Harley-Davidson Inc. is unveiling a new bike, but it’s powered by pedals, not a rumbling V-Twin engine.
The olive-green cruiser is a tribute to a bicycle sold by Harley in 1917. It’s the first of 10 hand-built bicycles the Harley-Davidson Museum will offer for sale this summer for approximately $4,200 each.
Raphael Orlove is clueless. Millennials aren't buying $4,200.00 bicycles but they ARE buying $420.00 bicycles - and not all of us are "bored Dentists".
I'm curious as to how many parts on that bike are off-the-shelf parts, and how many were made specifically for that repro bike.
Maybe they could have a "Fat Boy" fat tire bike made with off-the-shelf parts with those colors and some chrome?
A few years back, in my mountain biking days, I bought a $4,000 bicycle. Well, that was MSRP, which I didn’t pay, but I digress...
That $4,000 bike had full suspension front and rear, fully adjustable, an ***-ton of gears for any occasion, dual disk brakes, a hand-welded aluminum frame, adjustable seat post, and pretty much everything you needed for a weekend on the trails. It was light and strong and fast. Even back then, the shop I bought it from had road and mountain bikes in the $10K range. But this bike for $4,200 that looks just like any $200 Walmart cruiser? I don’t see that selling...at all...especially not to millennials.
But I thought EBay, Amazon, and Facebook were stupid ideas, so what do I know?
$4,000 is actually a mid-range bike. High-end pro carbon fiber mountain or street bikes will easily run you $10K--easy. Add on other items and you can look at spending upwards of 15K on a bike. Granted most people dont go this route but $4,000 isn't really an expensive bike overall--again, would be considered mid-range by hardcore.
JMHO, but I doubt they'll sell many bikes with a $ 4200 price tag.
Also, not a very appealing bicycle to me but I'm far beyond being a millennial !
Giving customers true options, a bike for the "kids" and one for the "fogies" would have made more sense to me.
You can buy an "off the floor", decent looking (foreign made) bicycle for $ 100 bucks at Wal-Mart.
If H-D wants to make a limited run of USA made, collectible models, H-D identified, labeled and possibly signed by Willie G (a signature model ?) for a "collector" that's fine, but if they want to sell a large number of bicycles. they're going to have to lower the price in order to compete for the average bicycle rider.buyer.
I can see the bicycles helping Harley Davidson with "cap and trade" laws. The more bicycles they sell, the more polluting ICE Harleys they can sell without paying penalties.
For a casual bike, 4200 is nuts. I have a Cannondale which is a semi-serious bike thats made in the USA and I only paid 600.00. The article writer who called us dentists - FUC& HIM and his family. Just shows hes a biased, obnoxious tool..
06-20-2018, 10:48 AM
Harley-Davidson, Unable To Sell Millennials Motorcycles, Pivots To Bicycles
