{"id":6761,"date":"2019-11-28T10:37:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T18:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=6761"},"modified":"2019-11-28T10:42:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T18:42:22","slug":"happy-thanksgiving-and-lets-hear-from-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/11\/28\/happy-thanksgiving-and-lets-hear-from-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Thanksgiving, and let’s hear from you…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
My first motorcycle had 3 cubic inches. This one must be 48 times better.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I love this time of year.\u00a0 The temperatures are nice (although it’s raining here in So Cal today and for the next couple of days), it’s good to get together with friends and family, and like most folks fortunate who live in the US, I have a lot for which I am thankful.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, I picked up a screw in one of my Subie’s tires, so it was off to America’s Tire, where they fix these things for free.\u00a0 The idea is that you’ll think of them first when it’s time for new tires, and in my case, you can bet that’s going to happen. \u00a0 It was a 2-hour wait, and I used that time to go for a walk.\u00a0 Our local Harley dealer is just up the street from the tire place, I hadn’t been in a Harley showroom in a while, so I stopped by to check things out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Things have changed from when I rode a Harley.\u00a0 In those days, any Harley dealership\u00a0was a hopping place. \u00a0 When I walked over to the dealer this week, the place was mostly empty, they didn’t have a ton of T-shirts, and there were plenty of motorcycles.\u00a0 It’s a world gone mad, I tell you.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Sometime when I wasn’t looking, production shifted from T-shirts to motorcycles. In the early and mid-1990s, you’d have to go to the Laughlin River Run, Daytona, or Sturgis to see this many Harleys in one spot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Ah, hope springs eternal. A thousand dollar dealer markup? At least these folks are honest about it, and they don’t try to disguise gouging as freight and setup.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I haven’t kept up with the latest from Harley, other than the headline-grabbing stuff about the Livewire.\u00a0 I guess they had a hiccup with the initial rollout, but that sort of thing happens and I hear it’s been fixed.\u00a0 What hasn’t been fixed is the Milwaukee notion that any Harley is worth $30K, and I think that’s one of the major reasons the bar-and-shield folks’ best days are in the rear-view mirror.\u00a0 I haven’t heard that Livewires are flying out of the showrooms, and judging by the looks of the dealer I visited, neither is anything else.\u00a0 It’s not just me saying this…the stock market shows a Harley trend that is downright scary.\u00a0 Harley has ridden their rebel reputation big time since the early 1990s, but one place you don’t want to buck the trend is in the stock market.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Harley’s stock performance over the last 5 years.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
The Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last five years. It’s been said that a rising tide lifts all boats. Maybe it does. Maybe Harley’s stock would have been much lower without the bull market of the last few years. Maybe, maybe, maybe….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Harley sales guy was eager to help, so I asked him about the Bronx 975 (Gresh did a piece on it not too long ago).\u00a0 My guy never heard of the Bronx, so I asked if they had any Sportsters (there was one, so maybe they are selling better).\u00a0 I then asked about Harley’s Street models (the 500 and 750 V-twins), and he told me there were none.\u00a0 “They didn’t sell too well,” he said.\u00a0 I thought that was unfortunate. \u00a0 I’m conceited enough to think that if Gresh and I had ridden those bikes in Baja, if Harley offered guided Baja tours to Street buyers, and if Harley had an effective blog, that bike could have been a winner.\u00a0 We sure sold a lot of motorcycles at CSC with those Baja tours (including to folks who didn’t ride with us in Baja).\u00a0 It was just the idea that they could (that, of course, and the CSC motorcycles’ price).\u00a0 Good buddy Dan is adventure touring in Tunisia right now along with a bunch of other Guzzistas on a ride organized by Moto Guzzi.\u00a0 I think that’s brilliant (and I’m jealous). \u00a0 Tunisia!\u00a0 Damn, that’s exotic!<\/p>\n

I don’t think there’s much of a future in two-wheeled, 900-pound, 114-cubic-inch dinosaurs, but hey, what do I know?\u00a0 That’s a rhetorical question…I think my lack of knowledge is right up there with the industry wizards who continue to ponder the “what can we do about the sad state of the motorcycle industry” question, and then continue to offer 114-cubic-inch, $30,000 motorcycles that sit for presumably extended periods on showroom floors.\u00a0 And like I said earlier, I don’t think ebikes are the answer.<\/p>\n

So, what do you think?\u00a0 Let us know with a comment or two.\u00a0 We love hearing from you.\u00a0 And I think the folks in Milwaukee would, too.\u00a0 They read these pages, I think, judging by what I’m seeing on Google Analytics.\u00a0 Let us know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love this time of year.\u00a0 The temperatures are nice (although it’s raining here in So Cal today and for the next couple of days), it’s good to get together with friends and family, and like most folks fortunate who live in the US, I have a lot for which I am thankful. Earlier this … Continue reading “Happy Thanksgiving, and let’s hear from you…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[452,103,89],"tags":[107,960],"class_list":["post-6761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harley","category-harley-davidson","category-motorcycle-adventure-ride","tag-livewire","tag-motorcycle-tours"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6761"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6768,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761\/revisions\/6768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}