IS Bigger, really better?

THERE'S no substitute for cubic inches... the famous saying goes.

That simple phrase could easily be translated into 'Cubic Dollars' for the uber wealthy.

For the merely faux wealthy, it could easily be read as 'Uber debt.'

If you are a motorcyclist, you have to appreciate the lack of enthusiasm and utter lack of customers hanging around bike shops these days anywhere in North America.

Most shops, and I'd say nearly all, are so dead, you could hear a wrist pin drop in the service bay.  The showrooms are devoid of buyers and even the perennial tire kickers have vanished.

Motorcycles magazines are paper thin, many are rehashing the same old stuff.

Everybody seems extremely tired.  When you walk into a dealership, sales people don't even rush out to greet you with a handshake.  If you can even find one, (you may have  ( to search with the skill of an SAS special forces guy) perhaps you'll find somebody scouring the want ads for some type of dependable employment.

Joke...

At the parts counter, you're more likely to see more guys/gals in dealership shirts than clients!

What is wrong with that picture?

For years dealers were selling bikes faster than the back room 17 year old could slap them together while the shop charged the customer $400 in Pre delivery inspection fees. 

When my buddy Rock was buying a new DR 650 at Bert's Cycle Mall in L.A.  one of several 'business managers' had somehow tacked on over 1200 bucks in additional charges!  Made the advertised sales price somewhat of a joke.

When I pointed out to him that charging 412 dollars for set up and PDI done by those same aforementioned teenagers, getting paid a flat 50 bucks to do it... and including $350 for freight when US Suzuki had it's warehouse and headquarters barely 20 miles distant and besides, the distributor for all major brands typically ship at no charge, buying extended warranty on a DR or pretty much anything was a waste of money, and that two hundred ninety nine dollars for 'documentation fees' was pretty excessive seeing as Rock was handing over cash on the barrel head, etc... all the explanations he had were as hollow as Lindsay Lohan's brain!





He eventually walked out of there with all those ridiculous charges reduced by 2/3!

Demanding a customer pay $120 per hour to change oil is asinine.  Charging in some cases 50 and 100% over MSRP for parts is simply greed and hiway robbery.

Let's not forget how often I heard from Harley Dealers charging thousands more per bike than the factory suggested retail, and to hear these same guys saying simply,

"If you don't take it, I have buyers lined up that will.."

How that's changed... there are discounted non current* HD's pretty much anywhere you look!



I'm not even going to mention that stupid fad of selling non ride able 120 c.i. 'custom' choppers for a hundred grand... sheer and utter idiocy.

Indian Larry is dead (rip) and hopefully that fad is too.



Get to the point Frank, I hear you guys saying... well here it is.  It's no secret that the industry has been hard hit by the ripple effect of the World wide mortgage meltdown.  After all when you're losing your job, your home and in many cases, you're family, everything you have created debt for... are you really interested in shopping for that must have big cruiser?  Me thinks not. 

Everybody that knows me, knows that I am a die hard rider.  Motorcycles have been a huge part of my life for more than four decades.  When I rode across Canada at age twenty, you were lucky to see another bike on the road all day long.  Of course we waved to one another!

Buying a new CBR/GSRX/XYZR etceterRR every 6 months... is foolish.  Spending 40K on a bike you can't turn in a medium sized parking lot has never appealed to me. 

Maybe on a Vincent or Velo...

Spending/leasing a top of the line Benz or Beemer just to show the World (and we know they do really care about you) that you've 'arrived' is lunacy.  When you are borrowing money to do it is lunacy times twelve!

Look what I ride. 

My largest displacement bike is an 885cc triple.  I also own a couple of 50's, a couple of 70's, a ninety, and various bikes up to 600cc (excluding the Triumph)  I've owned Wings and Ventures and even a Bimmer, but for the most part they've all been little wee bikes laddy! 

John Campbell, my friend and editor of Canadian Biker harks on what fun my various adventures on tiddlers have been!

Fact of the matter is, you don't need a 2300 cc motorcycle, nor even an 1800!  And as a manufacturer, you sure as hell don't need to sell them.

Funny how China, a burgeoning industrial and consumer society of gazillions, and the largest market for two wheelers in the world... somehow survives on iddy biddy bikes.




For those of you that have been around and remember what a Super Hawk was like, you know what I am talking about here.

Your choice... go ahead and ride a mega cruiser, you are so cool... or try and think back to when you began on a 250 and moved up to a 500!  How much fun it was to ride it with your main squeeze (of the week) on that flat back seat, to the Dairy Queen... in





Jasper! 
When a dirt bike was simple as a DT.  Light, lots of power, air cooled and manageable.  I would not be stretching the truth if I said many of my race bikes were way better than I was!  Do you really think you can out ride that KX450F or that GSXR 1000?

(insert chuckle here) 

Pride and oneupmanship, fostered by the suppliers of debt, have mislead us and believe me when I tell you, I am being very kind. 

How is it that no one has been prosecuted over the crime, and I do mean crime... that put so much of the world into this mess. 

Just like a gun doesn't kill people they say, neither are you forced to leverage your meagre existence ten fold so you can fill you garage (that you can't afford) with toys you haven't the skill to use!

I don't know what the answer to the financial woes of the planet are, but I do know this.  As an independent financial adviser for a dozen years, I can say... just as the saying goes,

"There's no substitute for cubic inches" so does the saying, "Don't bite off more than you can chew..."

*unsold previous years models.