National Motorcycle Museum Closing

[Grumpy Goat]

Indeed, it is a shame that the motorcycle museum is being closed due to lack of paying attendance (interest?), but that unfortunately is a symptom of the reality when it comes to motorcycling in this country. People these days are becoming less and less interested ... busy doing other things and playing with their phones and hanging out on social media. This is nothing new, and motorcycle sales have been reflective of this fact for years now, at least perhaps on a per capita basis. Rich buys buying more and more bikes does not count, and is not sustainable. 

One of the top comments under the article was the shutting down or "Iron & Air" ... up until now I never hear of "Iron & Air" and had to Google it to find out what it was. The very name is not intuitive and even if one knew it had to do with motorcycling, the fact that it has "Iron" in it connotes a certain type of motorcycle that some of us may have less than a passing interest in. When I went to the website, I was pleased to see that it would have been something that might have been interesting to me, but, enough to pay for a subscription? ... don't know ...

I read the First Gear article in the Feb-2023 issue of Rider Magazine by the EiC and found it quite interesting. Quoting from that article in pertinent part:

79% of our readers are married, 81% have a college degree or have attended a vocational school, 65% have a household income of $75,000 or above, and 30% are active military or veterans.

More educated and perhaps well off ...?

Our readers are experienced riders: 87% of you have been riding for 20 years or longer, and 8% have been riding for 11-20 years.

Older ...?

the primary use of their motorcycle(s), the top choice was day rides/pleasure, followed by light touring/weekends, touring, adventure touring, commuting, and off-road.

Toys / luxury items ...?

In terms of ride-assist technologies, 72% own a motorcycle equipped with ABS, 39% with traction control, 38% with ride modes, and 30% with tire-pressure monitoring.

More modern and expensive motorcycles ...?

42% do their own motorcycle maintenance, 38% rely on dealers, 11% go to independent repair shops, and 7% have friends or family members work on their bike

Most don't work on their own bikes ...? (and that is among current owners ... let alone the younger generation who tend to be less mechanically interested ...) Added to the fact that dealers charge an arm and a leg iun their hourly rate to work on a motorcycle! I was recently quoted $1200 for a 12k mile service on my Tracer. It would be a cold day you know where before I pay more than 12% of the value of the bike for one service, most of which was questionable in the first place. 

And lastly,

42% are familiar with peer-to-peer motorcycle rental programs, and 52% think motorcycle ride sharing will grow in popularity,

The modern (urban?) end user would rather rent than buy (and for many that includes cars too) such that the maintenance, insurance, bother, etc. is all someone else's problem.

On a similar but related note (?) I can't help but notice that even Harley is changing their offerings in a bid to attract the younger demographic, who they see as replacing all of us, and who likely don't give half a sh*t about motorcycles. Even watched a vid about smaller Chinese-made Harleys coming to these shores (likely for use in their training programs, for now) ...

To me this all underscores the dying interest in motorcycling as a whole in countries where it is not a means of transportation, and/or it is given short shrift when it comes to its very existence, e.g. lack of parking consideration. The first casualties are things like museums and publications where the motorcycle is the prime subject as opposed to the means to an end.