Ups And Downs 1993
Ups and Downs 1993
UP FRONT
David Edwards
THIS JANUARY ISSUE MARKS CYCLE World magazines’s 32nd birthday, and as the locomotive of 1994 bears down on us all, now is a good time to retrace the happenings of the past year. As always, there’s some good and there’s some bad, but for 1993 the UPs far outnumbered the DOWNs.
A big UP to the overall motorcycle market; for the second year in a row, sales of new bikes have grown. All the figures aren’t in yet, but the increase looks to be about 8 percent, a huge change from times in the past decade when sales dropped in the double digits. An associated UP here to the cruiser category, which experienced a 20-percent jump in sales, mostly from renewed interest in Japanese models. New sportbike sales are also up, slightly, as are touring-bike sales.
A DOWN, though, to dollar-yen fluctuations, which could be the dark cloud that rains on new-bike sales. With the yen currently hovering at 108 to the dollar, the 1994 price tags of some Japanese models have bounded by as much as $1000. Bad news in already-tough economic times.
If you are tight of budget but long on bike-owning desire, there’s always the used-bike market, an UP offsetting the high cost of buying new. If you’re willing to do some work of the TLC persuasion, there are hordes of good late-’70s, early-’80s machines out there-Honda CB750s and Yamaha XS650s come to mind-just waiting to be rescued, some for as little as $500, though $1000 would be a more realistic figure. If you really want to ride and can forego the latest in technochic, motorcycling remains a very accessible pastime.
Back to new bikes, a combined UP/DOWN to Yamaha’s GTS 1000, which uses James Parker’s innovative and impressive RADD front-end design, but wraps it in an otherwise unspectacular package. One of our competitors named the GTS as its Bike of the Year; a staffer at another said he never wanted to ride a bike with conventional forks again. Cycle World wasn’t so easily convinced, and neither, it seems, were you: Worldwide, the GTS has been a sales disappointment. Other 1993 models that failed to find an audience, at least in the U.S., were the Honda CB1000 and Kawasaki ZR1100 retro-standards, hopefully proving to bike-makers that if they want to sell us yesterday’s bikes, they would do well not to charge us today’s prices.
How about an UP for the classicbike market, thankfully bereft of many of the speculators who drove asking prices through the roof a few years ago? Prices have receded to almost-realistic levels, so it’s now possible for real enthusiasts to buy and ride neat old crocks again. Where did the well-heeled speculators go? Well, some of my long-time Harley-riding friends claim they’ve just traded in their Bonnevilles for Evo H-Ds, but that’s another story.
While we’re on the subject, a big star-spangled UP to the folks at Harley-Davidson, who continue to write an American success story. More than 80,000 Harleys rolled off the assembly line in 1993, most presold. Harley also celebrated its 90th anniversary in 1993, and threw itself one hell of a shindig back in Milwaukee. Just Willie G. and 100,000 or so of his closest personal friends, is all. Combine this display of brand loyalty with the news that Harley is getting serious about sportbikes-witness the redesigned Buell and the considerable progress made recently on the VR Superbike-and you’ve got the makings of a company ready and willing to stretch its legs and take on new challenges. It’s good to see.
Ducati also deserves an UP for taking its head out of the sand a couple of years ago, seriously looking at the market and filling in the niches that the Japanese and Harley-Davidson can’t or won’t. The Monster 900 neo-standard and the positively scrumptious Supermono racer were two of 1993’s most exciting motorcycles, and if you really want to make like one of Pavlov’s dogs, just take at look at the 916 preview in this issue. Stunning stuff.
Another UP goes to the American Motorcyclist Association for surpassing the 200,000 mark in membership. The AMA is involved with every aspect of motorcycling-from racing to touring to fighting legislative battles to running a first-rate museum-and if you don’t belong, please give it some serious thought. The phone number is 800/AMA-JOIN, and there may not be a better way to spend your $29.
There was a recent DOWN on the legislative front, though. Apparently Congress decided that the estimated $90-$120 million in taxes levied on motorized off-road users when they buy fuel didn’t count for much, so it cut appropriations for an established national trail program to zero, down from $7.5 million last year.
In racing, several well-placed UPs to Sam Ermolenko, Scott Russell, Kevin Schwantz and Doug Toland, all of whom brought world-championship trophies back home to the U.S. (in speedway, World Superbike, GP and World Endurance roadracing, respectively). Stateside, Doug Polen methodically mowed down the competition to give Ducati its first-ever AMA Superbike crown, Jeremy McGrath came out of nowhere to sting the rest of America’s supercrossers, and an inspired Ricky Graham, riding a privateer Honda, bowled over Team Harley to take flat-tracking’s Grand National Championship. UPs all around.
Those fine accomplishments were marred by Wayne Rainey’s crash at the Italian GP, which left him paralyzed, a huge DOWN for everyone involved in racing. In motorized competition, as in life, sometimes bad things happen to good people. Here’s hoping that one day soon microsurgery will advance to the point that neurologists can routinely get spinal-injury patients up and walking again.
That will be an UP for the ages.
