Harley trying to move towards the younger generation

[ART-ADS]

Most of you have probably seen the plethora of over dramatic advertising from harley davidson expecting their new modern range to come out in 2020 of water cooled naked bikes and small e-bikes to grab the younger generation and pull them into riding.

Am i the only one thinking they're barking up the wrong tree? Those who are into being environmentally friendly (boring twats mostly imho) arent usually the ones getting into riding.

being still in my last year of 6th form, everyone i meet is 17-18 and if they wanted a bike its usually a big harley davidson or a sports bike.

wouldnt it make sense for them to just drop the horrendous pricing, keep the styling and focus on that oil cooled engine they got goin on rather than trying to be something that other companies like ducati, ktm suzuki and indian already do better in? (water cooled v twin naked/sports bike)

would be cool so read your thoughts on their direction in general, opinions on the advertising and small capacity e bikes they're selling as 'the future'
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98' RZ50, 92' H100S2, 03' VT125, 59' Jubilee 250, 05' varadero chop,

[G]

[rpsmith79]

Probably because Harley (read cruisers) and Sports bikes for that matter, are on the decline, they either need to do something and move with the times (towards naked/adventure type bikes) or become a living fossil and slowly but surely ebb away from existence
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Current Bike: Honda CG125 ES4 // Honda CB600FS Hornet // Triumph Street Triple R

[MarJay]

Wow, irony that the OP answers his own question... Cruisers aren't the future.
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F; Cheap project: CBR900RR FireBlade
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[ART-ADS]

[rpsmith79]

[The Shaggy D.A.]

They should take one of their engines, chop off a cylinder, update the styling....

...oh, hang on...

https://cdn2.cycletrader.com/v1/media/5c7e25e79b7bd83330746edc.jpg
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Chances are quite high you are not in my Monkeysphere, and I don't care about you. Don't take it personally.
Currently : Royal Enfield 350 Meteor
Previously : CB100N > CB250RS > XJ900F > GT550 > GPZ750R/1000RX > AJS M16 > R100RT > Bullet 500 > CB500 > LS650P > Bullet Electra X & YBR125 > Bullet 350 "Superstar" & YBR125 Custom > Royal Enfield Classic 500 Despatch Limited Edition (28 of 200) & CB Two-Fifty Nighthawk > ER5

[bhinso]

Each to their own.

[Easy-X]

I'm hearing echos of what happened to Gibson Guitars
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Royal Enfield Continental GT 535, Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Riejufixing]

[MarJay]

[grr666]

Are Harley Davidson going to make the test less of a faff to pass as well? If not they are pissing in the wind. No point in
having a range of "cool and funky bikes" for a new generation of bikers if you need the patience of a saint and the funds
available to pass your test repeatedly before you can go buy one of them. Might as well learn to drive (just the once)
at 17 instead eh?
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Currently enjoying products from Ford, Mazda and Yamaha
Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[stevo as b4]

The above, but also delicate little Millenial snow flakes can't possibly risk or entertain sitting on an exposed to the elements transport device that falls over when stationary if you forget to put a foot down. Also they might get wet and cold or be buffeted by the wind at 70mph, when they don't in an Audi and can use their interactive infotainment systems etc.

No bikes are cool to young people, and they aren't going
to help them save the planet, reduce congestion etc etc.

Can you imagine what a Millenial would think of a two stroke bike, when you tell them it makes more pollution than 20 Range Rover's per mile.

[Teflon-Mike]

Hardley-Movin'son, have NEVER been a particularly good precedent, for well, very much ever, really.

But.... look at biking demographic? How many of your school-mates ride brand new bikes? Of those, how many got Daddy to buy them, or mummy to under-write the HP agreement?

In days of yore biking was a youth thing, that lads did until their girlfriend moaned too much at them to get a car. By the 1970's the teenagers of the Cafe-Racer era who had ridden them 'cos they couldn't have a car-licence and couldn't hope to afford a car even then, had cars, and been replaced with a new generation of teenie boppers to whom easy credit, and consolidation of both car and bike licence ages to 17, meant that the car was the preffered choice, and who by the 1980's had a mortgage.....

First the moped laws, then the 1982 Learner-Laws, that limited L-Platers to 12.5bhp tiddlers, and for just two-years, PRETTY much killed the teen-age biker, if not biking in general. The Insurance crisis of 1992, was almost the death-knell of the pursuit, and it was only really the 1960's Cafe-Racers, discovering, in their 40's they had a motorbike licence they'd probably got back when they wuz-a-mod on a Vespa, and a brand new Honda VFR was rather 'exiting' and a lot cheaper than a TR6, and they didn't have to get thier hands oily every week-end, we saw the rise of the Born-Again-Biker, and an aging demographic, already, started to get older still.

Add DAS in the late 90's, bringing more still into biking, later in life, via a 'fast-track' of instant licences on a big-bike, and the biking population, has for your life-time, on average been getting older... average age of a biker is no longer under 25, but over 40.... likely a LOT older... I am almost fifty and STILL a youngster compared to most!

