A motorcycle industry crisis? Your thoughts

[jafar]

Why would you buy a Yamaha Rhino, Kawasaki Mule, Honda MUV when you can buy a Suzuki farmworker as you said (see link for details http://www.suzuki.co.nz/Automotive/Farmworker/) for less money which is a CAR!!! sold through the car dealerships. Not much help to you local motorcycle shop when the Suzuki car dealer down the road is taking there sales.

BUGGER that isn't helping

[jafar]

The costs and convenience (or lack thereof) of car vs bike...2008 GSX750F for first 3 years cost $0.50 per km and my 2008 XR6 cost $0.65 per km to run...and given that my bike was a budget kind of bike, try it with a GSX-R and the numbers would end up lineball me thinks.

So it just comes back to passion doesn't it? You'll get a bike if you want one, for once you apply logic why would you get a bike nowadays?

But what do I know, trying to work out whether to get a Busa or a ZX14 next? No logic in that question at all...mind you, I did tell the wife both bikes are speed limited

Did you tell her that they were speed limited to 300kph ???

[caspernz]

Did you tell her that they were speed limited to 300kph ???

C'mon, it's 186 and mumble the mph bit haha

[jafar]

C'mon, it's 186 and mumble the mph bit haha

Yeah that'll do it

[Big Dave]

As you say - it depends on the vehicles. I have a $7.5k bike and a $7.5k car and the bike wins easy.

It's part of the reason I like the KLR. I'm well over the $300 back tyre routine. $180 for the set and it does 400km on a tankful. Fear the awesomeness DR plebs :-)

I wonder how a Vespa compares. The 300GT is a barrel of laughs too.

[GDOBSSOR]

So...my question for this forum, is what do YOU think can be done to encourage more people to ride bikes?

Having done a Roadsafe course recently, I think lots of things can be done to get our young people into motorcycling:
1. Lower the riding age to fourteen or fifteen for 50cc scooter riders only. Ban Chinese scoot/motorcycle imports until the quality improves drastically.
2. Having the LAMS system is great - offers the cheap to run, easy to work on options such as the GN, while offering 'cooler' bikes and bigger CC bikes that are still low powered enough to be suitable for larger learner riders.
3. Market bikes to women more. Harley did a marketing campaign with a supermodel who attained her motorbike license later in life. Other brands should seriously follow suit. Perhaps lots of bikers aren't sick and tired of seeing the status of women in the motorbike community reduced to models that pose for photos in skimpy underwear and look pretty, but I am.
4. Introduce a compulsory moped license for at least six months before you can obtain a learner license - for ANY class of license. Make basic handling skills courses and skills days compulsory for scooter riders. They will associate with bikers there, and it could potentially make some of them think more about biking as a real alternative.
5. If fuel gets beyond about $4 per litre, I have a feeling that we'll see a lot more scooters and bikes around. Also, market them to university students and high school students far far more. I couldn't afford to run a car when I was sixteen. Had I known that rego and insurance and petrol for scooters cost next to nothing, there was unlimited parking near my school available all day for free, and it didn't need a WOF, I'd have got a scooter back in high school instead of waiting till university - parking cost $35 per week. Parking at the university costs about $400 per year. Motorcyclists and scoots don't pay this.
6. Keep putting pressure on ACC to lower their levies... although admittedly it does go towards a few good things, like Roadsafe courses.
Oh, and another thing. STOP building more and more motorways to cater to cages. New Zealand is a beautiful place that shouldn't be defiled by building more roads upon roads upon roads. Eventually, the space to put them will run out. The motorways will full up. Then what will happen?

[Winston001]

Motorcycles in New Zealand fall into three categories:

1. Farm bikes - 4 wheelers. This is a huge market.

2. Scooters and commuters. Very popular.

3. Larger sprots/cruiser/adventure bikes. Lusted after by bystanders but only a few of us buy them.

The only way this will change is if cages become very expensive to buy and run. Which is actually possible if for example, cars were tolled $5 every time they used a different city motorway but bikes trucks and buses were free.

