Harley backed themselves into a niche and only have themselves to blame. I ride motorcycles but have zero interest in Harley’s because most of the riders seem to be cosplaying a 1%er vibe that is off putting in the extreme.
The clothing lines are a giveaway as to who their market is.
I divide riders into Harley enthusiasts and everybody else. People who like motorcycles generally have wide tastes or at least can appreciate all kinds of bikes. Harley riders wobble to a stop outside a bar and pretend to be hard men.
I just sold my Harley (literally this morning). And you're totally right about the vibe. I had a 2017 Roadster (a much more upright bike than the cruisers you think of when you think of Harleys) and any time someone asked, I'd explain "I ride a Harley, but I'm not a 'Harley guy'". I would never roll around with other Harley riders.
I think the most telling thing was that when I priced my bike out, average mileage for that bike at that age was ~6500 miles. Which made my 52,000 miles a liability.
When I rode a Honda, I loved to see Harley riders putting their bikes on trailers and taking them everywhere. They would take them to an event on the back of a trailer, and then just ride around the area near the hotel. Then back on the trailer to go home.
They are too expensive for younger generations, too unreliable for people without tools and a garage and mechanical experience along with crazy expensive parts, and the old people who still love Harleys are now old enough that riding a motorcycle is treacherous at best because age reduces both balance and strength which are important factors in safely riding a motorcycle in anything but the most ideal conditions.
Also, single pin crank engines are essentially obsolete but that is the distinctive sound of Harleys. So they can't change the motor without losing customers, but also that engine is a dead-end for use in most any other application too. Double pin cranks are superior in basically every way with better performance, better efficiency, and less vibration.
I don't think GenZ and Millennials have the expendable income. Between college debt and a house mortgage the extra money just isn't there, even if they find the Harley's attractive.
They just aren't very good motorcycles. You can get almost any other motorcycle and they will be better to ride, more reliable and probably cost a lot less.
Harley Davidson also didn't modernise its brand. Also a lot of the image of Harley Davidson is attached to the heyday of motorcycle gangs, old movies between the 50s-80s e.g. "Easy Rider", "Electra Glide in Blue" and Music from that era.
HD would probably do good with a line of generator products
So, the suggestion is to pit HD against Honda in a segment that expects reliability? One doesn't buy a HD because it can be sure to start when a hurricane is coming.
That’s an interesting idea. I wonder how they would fare against the established engines from Honda and Briggs and Stratton or diesel alternatives. They would probably get a boost from name recognition at least.
If your gears are good then torque doesn't matter, only horsepower. A bunch of people already make generators in gasoline, diesel, and propane appetite
The HD brand is tied to a demographic that is dying out [1]. It’s actually a great private equity play to squeeze out what’s left of the enterprise value as Boomers slowly age out of their market. HD tried to market an electric motorcycle ("Livewire") [2], but ended up having to spin it out into its own company because HD riders are buying the HD aesthetic, not the motorcycle itself, which is simply a vehicle for said aesthetic. Livewire for younger buyers, HD for old men buying the exhaust note of a copyrighted engine that is purposely louder but less efficient.
> To be fair, revenues and unit sales have enjoyed a nice bounce since the pits of the financial crisis. But Harley will never get its old mojo back for one critical reason that is completely outside of its control: demographics.
> Down the road from my house in Dallas, there is greasy drive-in burger joint called Keller’s … a place I’ve been known to frequent a little more often than my doctor might recommend. On any given weekend, you might see a dozen or more bikers parked in the lot, showing off their chrome-laden Harleys. And nearly all of them are over the age of 45. Most are over 50.
> This isn’t a coincidence. Harley-Davidson is a brand whose sales depend disproportionately -- almost exclusively, in fact -- on middle-aged Caucasian males. Riders younger than 40 generally lack the time, interest or the bankroll to buy a Harley. But by the time they get into their 60s or older, the noise and joint pain have begun to make riding lose its allure. You might still ride in your 60s, but you’re doing it less frequently and you probably aren’t buying a new bike.
> The sweet spot is the mid-40s to early 50s. And with the Baby Boomers -- the largest and wealthiest generation in history -- now largely aged out of this key demographic bracket, Harley has a serious problem. Generation X -- my generation -- is not nearly large enough to pick up the slack, and Generation Y (aka “the Millennials” or “Echo Boomers”) are decades away from being in the demographic sweet spot for Harley, and this assumes they take to riding like their dads did. The number of American men aged 40-49 is set to decline through the early 2020s and won’t reach its old 2010 peak until 2035.
> CNN Money reported on this as far back as 2010, and demographic strategist Harry Dent -- my old boss -- has used Harley as a case study for decades.