A-N-D the manufacturers have been flogging profit creaming big-bikes to them for thirty years, usually on credit, as a 'Leisure Implement' not a piece of utility transport.....

So...when you say 'Younger Generation'.... err.... yeah.... that's NOT the teenagers it once might of been! The younger generation NOW is probably the thirty to forty somethings that used to be the 'Born-Again' brigade!

Hardley-Movin'son, abandoned 'The younger generation', decades ago, in the face of not just cheap Japanese imports, but even cheaper chinese imports...

In fact? Well, in the mid 60's they company did buy Aermacci in Italy, and try selling some of them, with Hardley badges to the 'yoof' market, for a while..... but they stopped! Sometime in the mid 70's ISTR. but that was probably the last time the company really tried to get back into the the 'youth' end of the market!

Since then, they have been flogging bikes to a generally ever ageing demographic, as leisure equipment and life-style accessory.... and any attempt to corner a bit of the younger end of that market, in any durastiction, is as much as anything, 'cos them baby-boomers they have been reliant on for the last half a century are starting to die off of old age!!!!

So, no, they aren't barking up the wrong tree... some may say they are just barking, BUT, to have managed to stay in the top five mass manufacturers list the last half century suggests they must be doing something not quite so mad, and to have done it with designs so obviously antiquated, points to a perversion of our own perception, rather than theirs!

BUT, there's no escaping that thier traditional market has been dying off for twenty years, and as the teenie-boppers of the 70's start to retire and not use thier gold watch to buy a bit of the teen dream that feel they missed along the way, they have to do something to stimulate buyers, and get them back in the doors, as well as answer the enviromental regulators that want to see the back of oil-dependency... especially in the US now they dont have the weight of the petro-dollar to prop up thier currency and maintain thier over-indulgent consumerist life-style... that has been promulagated around the world in the last fifty years!

And they have been flogging fantasies for decades! Marlborough man type adverts selling their product as part of the American dream.... do you REALLY expect them to do much different, now?

IF they were to try flogging a new range of 125's..... err, yeah! THEN maybe there could be some suggestion they were making a concerted effort to claw back some of the 'youth' market.... but they aren't. They are trying just to get more new buyers into what has for fifty years been thier traditional market of the middle-aged, as that gets older!
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
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[The Shaggy D.A.]

https://i.imgur.com/zYm3a.png
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Chances are quite high you are not in my Monkeysphere, and I don't care about you. Don't take it personally.
Currently : Royal Enfield 350 Meteor
Previously : CB100N > CB250RS > XJ900F > GT550 > GPZ750R/1000RX > AJS M16 > R100RT > Bullet 500 > CB500 > LS650P > Bullet Electra X & YBR125 > Bullet 350 "Superstar" & YBR125 Custom > Royal Enfield Classic 500 Despatch Limited Edition (28 of 200) & CB Two-Fifty Nighthawk > ER5

[ART-ADS]

[iooi]

Lets see.

Start sell a new bike, with all the investment, and have to pitch it at affordable price (read no profit) to a group that has turned it's back on bikes.

Or carry on selling the same old bikes and have a nice profit return on each one..

Not a hard one to work out...
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Just because my bike was A DIVVY, does not mean i am......

[Teflon-Mike]

[Robby]

OP may believe he's a renegade, I just think he's a cunt.

If the traditional Harley thing was working, they would be doing well. It isn't, which is why they are rapidly losing sales. Still selling bikes and making money, but less than they used to.

They tried going gently in the direction of lighter, cheaper things with the street 750 range. I have never seen one on the road, so I'm assuming they didn't sell well.

The market research tells them that young people want electric bikes, and the Harley name still carries weight. It makes sense for them to plough a big chunk of money into developing a desirable electric bike, which they are doing. Bear in mind that for the Harley demographic, "young" means 35, in a well paid job with a chunk of disposable income to spend on an expensive toy. They are not interested in cheap transport for the masses.

[Easy-X]

Mmm... motorbikes have become, for the average household, secondary vehicles. Scooters on the other hand are an absolute blight in London

Harley Davidson Scooter anyone?

https://i.imgur.com/bIUgeOX.jpg
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Royal Enfield Continental GT 535, Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Sister Sledge]

Can only be a design mock-up thing that leccy monstrosity. Imagine riding it - soaked by water from the wheels, spine smashed from the hard tail, kids BMX handlebars..

Will a Harley ebike have a sound generator bolted to it? I can't imagine they'd make something quiet.
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CCM 404 DS

[Easy-X]

Full props for Harley though: a dramatic design and a scooter. ppl will be think they've fallen into a parallel universe!
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Royal Enfield Continental GT 535, Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[ART-ADS]

[ART-ADS]

[Easy-X]

Drinking and bike talk... a noble goal
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Royal Enfield Continental GT 535, Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter