This past weekend, I was part of a self-selected, unappointed, unofficial, unconsulted focus group that attended the Progressive International Motorcycle Show at Cleveland. The four of us represent a fairly wide cross-section of the potential motorcycle-buying public, so I think our responses to what we saw are worth a recap.
Making the trip north to the IX Center were:
Me: Riding for 30+ years, I currently own three street-only motorcycles that are both my main transportation and my main source of fun.
Rick: An experienced motorcyclist who has owned a diverse array of bikes, old and new, practical and quirky, and currently rides a Harley-Davidson XR1200R, mostly for short-haul rides.
Jeff: Another experienced rider who hasn’t owned a motorcycle for several years but would like to re-enter. Most of his past bikes leaned to the sporty side.
Andrew: A would-be rider who is just learning about motorcycles and is already signed up to take a training course this summer.
So what caught the attention of our focus group? Since I expect my current lineup of motorcycles to meet my needs for years to come, I am not in the market for a new one. I enjoy gawking at shiny new objects just the same, however. What I am in the market for, regularly, is new gear, because I ride a lot. My helmets are reaching five years old this year so I am on schedule to get a new one, and the show provided a great opportunity to try on and compare. Unfortunately, other technical gear was rare. I also need a new pair of gloves, and since I’m extremely fond of having full use of my hands, I’m also picky about what I buy to protect them. Only one vendor had a selection of sport gloves, and that was mostly one brand, so any hopes I had for comparing and trying on different models were dashed. (Had I wanted to buy a T-shirt with a funny saying or a cheap leather vest for my rally pins, I’d have had more luck.)
Rick is not likely to buy in the near future, but he’s always thinking about it. Last year, the practicality and do-it-all capability of the Suzuki V-Strom 650 Adventure caught his attention. This year, he kept gravitating to old reliable, the Kawasaki KLR650. Maybe now that he’s owned almost every kind of motorcycle, he’s going to start the rounds again, buying ones he’s owned in the past, like the KLR.
Jeff still has fond memories of the several Honda CB400s he used to own, and he appreciates the wide range of highly capable sporty bikes available today that don’t force the rider to sacrifice practicality. Some of the Triumphs caught his eye, but in the end he felt the Kawasaki Ninja 650 probably offered the best combination of sportiness, practicality and price.
But the most important member of our focus group was clearly Andrew, the youngest and least experienced and the one most likely to buy a motorcycle soon. The other three of us have bought more motorcycles in the past than Andrew is likely to buy, ever, but he is likely to buy more in the future.
It doesn’t take half an hour of market research to realize that the U.S. motorcycle industry has a problem. The average age of a motorcyclist in the United States has virtually been keeping pace with my age and much of the competition among manufacturers consists of fighting to make sales to the same dwindling pool of middle-aged buyers. Of course identifying that problem is much easier than finding a solution.
But as I wrote in an earlier post, it’s a great time to be a beginner. Honda has introduced three new 500cc models for 2013, to go along with its very user-friendly CB250R, Suzuki has come out with the GW250, and Kawasaki continues to heap improvements on its very popular entry-level Ninja 300.
Honda has gained a reputation in recent years for building uninspiring motorcycles (I overheard one veteran rider at the show say “Let’s get out of the Honda area. I’m starting to yawn.”), but Honda has to get credit for introducing new models that at least offer promise of helping new riders get into motorcycling. So it’s fitting that it was the Honda CB500X that caught Andrew’s interest and felt right. Andrew is a big guy, so starting out with a modern 500cc motorcycle makes perfect sense.
Yet another Harley-Davidson cruiser with a lower seat and a deeper paint job, an even more shapely Ducati sportbike or a BMW superbike edging yet closer to 200 horsepower may pry a few more dollars from those of us slouching toward retirement and may keep the factories running a few more years, but getting Andrew and his kind happily aboard that basic 500cc Honda is the real hope for keeping the U.S. industry healthy for decades.
So there you go, free focus group feedback. Say, don’t focus groups normally get donuts?