(for context, ~2M people 55+ die every year in the US, and ~4M Boomers retire; by 2031, the US population over the age of 65 will be ~75M, almost double what it was in 2008)
Yep, this has been a known problem of HD for years. They have an expensive, less performant product than other bike manufacturers, but their shrinking clientele demands they never change.
Any time they try to introduce something new their customers lose their minds as if it is an act of betrayal. It also may be true that their new products are half hearted attempts at innovation and rarely any good. They mostly live off of brand name.
The correct move 30 years ago would have been to create a different performance brand and poured R&D money into that, but they were too busy with their fat margins to worry about that.
Well, I mean, they did. They built Livewire and spun it off with a SPAC (similar playbook seen with legacy auto and new EV efforts). The unfortunate reality is that, similar to AOPA and general aviation, young people cannot afford the sport due to confounding economic factors around purchasing power, disposable income, forward looking interest rate environment, cultural and intellectual interest, etc. What do you do if you build the next generation brand and product and arrive at a future that has no place for it? You've built a cautionary tale and museum piece. "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future." - Niels Bohr
From a citation in another one of my comments:
> More troubling still is the industry’s struggle to attract younger generations. The percentage of motorcycle owners under eighteen has collapsed from eight percent in 1990 to just two percent today. Among the crucial eighteen to twenty-four age group, ownership has plummeted from sixteen percent to six percent over the same period. These figures suggest a fundamental breakdown in the traditional pathway into motorcycle ownership, where young people developed their passion for riding and carried it throughout their lives. Multiple barriers prevent younger Americans from entering the motorcycle market. The initial cost represents a significant hurdle for a generation burdened with student loan debt and facing challenges in achieving the same economic milestones their parents reached at similar ages. Insurance costs for young riders can equal or exceed the cost of the motorcycle itself, particularly for performance-oriented models. Many states have implemented graduated licensing systems that make it more difficult for young people to obtain motorcycle endorsements. Perhaps most significantly, the cultural transmission of motorcycle enthusiasm has been disrupted, as fewer parents and mentors ride motorcycles themselves or feel comfortable introducing young people to what is perceived as an increasingly dangerous activity.
I think it is more likely buyers buy Powerwalls and other battery storage (Anker, EcoFlow) vs a motorcycle that can act as a generator. Their motors are not as good as Honda, Caterpillar, Cummins, Kohler, or Briggs & Stratton. They are designed to be loud, not to be good.
The American motorcycle industry is facing significant headwinds, and HD is simply not positioned for success.
it wouldnt be about selling motorcycles, it would be a big pivot to home power generation. engine quality and serviceability would be initial point to pursue.
At the deaf orphanage for AI children. It's a bit niche, but you should see what they can do with LEDs. Their artwork fetches a great price at the LLM Arena.
It's much more than a 5% decline. I started keeping track of Harley dealers around 2019. When I started tracking, the website listed 1859 locations around the world. Of those, 58 looked like merch stores (no bike sales, no services), so let's call it 1801. The last time I updated my stats was 18 months ago, and the number was 1409. I just looked today and it's 1237. So that's a reduction of just over 31%.
I haven't plugged today's number into my analysis, but the 2024 numbers showed some countries hit much more disproportionately than others. All of the stores in Russia have been closed (for mostly obvious reasons). Almost all of the stores in Central America and the Caribbean have also closed (for not-obvious reasons). In the US I'd say the number looks somewhere between 5 and 10%, but again, that doesn't take into account the last 18 months.
Harley is in a tough position. Despite the marketing it's mainly for people 55+ who make a good salary. The joke was always that if you lost a fight to someone on a Harley at least they could fix your teeth (since they're all dentists). As someone who's well on his way to 55+ there isn't anything less cool on the planet than a brand for the olds. It's the Buick of motorcycles.
Harley backed themselves into a niche and only have themselves to blame. I ride motorcycles but have zero interest in Harley’s because most of the riders seem to be cosplaying a 1%er vibe that is off putting in the extreme.
The clothing lines are a giveaway as to who their market is.
I divide riders into Harley enthusiasts and everybody else. People who like motorcycles generally have wide tastes or at least can appreciate all kinds of bikes. Harley riders wobble to a stop outside a bar and pretend to be hard men.
I just sold my Harley (literally this morning). And you're totally right about the vibe. I had a 2017 Roadster (a much more upright bike than the cruisers you think of when you think of Harleys) and any time someone asked, I'd explain "I ride a Harley, but I'm not a 'Harley guy'". I would never roll around with other Harley riders.
I think the most telling thing was that when I priced my bike out, average mileage for that bike at that age was ~6500 miles. Which made my 52,000 miles a liability.
