This is my first real bike week in Daytona. I was amazed at the ease of walking up to the Harley-Davidson and Indian demo ride tents and riding away with an expensive motorcycle with little to no screening. I could have been fresh out of motorcycle school and only have Honda 250 experience under my belt. Several Rider that I saw were pretty dangerous looking when they rode away . I think it's great and it was much fun trying out several of their bikes. I do wonder how ever how many have you ever seen a rider drop the bikes in the parking lot or worse an incident out on the highway?

 

When I was there two years ago, H-D was giving demo rides at the racetrack. One person drove the bike into the chain-link fence between the tent and the street. It hit it so hard that when the bike hit the fence, the front wheel rode upwards on the fence a few feet until the fence gave away outwards when it separated from two or tree fence posts that had bent outwards. What suck worst is that I was tree people away from being first in line to go on a demo ride when this happened. They stopped the demo rides at least temporarily after the accident so I didn't get to ride a demo bike.

 

I've done two H-D test rides off the demo truck in the last few years. The first one, they let people take off by themselves. The last one was escorted. Neither time did I witness anyone lay a bike down in the parking lot or worse. If you're fresh out of motorcycle school, you've only ridden a Honda 250 and you want to test ride a 900 lb. bagger, shame on you if you wreck it. I don't know what the fine prints says specifically, but I had to sign two lengthy disclosures about my responsibilities and H-D's responsibilities if something happens. If I had to guess, there was probably something in the disclosures about being inexperienced and what happens if you trash a bike. I don't know because I didn't read them.

 

They whack your peepee!!!!

 

Honestly Harley puts a lot of trust in riders ability for these demo rides. You should know how to operate a big bike if you are going to demo one, your fault if you don't and you have an accident. I know that years ago they set a route and let you go out on your own but every demo I've done (probably 10 different events) was a set route with escorts. I did read the fine print the first time and basically harley is not responsible for any injury or death on the ride, and you are not responsible for any damages to the motorcycles in the event of an accident. I have been warned when demoing the night rod that it was the fastest bike there and if I wanted to get on it there would be a time and place and to let other riders get way ahead before I did. Sure enough there was a place perfect for opening it up, a very long highway entrance ramp with no traffic. i was in back of the pack and let the pack get ahead of me a good ways and let her rip. 110 mph on a demo ride Was a lot of fun to see what that bike had and they never said a word to me when we got back. I only did this one time, all other demo rides I've been I've ridden much more gently lol.

I was at an event and a young guy rode in on a street 500 that he owned and took out a CVO street glide, and then laid it down coming back in the parking lot. They came over and picked the bike up and asked if he was ok. "you ok? good. have a nice day you're done with demos for today!"

 

LOL! It's amazing how much legalese it takes to say "we're going to whack your peepee if you f**k up one of our bikes!"

 

I think issues can happen if you just jump on a style of bike you are not used to and assume its going to handle like you own ride. Doesnt matter how many years you have been riding IMO. You need to be a little cautious at first and anticipate handling differences among different bikes when jumping on something new. If you have been driving a Honda Civic for a decade and jump into a Ram1500 and try to drive it like the civic, something bad is probably going to happen. I never saw anyone crash a demo bike on a ride but I did see someone slide out on a brand new street glide riding it off the dealer lot a few years ago. A guy was riding his new bike off the lot and went up onto the grass in front of the dealer. I don't know what happened but everyone heard someone gun an engine and when we looked over he drove it straight into the grass and it slid over on the side. His wife was driving behind him in a truck and was frantic. Everyone went running to assist him and the sales rep lifted the bike and wheeled it back onto the pavement. He was fine but it was one of those wth moments. Not every day you go to a dealer and see someone gun their engine and ride straight into the grass.

 

I saw a kid (early 20s) wipe out on a Indian chief. They asked if he was ok and told him he's done.

 

Was that this year? I was waiting to go out on a Fat Bob, and they halted the rides because they said somebody on an Indian went down on that back stretch behind the track.

 

Every Indian demo ride I have gone on was escorted by factory personnel as a group ride. They didn't let anyone get reckless or allow you to really hammer the bike. HD had a designated route you could ride by yourself but said they had people monitor the route and would know if you were abusing the bike or were being reckless.