Up Front

UP FRONT

What’s right

David Edwards

I WAS MORE THAN A LITTLE NERVOUS going into the first meeting. I mean, I’m in the magazine publishing business, not market research or product development, yet here I was about to meet with high-horsepower officials of a motorcycle company and tell them what they were doing wrong.

I was armed with a cardboard box full of photocopied letters written in response to May’s Up Front column, “What’s wrong?” in which I asked Cycle World readers to jot down what they considered the major obstacles facing the sport of motorcycling as well as solutions to those hurdles. We tallied the letters—nearly 500 in all— and presented the results in August’s Up Front, “Here’s what’s wrong.” As promised, I was now delivering the results to the motorcycle manufacturers in the hope that the responses would be of some help in their future plans. As this column is written, I’ve seen all four Japanese companies, I meet with Harley-Davidson’s brass in three days and boxes have been mailed to BMW, Cagiva/Ducati and Moto Guzzi on the East Coast.

So far, the reaction has been gratifying. Rather than treating the “What’s wrong?” survey as an amateurish intrusion, all the companies have been genuinely interested in what the readers of this magazine, described by one official as a “very knowledgeable and very enthusiastic core group,” had to say. Another company man detailed how the responses would be studied here before being sent over to Japan for further scrutiny. “These letters will all be read, I can assure you,” he said.

None of the responses really surprised anyone, though, as all the companies do their own research and have run into similar results. “Now, it’s up to us to decide what to do with the information,” one spokesman said. Well, I’ve had a few days to digest all the “What’s wrong?” information and Ed like to make a couple of suggestions—not as a high-andmighty market analyst but simply as a concerned motorcyclist.

You may remember that the largest single complaint that the “What’s wrong?” respondents noted was that today’s motorcycles are “too technically sophisticated, too specialized, too fast and covered with too much plastic.” These people would no doubt subscribe to comedian Jay Leno’s tenet to “never trust a motorcycle you can’t see through.”

I humbly disagree. Remember, the “What’s wrong?” respondents amount to less than 1 percent of Cycle Worlds readership, and many riders who value handling and performance above all else probably didn’t even write in. To them, all may be right: This truly is the Golden Age of Sportbikes. And, in fact, sportbike sales have helped the Japanese companies weather the current market malaise, providing some bright spots on an otherwise overcast sales chart. I would even argue that in the case of Honda, there needs to be more highperformance bikes, namely the super-versatile CBR1000 and the exceedingly exotic RC30. The latter would cost between $10,000 and $15,000, but as in the automobile world, there will always be people willing to pay for limited-edition exclusivity.

So, let there be sportbikes. But taking the “too technically sophisticated” response in conjunction with others, such as that bikes now cost too much, that models are changed too often and that bikes should be easier to work on, it’s clear that there’s a calling for a type of machine that’s less intense than a sportbike. In the recent past, that has meant “cruiser,” some of which are little more than Harley-Davidson clones and bring to mind the old Yogi Berra quote about not copying something unless you’re sure you can imitate it. No, what’s needed—as many “What’s wrong?” writers pointed out—is an updated, standard-style motorcycle.

The good news is that the manufacturers know this already. All of the Big Four have made forays into this area: Yamaha has its Radian 600 (see Roundup, this issue), Honda has the CB-1 and Hawk 650, Suzuki has its GS500 and Kawasaki has the Zephyr (also in this issue’s Roundup) in the wings. But these bikes have some problems: some are too expensive and all are too small to serve the day-to-day needs of the average American rider. What’s needed is a full-size, new-age standard, and Cycle World has proposed such a bike, the drawings of which appear of pages 48 and 49 of this issue.

Another suggestion I’d make, and this too was echoed by many in our survey, would be to immediately institute a slickly done public relations campaign to pump up the positive virtues of motorcycling. I’m thinking of a TV and print-ad program similar to that run by both the beef and dairy-related industries to combat a fall in sales caused when a healthconscious and cholesterol-counting public began using less of their products. Motorcycle manufacturers and industry support groups began a scaled-down version of such a program last year, called “Discover Today’s Motorcycling,” though by most accounts it was underfunded and clumsily executed. I’d implore bikemakers to make a well-run and sufficiently financed PR campaign Priority One; remembering all the time to sell motorcycling, not just individual motorcycles. At least last year’s program was a positive step, and the DTM committee members I’ve talked to acknowledge the problems and are serious about expanding and improving the program this year.

Anyway, those are just a couple of suggestions. And while a full-sized, standard-style bike and a top-notch public relations offensive won’t in and of themselves turn the sport around, I’ve got to believe that an appealing, affordable, all-around motorcycle and a really well-done campaign that communicates just how exciting, romantic and enjoyable motorcycling is would go a long way towards making what’s wrong what’s right.