When I rode a Honda, I loved to see Harley riders putting their bikes on trailers and taking them everywhere. They would take them to an event on the back of a trailer, and then just ride around the area near the hotel. Then back on the trailer to go home.
They are too expensive for younger generations, too unreliable for people without tools and a garage and mechanical experience along with crazy expensive parts, and the old people who still love Harleys are now old enough that riding a motorcycle is treacherous at best because age reduces both balance and strength which are important factors in safely riding a motorcycle in anything but the most ideal conditions.
Also, single pin crank engines are essentially obsolete but that is the distinctive sound of Harleys. So they can't change the motor without losing customers, but also that engine is a dead-end for use in most any other application too. Double pin cranks are superior in basically every way with better performance, better efficiency, and less vibration.
I don't think GenZ and Millennials have the expendable income. Between college debt and a house mortgage the extra money just isn't there, even if they find the Harley's attractive.
They just aren't very good motorcycles. You can get almost any other motorcycle and they will be better to ride, more reliable and probably cost a lot less.
Harley Davidson also didn't modernise its brand. Also a lot of the image of Harley Davidson is attached to the heyday of motorcycle gangs, old movies between the 50s-80s e.g. "Easy Rider", "Electra Glide in Blue" and Music from that era.
"Electra Glide in Blue" (1973) is a great movie, worth seeking out.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/_ql3l9C_qQ4?si=Qn3gTN4SX_IeXyul
harley engines, are about low end torque, in a small form.
HD would probably do good with a line of generator products if they still wanted to do business, and work with alternate fuels.
HD would probably do good with a line of generator products
So, the suggestion is to pit HD against Honda in a segment that expects reliability? One doesn't buy a HD because it can be sure to start when a hurricane is coming.
ive worked with both, and never had a problem starting either in rough weather.
HD engine as is requires torquedown intervals due to the harmonics, but is easier to service than Honda was.
That’s an interesting idea. I wonder how they would fare against the established engines from Honda and Briggs and Stratton or diesel alternatives. They would probably get a boost from name recognition at least.
If your gears are good then torque doesn't matter, only horsepower. A bunch of people already make generators in gasoline, diesel, and propane appetite
The HD brand is tied to a demographic that is dying out [1]. It’s actually a great private equity play to squeeze out what’s left of the enterprise value as Boomers slowly age out of their market. HD tried to market an electric motorcycle ("Livewire") [2], but ended up having to spin it out into its own company because HD riders are buying the HD aesthetic, not the motorcycle itself, which is simply a vehicle for said aesthetic. Livewire for younger buyers, HD for old men buying the exhaust note of a copyrighted engine that is purposely louder but less efficient.
> To be fair, revenues and unit sales have enjoyed a nice bounce since the pits of the financial crisis. But Harley will never get its old mojo back for one critical reason that is completely outside of its control: demographics.
> Down the road from my house in Dallas, there is greasy drive-in burger joint called Keller’s … a place I’ve been known to frequent a little more often than my doctor might recommend. On any given weekend, you might see a dozen or more bikers parked in the lot, showing off their chrome-laden Harleys. And nearly all of them are over the age of 45. Most are over 50.
> This isn’t a coincidence. Harley-Davidson is a brand whose sales depend disproportionately -- almost exclusively, in fact -- on middle-aged Caucasian males. Riders younger than 40 generally lack the time, interest or the bankroll to buy a Harley. But by the time they get into their 60s or older, the noise and joint pain have begun to make riding lose its allure. You might still ride in your 60s, but you’re doing it less frequently and you probably aren’t buying a new bike.
> The sweet spot is the mid-40s to early 50s. And with the Baby Boomers -- the largest and wealthiest generation in history -- now largely aged out of this key demographic bracket, Harley has a serious problem. Generation X -- my generation -- is not nearly large enough to pick up the slack, and Generation Y (aka “the Millennials” or “Echo Boomers”) are decades away from being in the demographic sweet spot for Harley, and this assumes they take to riding like their dads did. The number of American men aged 40-49 is set to decline through the early 2020s and won’t reach its old 2010 peak until 2035.
> CNN Money reported on this as far back as 2010, and demographic strategist Harry Dent -- my old boss -- has used Harley as a case study for decades.
[1] Blame Harley-Davidson's Downfall On Baby Boomer Demographics - https://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2013/11/13/harley-... - November 13th, 2013
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveWire_(motorcycle)
(for context, ~2M people 55+ die every year in the US, and ~4M Boomers retire; by 2031, the US population over the age of 65 will be ~75M, almost double what it was in 2008)
Yep, this has been a known problem of HD for years. They have an expensive, less performant product than other bike manufacturers, but their shrinking clientele demands they never change.
