Headline in Tuesday's Wall St Journal. Gist of the article, Harley is thinking about introducing smaller bikes. cause sales of the big Hogs are tapering off.
This is nothing new. We bikers have been saying this for 40 years. The big 1000 cc Harley's are magnificent machines, any biker would like to own one. But they are pricey, about the cost of a small car. And they are too big and heavy to take off road. Most of us got started on much smaller and cheaper bikes. My first bike was a mere 120 cc Suzuki, which was a little slow for my tastes. My 2nd bike was a 250 cc Yamaha which had enough power to scare me, even back when I was young and reckless. At the time, the Yamaha only set me back $500, where as the big Harley's were going for $5000.
Harley should have figured out, maybe 30 years ago, that a small, low cost bike would sell, in fact sell more than the big Hogs were selling. To make a small bike Harley might have had to give up on their beloved four stroke engines and make some other changes to compete with all the well built rice burners on the market, but they could have managed.
I hope Harley isn't too late.
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