NZ Motorcycle Survey 2009

[KoroJ]

Attached is the report on the survey carried out earlier this year.

Some interesting stats.

[slofox]

Attached is the report on the survey carried out earlier this year.

Some interesting stats.

Thanks for posting this up - I will give it my full attention when I have a little more time than I do this morning. Excellent work. Well done!

[Brian d marge]

That was a very good report
well done

Stephen

[Kiwi Graham]

Excellent piece of work Phil. Its good news for the motorcycle industry, steady growth expected and it would seem we have the japs to thank for it all. Good news for motorcycle racing too given the percentage of bikers wanting to give riding on the circuit a go. We just need to catch these participants on our track days and encourage them to give club racing a go.

[Squiggles]

HOW THIS SURVEY AROSE
In February this year while conducting some market research on motorcycling in New
Zealand, I found that very little information exists on road riders.

While some good data is available on motorcycle registrations and licensing and on
accident statistics, little information exists on the profile of today’s motorcyclists.

I began to wonder what changes had occurred to the profile of road riders since I
became involved in motorcycles in the early 1970’s. When I moved to Wellington in
1977 I was soon caught up in the local experience of what had already become a,
worldwide, explosion of interest in road motorcycling and that experience together
with the benefit of hindsight over the years that have followed, has given me some
sense of where we are today.

When I joined the Victoria (University) Motorcycle Club they had some 500
members and up to 300 of these would descend on the University grounds on any
given club night. Shiny new motorcycles littered the roadway, kerbs and footpaths.
Members would swap stories, and swap and test each other’s bikes, gallons of coffee
and beer were consumed (yes, alcohol) and many lasting friendships were forged.

To my reckoning the average age in that group was around 25, with some of the
younger mob made up of fresh young teenagers like Robert Holden and Bob Toomey,
while some of the more ‘mature’ riders were in their late twenties to early thirties.

The fact that this was a University, and the phenomenon of the ‘mature student’ had
yet to emerge obviously contributed to this being a younger age group but it should be
remembered that by the late 70’s the majority of club members weren’t even students!

But as I look back I see a direct parallel between the growth and decline of the
numbers of road bikes on the road, and the maturing and subsequent ‘aging’ (families
and mortgages) of the baby boomer generation.

I also see that the ‘entertainment’ options back then were somewhat limited for young
people compared with today. In the 70’s there were no skateboard parks, motor-cross
(scrambling) was still a relatively uncommon sport, generally the occupation of
farmers and their sons, yachting was a rich man’s game, neither wind-surfers nor jet
skis had been invented, and air travel was still relatively expensive. The Japanese had
started making reliable cars by then, but the second hand market hadn’t really
developed and very few young men were hotting them up, so the ‘boy racers’ of the
day usually found their way into motorcycling.

So what does the ‘average’ motorcyclist look like today? Who is out there riding
bikes now? How old are they? What riding experience do they have? Are young
people still discovering bikes? If so, are we looking after them?

These are some of the questions I set out to answer.



REPORT STRUCTURE
Using the results of my survey, I have presented this report in six sections:

1. Introduction
2. Background Information
3. The Survey
4. Profiling of the NZ Road Rider
5. Riding Styles and Habits
6. Appendix



The report is attached below

[98tls]

No disrepect mate but surveys and there findings as wondertful as the are (i guess) have been going on for many years,38 odd motorcycles later and many years ive never read one and would bet that whatever the fuck they found hasnt made one iota of difference to my life on 2 wheels.As i said no disrespect intended,i am sure they have a purpose and no doubt many that ride motorcycles in Auckland have benefited no end from said findings.

[YellowDog]

Great to see a serious piece of research for a change.

[McWild]

Oh hell yeah! Pretty sure I was the one participant whose main bike was under 250cc!

RG150 ftw!!!




Interesting read. Well presented. Good effort that man.

[Henk]

Good read. Told me a lot of stuff I already sort of new anecdotaly but nice to have it confirmed none the less.

