Why No One Will Sell You The Bike You Want, by Wes Siler
"As Americans, and due to many of the reasons identified here (but mostly the idiots), we've become incredibly biased against motorcycles. When we hear that word, we see squids attacking a Range Rover on the West Side Highway or pathetic old men vibrating their way down the highway in assless leather chaps. We don't see sensible personal transportation, an honest good time or someone saving all of us time on our commutes by taking active measures to bust congestion. And none of that creates a viable future for motorcycling in this country."
7 comments:
For a while when gas prices were rising, riding seemed to be a bit more common. The moto parking spaces at the university used to be packed. Not any more. And the number of large trucks and SUVs being used for commuting seems to have increased.
That's not solely the US problem. I live in Ukraine and those of us who own motorcycles also suffer from similar attitude. The only exception is probably when you ride something extremely unique and car drivers stop thinking bad things about you because their brains are busy with "wow, that's the first time I see a bike like this one, what is it?". that's probably why a culture of building custom bikes is pretty popular among motorcyclists.
In the US, the ultimate unique bike is a Harley that hasn't been butchered with the usual chrome and unrideable idiocy.
I've heard and read a lot about the US customizers, don't they build interesting projects? The photos I've seen so far were very promising, I'd love to see the bikes on those photos in real life. The only disadvantage I can think of is that all the US custom bikes I've see have HD engines. It's a bit boring you know. Maybe that's the reason that some Americans buy custom bikes from Europe, because they have different, uncommon for the US, style including the use of different engines, especially flat ones. For example, a K-750 is the element that makes this bobber interesting
http://www.cossack-motorcycles.com/2016/06/thumb-custom-bobber-k-750/
Apart from this, some European customizers install automobile engines on their custom bikes, which is pretty unusual for the US audience. I was always wondering how such bikes are registered :)
We've gone through that "Buick on a bike" routine with the Boss Hoss crap-pile. There are lots of interesting US customizers who actually use real motors (usually Ducati or Japan-powered). Few of the custom bikes are useful, though. They are more for show than for riding.
I see. And what's bikers' attitude towards custom bikes that can be ridden (not the show-bikes)? For example, having a custom bike in my country always results in lots of talking "how did you do this? where was this part taken from? how does it behave on the road?" etc. Custom bikes drive much more attention than standard bikes, even expensive ones.
Speaking of the price, a custom chopper with a Dnipro MT engine costs about $3000 depending on what exactly you want to get. I wonder how much different custom choppers cost in US.
I guess it depends on what we're calling "custom." From where I sit, it appears that the bulk of the US custom market is designer art for the 1%. A local Cities custom show doesn't stock anything cheaper than $40k, for example. It's not hard to find a $100k barely-rideable custom.
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