[McFatty1000]

Motorbikes are allowed to use bus lanes in ChCh but that does come with the risk of a car making a right hand turn with their view being blocked by the line of traffic that has let them make the turn. While some bikes have the
similar fuel economy as a small car many do not but still have the accelerating power of a very thirsty car.

Yeah, that and people driving badly/ in the bus lanes make it a bit dodge sometimes
I'd think many of the smaller bikes would become more popular with increasing petrol costs, and the bigger bikes would stay as toys - my old cb250 averaged about 3l/100km and I could still have fun on it (Better than being in an economical car at least). Scorpios and Ginnys would be the same or better

[Edbear]

Speaking logically, the only reasons to buy a bike are traffic and parking. Small scooters win on economy too, but lose out on motorways.

Overall, biking is not about logic, it is about emotion and only a true biker understands that feeling and that inner need. Cars tick more boxes re: practicality and logic, though they too, can be a passion for petrol-heads.

Times are changing and with increasing traffic volumes, read: risk, and costs, fewer are looking to biking as a hobby or passion. The industry needs to promote any practicality they can find to encourage new riders and if they can somehow convey the fun and passion of biking, the camaraderie among the biking fraternity, they will help slow the decline.

[avgas]

Motorcycling is like Smoking. A demographic that requires new blood otherwise it kills off its consumer base.
As for Harley killing off its younger base. You probably right. It's probably following Aston Martins footsteps..........but you know all these kids who have honda civics. A percentage of these would like an Aston Martin. So they drive a Civic until they are say 50 - then buy an Aston Martin.
Same could be said about people who buy Hyosung Aquila's..........when they are 50 - they will get a Harley.

[HenryDorsetCase]

Motorcycles in New Zealand fall into three categories:

1. Farm bikes - 4 wheelers. This is a huge market.

2. Scooters and commuters. Very popular.

3. Larger sprots/cruiser/adventure bikes. Lusted after by bystanders but only a few of us buy them.

The only way this will change is if cages become very expensive to buy and run. Which is actually possible if for example, cars were tolled $5 every time they used a different city motorway but bikes trucks and buses were free.

won't happen. the nazional gubblemunt has a mania for building roads, and the AA is one of the most effective pliticl lobbies in the country.

[Edbear]

won't happen. the nazional gubblemunt has a mania for building roads, and the AA is one of the most effective pliticl lobbies in the country.

The Gummint is being practical. Greenies want us all on bicycles and trains but that is hopelessly ideological. We can say what "should be" until we are blue in the face, that doesn't stop the rapidly increasing number of cars on the roads and the inevitable grid-lock because of it. This is reality and unless people want the traffic to grind to a complete stop in the near future, we have to build more roads. There simply is no other practical option for ther immediate needs.

Sure, provide public transport and encourage its use, also encourage people to live in less populated areas, but people will do whatever they want, as is their right.

[Voltaire]

More roads is not the answer, they fill up and grind to a haul as quick as they build them. Decentralise the cities, surely there is less need to drive all the way in to sit at a desk with all the communication options these days. Why does down town even exist .....

[Winston001]

Greenies want us all on bicycles and trains but that is hopelessly ideological.

Sure, provide public transport and encourage its use, also encourage people to live in less populated areas, but people will do whatever they want, as is their right.

There is a recent study of a UK city (Manchester?) which improved its public transport. They were surprised to find that users just switched to whichever suited them better - train or bus. Thus train patronage grew but bus dropped. Car volumes remained much the same.

More roads is not the answer, they fill up and grind to a haul as quick as they build them. Decentralise the cities, surely there is less need to drive all the way in to sit at a desk with all the communication options these days. Why does down town even exist .....

Good man and well said. Yet its the same all around the world. Maybe it takes 20 years for offices to move away from the CBD.

One idea being tried is business hubs in the suburbs. A modern comfortable building with wifi, cafe, desks chairs, printers etc etc scattered around. The benefit is getting away from home and into a "work" environment, other people around similarly occupied, the ability to take a break and chat to others. Of course this only applies to those who use computers for their job.

[Motu]

You could always flatten a CBD and start again.....