Motorcycle Industry is Doomed

On the positive side we're freaking out because of the restriction goes up from 34hp to 48hp with A2. Speculating about how many of us won't ever get A because A2 might be just enough for them - and speculating about if that was the original intention of the law.

Tiered licensing is for sheeple that are too incompetent to take responsibility for their own actions and decisions, IMO

I am of the opinion that a person should not be dictated to as to what bike he/she should be able to purchase and ride and should take it upon themselves as to how to manage it safely.

I am not saying "Don't start small" for many if not most that would be wise... I am saying that it should be left up to the individual to decide what is right for him/her.

Example: A Large thinking human should not be corralled into starting on a motorcycle that is ridiculously small for him/her.

I think you mean the parents of 20-somethings still living at home don't have the money...

Conversely, the particularly draconian and expensive tiered licencing system in Japan was what made 400cc sportsbikes a legitimate 'class' of bike there in the early-mid 90s.

I came close to buying 'Busa as my first bike. I kid you not; I took the licencing necessary to do so right off the bat. With hindsight, that is just the sort of stupid decision 23 year olds make. Would it have helped if the law had intervened and made me ride a smaller bike? Not in my case; the exorbitant cost of insurance, sensible/honest good soul* who owned the local bike shop and my own sense of self-preservation were enough to prevent that bad decision. There might be some people who'd make the choice differently, but I generally come down on the side of the fence that we're better off with them those people out of the gene pool.

"The problem with making things idiot-proof is that idiots are so inventive;they will always find new ways to fuck something up and hurt themselves."

*Perhaps I'm being overly generous and he was acting in long-term self interest: I went to him to buy a big bang R1 last year. Doubt he'd have gotten the chance to make that sale if I'd gotten a Busa instead.

You're hanging out with the wrong crowd, or simply not riding the twisties.

Helmets are compulsory for everything above 50cc as far's I know, always have been. Even with mopeds riding without is illegal here.

I was only flaming if I got hit by one, and then I would do my best to extinguish the flaming! I really wish it was an Olympic sport. I've always wanted a gold medal.

Well, at the age of 16 (A1 -> 15hp) or even 18 (A2 -> 48hp) one - just out of school - might be that incompetent with a high possibility.
On the other hand you're right, why hand out a driving/riding licence to someone incompetent at all.

I'm an industrial designer and I have the opinion that basically all new bikes are too ugly to seriously desire. I cant find one modern bike that fits in to my sense of self and my style. Every bike that's not a Harley is covered in acres of wildly styled plastic parts. Guys I know want a bike with a steel tube frame, a visible engine and carbs, and no plastic on it. Maybe the triumph 900 scrambler is close. If manufacturers would Remake old aircooled 500-750 cc bikes with modern reliability and they will sell. To be a biker in America, it's like you have to chose from a small group of predetermined personal identities. An aggressive sport biker with chrome nazi helmet, a tattooed, america-first classic rock cruiser shitkicker, old fart on a goldwing, a yuppie dick on a ducati, or a potbellied adventure rider with a GS, multicolor onesie and huge luggage. Where's the cb750 standard you can just take out for a ride without telling everyone you're some kind of exceptionalist douchebag? That's why I founded a communal garage where my buddies can buy old bikes and make them look really cool. You can't make a 2013 Bike look cool, you just can't. So how am I supposed to drop $8k on something that I hate looking at?

Getting back to the "doomed" industry, I don't think it's doomed, but it's definitely changing. It seems like motorcycles originally gained popularity as a low-cost alternative to cars, and as cars got cheaper motorcycling turned more and more into a hobby/sport for enthusiasts, and they got more expensive. In many 2nd and 3rd world cultures 2-wheels are still the primary form of transportation, and even in North America today we see a surge in scooter sales when gas prices spike. Today, when considering true motorcycles (not scooters or larger displacement automatic gearbox crossover machines) they're no longer a low-cost alternative to cars, and to the contrary the upper end of the market, particularly european brands, seem to be what is carrying the market overall. I think the market for 2-wheel vehicles is actually going to get better over the next decade, but most of that growth is going to be in the scooter and crossover segment, not in "real" motorcycles. Hopefully some of the young people who cut their teeth with scooters out of necessity will move on to bigger machines.

Still doesn't change the fact that most kids today are pussies

They stopped making them because nobody bought them. I'm not being facetious, that's just a fact. I can't stand the whole "transformer" look of most of today's bikes, but apparently somebody thinks that's what people want.

Guzzi seems to have found their stride with the V7, and I think the new California 1400 is a stunner. Triumph has done a pretty good job of selling traditional-looking bikes. There are a lot of Harley XR1200 owners and fans around here, but they couldn't give them away and pulled the plug on the model. No matter how much market research the manufacturers do, there's still a lot of black magic involved in trying to figure out what pushes people's buttons and makes them buy your bike. Sometimes it's purely accidental, like in the case of the Ducati Monster, their best-selling, and one of the best-selling european motorcycles of all time. A few guys decide to work on their own a few nights a week playing around with a chassis from this bike, motor from that one, and lightning strikes. Motorcycles are emotional, and when you overthink things you can suck that out of them.

The W650 shot down that theory... But I do hope you are right.

http://motorcycles.about.com/od/honda/ss/2013-Honda-CB1100-Review-Honda-Brings-Back-a-Classic.htm

Just like the fuel injection thread..."If they made a Triumph Twin again"...."My old Matchless or Greeves was so superior to todays bikes"....."My Amal Carburetors on my old AJS worked better than fuel injection does today"......I bet you guys wishing for the old days have never ridden a modern bike. Some of you anyway. I work with an old guy that won't use a digital micrometer. It fuckin' reads to 50 millionths. 50 fuckin' millionths, but he's living in the past, like some of you are.

Try one of the new bikes. Ride a Multistrada. Those fuckers pull the front off in 3rd gear like a dirt bike. I found myself in Santa Barbara, when SB Ducati let me loose on one, pulling wheelies across intersections. Just a bitchin' ass bike. Lots of great bikes out there. You guys are in the minority when you want things like they were 50 years ago, it isn't going to happen. Things are very reliable now. You don't have to adjust the points by the side of the road anymore, and I don't miss that shit one bit.

Fucking A

Jetting? Fuck. That.

@Mattna
Sounds like you are just plain ... old.
Why not get over it that it's no longer the time of ugly round headlights, unergonomic seats, aircooled visible engines and in generel outdated technology like steel tube frames and carburators... and buy a Hornet/CB/NC/XJ/MT/FZ/GSR/Gladius.
None of them fits in one of your hated predetermined personal identities.

Don't get me wrong, I do well understand that you want the retro style you where grown up with, decorated your cave walls with, carved into your school stone tablets, but please don't bullshit about "predetermined personal identities" or "not looking cool" only because something doesn't fit your - not cool at all - nostalgia.

I played with transformers as a kid, so maybe loving the style (and the movies) is my nostalgia.

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There is something in what you say about the spirit of the times, Wraith.
But "unergonomic seats" . . . still are found on 99% of modern bikes.

And . . . "ugly round headlights" ??
~ withdraw that particular comment, sir !!
Form follows Function . . . or if it doesn't, then it's one of those passing fads, where high fashion trumps good engineering (like with ultra-low-profile tires on cars).

As the lighting engineers say . . . if God had meant headlights to be other than round, He would have made the circle a different shape.
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I understand that. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!