I think there’s a little more to it which is that HD is clearly dying and has been on life support for a while and the chuds want to blame something and someone for it. The truth is just that they’re not bringing to market the kinds of bikes most riders want - big expensive touring bikes have their market but a new rider will never buy one, you gotta bring them on board with something relatively cheap and simple and in that category HD hasn’t been competitive since the 1950s.
I think there’s a little more to it which is that HD is clearly dying and has been on life support for a while and the chuds want to blame something and someone for it. The truth is just that they’re not bringing to market the kinds of bikes most riders want - big expensive touring bikes have their market but a new rider will never buy one, you gotta bring them on board with something relatively cheap and simple and in that category HD hasn’t been competitive since the 1950s.
Were Harleys ever cheap or did people just feel differently about how much money it was reasonable to spend on a bike in the past?
They’ve been double the price of comparable bikes since back when I still rode which was almost 20 years ago.
I think a lot of GIs brought back Harleys given by the army from WW2. So they were basically free.