We all know Choppers were the rage well over 10 years ago now, and back then Baggers were coming up in popularity. Now the Bagger trend has gone full blown, and encompasses a great deal of forum space here. The California custom club motorcycle style has had it's day in the sun as well. Blacked out bikes are huge. Where will it go???

I'm going to predict that the stripped down cruiser with bigger engines are about to make it big. Harley and the Fat Boy this year looks like an excellent motorcycle with plenty of power and style. I'm not crazy about the wheels though. But I think I see a trend towards bikes like that. Harley's new 131" inch crate motor would be great in a fat boy! If Indian puts that new powerful motor in a basic stripped power cruiser I believe it will sell. Just my .02

What's your prediction, and where will it go??

 

I'll just add that the huge front wheel fad seems to be on the wane. The bikes that get the most attention, at the local biker watering holes out here, are the performance baggers and Dynas. It's the younger guys, that want to have fun on their bikes and not just cruise in a straight line.

 

You mean kind of like the Dyna? History rinses and repeats
I'd like to see the FXR reincarnated.

 

I think the latest "fad" seems to be keeping the bike you already have!!

 

I'll be glad when that large front wheel craze is over. I have never seen a bike with one, and said "now that's a nice bike!" I expect the swap meets will be full of those in due time. And for pennies on the dollar.

The Dyna now being a softy, you may never get your wish. The FXR had those less than forward controls(mid) and a more compact primary, didn't it? The Fat Boy looks like a longer bike in the pics. And with forward controls for comfort.

 

I don't think we'll see another fad like we have in the past. The chopper fad was fueled by a perfect storm of pop culture (American Chopper, other TV shows and movies, etc) coupled with a thriving housing and stock market creating lots of spending cash for the middle age / middle class demographic that loved the bikes already and Bingo - you had choppers selling like hotcakes for 10s of thousands and more. I don't think the bagger fad is even close to what the chopper fad of the 2000s was, and the population into these bikes is aging, and the younger people are way more into technology than engines.

 

I feel like the next two wheeled rage will be electric motorcycles. Eventually. Note that does not include the current Livewire or even the current Zero's, but someday soon there is going to be a battery tech breakthrough and when that happens we'll start seeing electric bikes (EB's) with some real useful ranges. Plus the costs of electric vehicles follow Wright's Law so they will continue to fall in price over time, and eventually EB's will not only perform better than combustion bikes but they will be far cheaper to own and operate. Little to no maintenance at all due to few moving parts, batteries that last forever, etc.

Couple cheap affordable powerful EB's with a vast charging network (several years away yet) and charging times of 10 minutes or so and we'll finally have EB's which will sell like hotcakes. More importantly the younger generation will buy them like MAD due to the low costs and tech integration.

Many of us here won't like them and will likely even shun them, but the new generations of riders will become a much larger market than we.

Until then, motorcycles will continue to decline in sales and become more rare over time, because the new generations just aren't interested in traditional bikes. Not enough at least.

In my opinion of course.

 

Hopefully, "Riding them" will become a new trend instead of washing and polishing and then a trip to the local 7-11. I see bikes mid 2010 and up come up for sale all the time with less than 2000 miles. Damn shame too because NADA value sucks the life out them and then I offer cash which means I want it for 15%- 20% less than NADA. Sometimes I get em, depends on the sellers needs.

 

From what I'm seeing Harleys are fading away....folks now are spending big bucks on classic/muscle/hotrod cars...they are bringing big bucks... where Harleys are hard to sell unless your price is well below market ...with the exception of knucks and pans...

 

I also see that the market is flooded. Used bikes are plentiful, but aren't worth much now. Harley-Davidson is going to export more big twins for a while, and push the newer smaller model imports. Bikes like the Pan Am will stir some interest if Harley does it right.