I don’t know if it’s true (and in today’s environment I don’t even care if it’s true) but I read somewhere that ATVs are outselling motorcycles. This makes sense as ATVs or Quads or whatever you want to call the things are low-skill devices that anyone can ride off road.
Back in the early 1970’s the big boom in motorcycling was started in the dirt. Kids like you and me bought mini bikes and enduros by the zillions. An entire industry sprang to life and that industry supported all levels of riding. Collectively, we learned the difficult art of steering a wiggling motorcycle across sand and mud and rocks. It wasn’t easy. It took a lot of talent to keep from crashing and we lost a lot of good people to concentration lapses or simple bad luck.
The first ATVs were 3-wheeled contraptions that took even more skill than motorcycles to ride in the dirt. It didn’t take long for manufacturers to figure out 4 wheels were a lot more stable than 3 and that was the beginning of the end for motorcycles in America.
Since children cannot operate motorcycles on the street, dirt bikes were like a Pop Warner league feeding well-trained riders into the Bigs: The Pavement. Harried on all sides by nearly unconscious automobile drivers our generation’s ability to ride a motorcycle in that buoyant area beyond the limits of traction became a right handy survival skill. And so a huge bubble of capable motorcycle riders surged through the land buying motorcycles at a clip never before seen.
Meanwhile, the Quads kept getting bigger and safer while dirt bikes were safety-limited by their very design: They fell over. Anyone can steer a quad. It takes no skill whatsoever to trundle along following the huge ruts made by thousands of other quads. Trails were ruined by the excessive width and sheer quantity of idiots driving their miniature cars. Dirt bikes were hard to ride and safety concerns overtook the nation’s parents. As ATV’s filled the forests the available pool of motorcycle riders dwindled. The farm system began to dry up.
Now, Quads cost $25,000 and are the size of Jeeps. Four people fit comfortably strapped into a steel cage, safe from the environment they go about destroying. ATVs can go almost anywhere their bubblegum tires will support the vehicle’s weight and the weight of their passengers. Automatic transmissions erased the last vestige of talent needed to explore off road. On the trails I ride kids on motorcycles are the exception not the rule. Sometimes I can go all day and see nothing but quads. How many kids raised in a cocoon of steel bars would be crazy enough to start riding a motorcycle on the street? We know the answer: Very few.
It’s not the cost of new motorcycles; there are plenty of cheap bikes available. It’s not Gen X, Y, or Z being too chicken or into their cell phones. It’s not branding. It’s not lack of riding areas. None of these things killed motorcycles.
A safer, easier to operate dirt machine was built and human nature did the rest. ATV’s are capturing the kids at their most impressionable age. Motorcycles are not. Nothing we can do will reverse that trend.
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They’re not really called “quads”, but I see your point, they have 4 wheels.
What’s selling, they are known as Side by Sides (SXS’s), Utility Task Vehicles (UTV’s), Recreational Off Road Vehicles (ROV’s) or some other acronym from someone smarter than us.
There are so many versions. I hate them all. Except for the Roxor…
A friend who owns a dealership tries to steer parents of youngsters to small dirt bikes rather than atvs. He feels dirt bikes are actually safer. His experience shows more kids receive more serious injuries from atvs than bikes off road. Atvs can be very damaging when they overturn onto the rider. Where a dirt bike fall may cause minor injuries, an atv accident can be much more serious. Parents don’t grasp this concept however, and we see a number of fatalities related to kids on atvs. Kids riding atvs that are too large is a primary issue. Kids don’t usually try to ride dirt bikes that are too large. It’s too difficult.
So… now I have the answer! Does Robert Pandya know this? He too is searching for “The” answer.
My answer is more the changing of the cultural mores, where it’s not cool to get dirty or sweaty when you do things and if it’s dangerous you don’t do it at all.
Feminization of young boys.
My Mother said they were dangerous, I shouldn’t ride one.
My Father loaned me the money for my first new bike.
I was 17, I’m now 76 have ridden a bike every year, I’ve gone hundreds of thousands of miles met hundreds of great people. Thanks Dad.
Meh. What’s really killed the motorcycle industry is the same thing that killed the golf and cigar industry: the fad is over. And, not even Harley’s promotion of the “lifestyle” will save it. The boom days are over and now, maybe we can regain some sanity in the ranks of those who know why they ride.
Come to my neck of the woods. 2-wheels flying around all over the woods (along with all the 4-wheelers).
Where do you stand on Jeeps? Plenty of those flying around the woods here too. And trucks, and Mog’s and Mini Mogs and Pinzguaers, and whatever else folks can get in the dirt.
Heck, I came across a Lexus full of kids on a trail out along 11 Mile Canyon a couple of years ago.
I think a larger issue is dwindling riding land. Everything is becoming fenced, gated and closed whereas, as kids, we’d fire up in the garage and take off. Of course, I didn’t grow up in a city either.
Larry, good inputs. Please see today’s blog. We’d love to hear from you.