[TomJ]

yep was a good read and nice that someone followed through when asked to send the report out to all those that requested it. All too often you never hear anything again when you take some time to complete something.

good job mate

[Pedrostt500]

Some of the anacdotal evidence that I can think of, is imported goods were harder to purchase up untill the mid 70s, because of taxes on new imports, unless you had availability to foreighn currency, so this may partialy exsplain why the low Nos up to 69, after 69 the availability of cheaper japanes goods, we also had 2 oil price hikes in the early 70s, the one in 73 is quiet notable for a change in direction of the car industry of the era, I would also look at the influence of american pop culture of the late 60s early 70s, ie the rise in motor cycle gang culture, remeber the late 60s early 70s were a time of cultural change world wide.
The fall off of numbers in the 1980s and 90s I think would be down to the availability of second hand jap car imports, we had a very old and exspensive national car fleet up untill the introduction of jap car imports, virtualy the bottom dropped out of the older car market with in a couple of years of this starting, the prices of motorcycles did not change through this time, ie you could buy a good cheap jap import car for the price of a second hand motorcycle.
some other influences I can think of, is Japanes products to a degre were frowned upon due to the fact thet the japs had been our enemy not may years before, so hence the domonation of British and American vechicles pre 1969, The japanese super bikes would have had more of an influence in the very late 70s and 80s, though it was still common to hear of jap bikes and cars being burnt out because they were japanese, ie the call of " Burn a Jappa".
others will have other memories and exsplanations.

[98tls]

Some of the anacdotal evidence that I can think of, is imported goods were harder to purchase up untill the mid 70s, because of taxes on new imports, unless you had availability to foreighn currency, so this may partialy exsplain why the low Nos up to 69, after 69 the availability of cheaper japanes goods, we also had 2 oil price hikes in the early 70s, the one in 73 is quiet notable for a change in direction of the car industry of the era, I would also look at the influence of american pop culture of the late 60s early 70s, ie the rise in motor cycle gang culture, remeber the late 60s early 70s were a time of cultural change world wide.
The fall off of numbers in the 1980s and 90s I think would be down to the availability of second hand jap car imports, we had a very old and exspensive national car fleet up untill the introduction of jap car imports, virtualy the bottom dropped out of the older car market with in a couple of years of this starting, the prices of motorcycles did not change through this time, ie you could buy a good cheap jap import car for the price of a second hand motorcycle.
some other influences I can think of, is Japanes products to a degre were frowned upon due to the fact thet the japs had been our enemy not may years before, so hence the domonation of British and American vechicles pre 1969, The japanese super bikes would have had more of an influence in the very late 70s and 80s, though it was still common to hear of jap bikes and cars being burnt out because they were japanese, ie the call of " Burn a Jappa".
others will have other memories and exsplanations. Interesting,from memory Superbikes arrived late 60s early 70s,even in NZ.

[paddy]

Good work. Ignore the naysayers. People can be sceptical of academia.

[Pedrostt500]

Interesting,from memory Superbikes arrived late 60s early 70s,even in NZ.

Yes The start of the Jap super bikes was the late 60s, but I was talking of the influence of the jap super bikes, the numbers of Honda CB750s sold in NZ in the late 60s would have been quiet small.

[NordieBoy]

In the "Licenced MC's by CC rating" graph.

I don't think it's meant to go "800 900 100 1100 1200".

[pritch]

As someone who was around at the time of the big boom in sales, and who actually participated, I'd like to make some comments.

There were two major influences to the dramatic growth in sales neither of which receives a mention in the article as far as I can see.

Prior to the late 60s most young motorcyclists were "enthusiasts", although there were also more mature riders motivated by the advantages of relatively inexpensive transport. The bikes were unreliable, dirty, smelly, burned holes in your clothes, and required a degree of physical strength to master the arcane starting procedure. The riders were also therefore, virtually exclusively male.

What motorcycle advertising there was had previously been restricted to specialist publications. Following the massively influential adoption by the Japanese of the electric start, which meant anybody could start a motorcycle, Honda mounted a huge advertising campaign "You meet the nicest people on a Honda." Full page ads appeared in all sorts of publications that had never previously seen a motorcycle ad: Playboy, Time, Rolling Stone etc etc.

That campaign brought motorcycling into the mainstream of American, and subsequently New Zealand life. All sorts of people who would (could?) never previously have contemplated riding a motorcycle took to two wheels.

[Brian d marge]

I wonder if we overlaid info such as the relaxation of imports , and the oil crisis Carless days ) on top of the sales it should show up

Stephen

[Lula]

Interesting to see 10% are female...one of the growing demographics within motorcycling :wari:

[Brian d marge]

car less days and oil crisis?????

any others???

Stephen

[Jantar]

Bump. For reference data to use in ACC submissions.