...) it's a cultural movement; a rebranding of the whole motorcyle industry."
It is also the manufacturing equivalent of a mid life crisis. Motorcycle sales in the United States peaked in 2006 at 716,268 and promptly started to skid. When the recession hit, the market went down hard. Bike sales fell by 41 percent in 2009 and another 14 percent the following year, according to the Motorcyle Industry Council. That is not surprising considering the economy at the time : A motorcycle is a picture of discretionary spending, and they can be tricky to finance even in a healthy credit market.
Even now, with the stock market on a historic bull run and after the US auto industry posted its best year on record, traffic in motorcycle stores has stayed slow. In 2016, US customers rolled off with 371,403 new bikes, roughly half as many as a decade afo.
And then there is the generational time bomb. In 2003, only about one quarter of US motorcycle riders were 50 or older. By 2014, it was close to half.
Suddenly, bike makers desperately need new riders and millenials, apparently, are the best hope.
Harley Davidson's Street 500 quickly turned its riding academies into a sales oppor tunity.
Around 2010, bikemakers made a major strategy shift: Sturgist was out; Coachella was in. They needed something cool to show on the wealthy, quasi hipster music scene, something far from the fat fendered, chrome soaked hogs buzzing around South Dakota.
"Everybody is tryng to do the same thing," said Lee Edmunds, manager of Honda's motorcycle marketing. "They're all realizing they need to have more people come in at an entry level stage."
Harley Davidson led the charge, perhaps because it dominates the US market for large motoecycles and has the most to lose. Between 2006 and 2010, the number of big engined Harleys registered in the US plummeted by almost half. The company has hosted riding academies for first timers since 2000, but it quickly ordered its engineers to design a true starter bike.
Unveiled in 2013, the Street 500 resembles a conventional Harley in the way an Ivy League quarterback resembles an National Football League (NFL) lineman. The engine, just shy of 500cc, will not turn any heads in Daytona Beach or wake anyone up in suburbia. The seat sits relatively low to the ground and the whole package can be had for just under $7000.
At about the same time, Kawasaki launched its Ninja 300, a subdued version of its famous sport bike. It has the same angry wasp styling, albeit with a much smaller powerplant and pricetag - $5,000; anti lock brakes could be had for $300 more.
In 2014, Ducati joined the first timer fray with its Scrambler, resurrecting a sub brand that it last made in 1974. The contemporary version is essentially an 803cc engine wrapped in six different trims, from a no frills "Classic" to a stripped down cafe racer. The engineering lends itself to tinkering and Ducati encourages buyers to customize their Scramblers with add on elements. "We call it a naked bike," said Jason Chinnock, chief exexutife of Ducati North America. "It was tryng to bring something to market that had a nod to the nostalgia, but also the simpler way motorcycling was approached in the 1970s."
About a year later, BMW pulled the cover off its G 310 R, a tidy, 350 pound version of its famous touring bikes. Anti lock brakes are standard, and with a sticker price of $4,750, it is less expensive than adding "smoke white" merino leather to one of BMW's 7 series sedans.
The base version of BMW's G 310 R costs $4,750 aand includes anti lock brakes for a safer ride.
The problem, however, with this sudden industry pivot to younger customers is that it may be coming too late. For years, it was too easy to just keep building bigger, more powerful bikes.
"They got more complicated, more expensive and more intimidating," said Edmunds at Honda. "For a long time, all the manufacturers could do that, because that baby boomer market was so huge."
For Fed Pacheco, it was a long journey from motocurious ti motorcyclist.
There was a ride years ago in Texas on his uncle's Suzuki Boulevard, not long after Pacheco had emigrated from Venezuela.
A few years later, he decided to take a riding course and got his motorcycle license, though he still did not pull the trigger. But when Honda unveiled its new Rebel 500 in November, the 27 year old finally went all in.
"I just started obsessing about it, to be honest," he said. "The riding season was coming up and I thought "You know what? Maybe, it's not that crazy." Pacheco traced one of the first Rebels on the market to a dealership in New Jersey, walked in and paid US$6,800 on the spot.