Any time they try to introduce something new their customers lose their minds as if it is an act of betrayal. It also may be true that their new products are half hearted attempts at innovation and rarely any good. They mostly live off of brand name.
The correct move 30 years ago would have been to create a different performance brand and poured R&D money into that, but they were too busy with their fat margins to worry about that.
The correct move 30 years ago would have been to create a different performance brand and poured R&D money into that...
They sort of did that when they bought Buell. I don't know that they put a whole lot of R&D into it, though.
Erik Buell tried that but wasn’t competitive vs the Japanese brands and HDs heart wasn’t in it.
Well, I mean, they did. They built Livewire and spun it off with a SPAC (similar playbook seen with legacy auto and new EV efforts). The unfortunate reality is that, similar to AOPA and general aviation, young people cannot afford the sport due to confounding economic factors around purchasing power, disposable income, forward looking interest rate environment, cultural and intellectual interest, etc. What do you do if you build the next generation brand and product and arrive at a future that has no place for it? You've built a cautionary tale and museum piece. "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future." - Niels Bohr
From a citation in another one of my comments:
> More troubling still is the industry’s struggle to attract younger generations. The percentage of motorcycle owners under eighteen has collapsed from eight percent in 1990 to just two percent today. Among the crucial eighteen to twenty-four age group, ownership has plummeted from sixteen percent to six percent over the same period. These figures suggest a fundamental breakdown in the traditional pathway into motorcycle ownership, where young people developed their passion for riding and carried it throughout their lives. Multiple barriers prevent younger Americans from entering the motorcycle market. The initial cost represents a significant hurdle for a generation burdened with student loan debt and facing challenges in achieving the same economic milestones their parents reached at similar ages. Insurance costs for young riders can equal or exceed the cost of the motorcycle itself, particularly for performance-oriented models. Many states have implemented graduated licensing systems that make it more difficult for young people to obtain motorcycle endorsements. Perhaps most significantly, the cultural transmission of motorcycle enthusiasm has been disrupted, as fewer parents and mentors ride motorcycles themselves or feel comfortable introducing young people to what is perceived as an increasingly dangerous activity.
what im looking at is the new niche and demographic.
the engine design is well suited to drive a dynamo and power a home during outage.
this would mean continued operation of engine plants, and retooling assembly plants to build backup generation devices.
alternatively, sell generation ready versions of the engine to OEM generator builders.
I think it is more likely buyers buy Powerwalls and other battery storage (Anker, EcoFlow) vs a motorcycle that can act as a generator. Their motors are not as good as Honda, Caterpillar, Cummins, Kohler, or Briggs & Stratton. They are designed to be loud, not to be good.
The American motorcycle industry is facing significant headwinds, and HD is simply not positioned for success.
The American Motorcycle Market Decline: What the 9.2% Drop Reveals About Consumer Sentiment - https://www.csm-research.com/the-american-motorcycle-market-... - October 5th, 2025
it wouldnt be about selling motorcycles, it would be a big pivot to home power generation. engine quality and serviceability would be initial point to pursue.
https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/north-america-h...
https://www.globalgrowthinsights.com/market-reports/resident...
There’s some logic to it because the demographic that is aging out of Harleys might be also aging into backup home generators
Is there a market for ridiculously loud generators?
At the deaf orphanage for AI children. It's a bit niche, but you should see what they can do with LEDs. Their artwork fetches a great price at the LLM Arena.
I'm not sure the numbers support the dire title. A five percent decline ?
It's much more than a 5% decline. I started keeping track of Harley dealers around 2019. When I started tracking, the website listed 1859 locations around the world. Of those, 58 looked like merch stores (no bike sales, no services), so let's call it 1801. The last time I updated my stats was 18 months ago, and the number was 1409. I just looked today and it's 1237. So that's a reduction of just over 31%.
I haven't plugged today's number into my analysis, but the 2024 numbers showed some countries hit much more disproportionately than others. All of the stores in Russia have been closed (for mostly obvious reasons). Almost all of the stores in Central America and the Caribbean have also closed (for not-obvious reasons). In the US I'd say the number looks somewhere between 5 and 10%, but again, that doesn't take into account the last 18 months.
Harley is in a tough position. Despite the marketing it's mainly for people 55+ who make a good salary. The joke was always that if you lost a fight to someone on a Harley at least they could fix your teeth (since they're all dentists). As someone who's well on his way to 55+ there isn't anything less cool on the planet than a brand for the olds. It's the Buick of motorcycles.
oh no! custom exhaust noise lost /s
Loud Harley's were cool when I was seven. I can't imagine being an adult and wanting to ride around on a 50k noisemaker.