With a starting price of $6000, Honda's Rebel 500 is aimed at younger, first time riders. It is the latest entry in a parade of new bikes designed for first time riders; almost every company in the motorcycle industry has scrambled to make one.
They are smaller, lighter, and more affordable than most everything else at a dealership and probably would not look out of place in the 1960s - back when motorcycling was about the ride, not necessarily the bike.
They are also bait for millennials, meant to lure them into the easy rider lifestyle. It all goes as planned, these little rigs will help companies like Harley Davidson coast for another 50 years.
"They're new motorcycles, but they're also new thinking," said Mark Hoyer, editor in chief of Cycle World magazine. "They're selling this perception of lifestyle (...) it's a cultural movement; a rebranding of the whole motorcyle industry."
It is also the manufacturing equivalent of a mid life crisis. Motorcycle sales in the United States peaked in 2006 at 716,268 and promptly started to skid. When the recession hit, the market went down hard. Bike sales fell by 41 percent in 2009 and another 14 percent the following year, according to the Motorcyle Industry Council. That is not surprising considering the economy at the time : A motorcycle is a picture of discretionary spending, and they can be tricky to finance even in a healthy credit market.
Even now, with the stock market on a historic bull run and after the US auto industry posted its best year on record, traffic in motorcycle stores has stayed slow. In 2016, US customers rolled off with 371,403 new bikes, roughly half as many as a decade afo.
And then there is the generational time bomb. In 2003, only about one quarter of US motorcycle riders were 50 or older. By 2014, it was close to half.
Suddenly, bike makers desperately need new riders and millenials, apparently, are the best hope.
Harley Davidson's Street 500 quickly turned its riding academies into a sales oppor tunity.
Around 2010, bikemakers made a major strategy shift: Sturgist was out; Coachella was in. They needed something cool to show on the wealthy, quasi hipster music scene, something far from the fat fendered, chrome soaked hogs buzzing around South Dakota.
"Everybody is tryng to do the same thing," said Lee Edmunds, manager of Honda's motorcycle marketing. "They're all realizing they need to have more people come in at an entry level stage."
Harley Davidson led the charge, perhaps because it dominates the US market for large motoecycles and has the most to lose. Between 2006 and 2010, the number of big engined Harleys registered in the US plummeted by almost half. The company has hosted riding academies for first timers since 2000, but it quickly ordered its engineers to design a true starter bike.
Unveiled in 2013, the Street 500 resembles a conventional Harley in the way an Ivy League quarterback resembles an National Football League (NFL) lineman. The engine, just shy of 500cc, will not turn any heads in Daytona Beach or wake anyone up in suburbia. The seat sits relatively low to the ground and the whole package can be had for just under $7000.
At about the same time, Kawasaki launched its Ninja 300, a subdued version of its famous sport bike. It has the same angry wasp styling, albeit with a much smaller powerplant and pricetag - $5,000; anti lock brakes could be had for $300 more.
In 2014, Ducati joined the first timer fray with its Scrambler, resurrecting a sub brand that it last made in 1974. The contemporary version is essentially an 803cc engine wrapped in six different trims, from a no frills "Classic" to a stripped down cafe racer. The engineering lends itself to tinkering and Ducati encourages buyers to customize their Scramblers with add on elements. "We call it a naked bike," said Jason Chinnock, chief exexutife of Ducati North America. "It was tryng to bring something to market that had a nod to the nostalgia, but also the simpler way motorcycling was approached in the 1970s."
About a year later, BMW pulled the cover off its G 310 R, a tidy, 350 pound version of its famous touring bikes. Anti lock brakes are standard, and with a sticker price of $4,750, it is less expensive than adding "smoke white" merino leather to one of BMW's 7 series sedans.
The base version of BMW's G 310 R costs $4,750 aand includes anti lock brakes for a safer ride.
The problem, however, with this sudden industry pivot to younger customers is that it may be coming too late. For years, it was too easy to just keep building bigger, more powerful bikes.
"They got more complicated, more expensive and more intimidating," said Edmunds at Honda. "For a long time, all the manufacturers could do that, because that baby boomer market was so huge."
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