My Decent (Part Three)

So now I am a Harley owner. When I show my friends at work the bike, they are duly impressed. They love the look and the condition of the bike. One of them warns me about getting sucked into the Harley marketing machine. "You're gonna wear all that crazy logo shit, aren't you?" He says, grinning at me. I tell him that I find those idiots I see off their bikes in chaps, leather vests, and faux bandanas stupid. I told him I may get some of the things that go along with riding a bike. Namely a leather jacket  and a chain wallet. But those will be for truly functional reasons. A leather jacket for safety reasons and a chain wallet to keep my wallet from vibrating out. He just looked at me. I think he realized I would succumb to the bar and shield. Like a prophet from the wilderness, he called it. Soon after I got the bike, I would end up walking out of a H-D dealership with another new logoed shirt. To be honest, I don't think I have gone overboard with the logo crap. I refuse to stick a logo on my car. Who cares whether the guy (or gal) driving a Cadillac Escalade rides a Harley? And I tend to not wear my logoed crap away from my bike. But when I do, I am usually at work where there are people who are more flaming logoholics than I ever could be. So with the amount of Harley gear I sport, I still get irritated by those in the biker community who really go overboard in either direction. I mean, I see some guys straddling a sweet Softtail Heritage in shorts, sneakers, and a full face helmet. I feel like telling them to get off of the bike and get a Honda (as a corollary, I've seen guys on Hondas with more biker garb than most 1%ers wear). Then again, there are guys that get so dressed up to get on their ride that they look like they're auditioning for a re-make of "The Wild Bunch". Again, I try not to look the part. I do own pretty much every piece of motorcycle-style clothing, but that does not mean I'll wear it. I see guys on the bar-hopping circuit wearing chaps. In the summer. Along with their cut-off gloves, biker doo-rag, rally shirt, and leather vest. Again, to go bar hopping. I just shake my head at them. I must say, that whether they are dressing all out to play a part, or if they do it just because they feel they are safer covered in leather, at least it appears as though they are having fun. And that is the essence of riding.

My Decent (Part Two)

...again, I point to my life as an example of this great marketing. After making many pilgrimages to all the different brand dealerships in town, it was a chance visit to a Harley dealership that sealed the deal for me. The choice of going to the dealership was purely accidental. My family and I were out on a Sunday driving around (a cheap way to keep the kids occupied) when we came upon the Harley shop. It was one of H-D's boutique shops, with lots of bikes and accessories out on a beautifully designed showroom floor. I was surprised the OPEN sign was lit; it seems every motorcycle shop in town was closed on Sundays so my motorcycle hunting had been restricted to Saturdays. With the possibility of looking at motorcycles when I had not expected to, I pulled in. As was my custom on these expeditions, I immediately went over into the used bike section. I had a set amount of money to spend and I was not willing to finance a motorcycle (an idea that never made any sense to me). To be honest, I wasn't opposed to owning a Harley. It just wasn't the type of motorcycle I was looking to own. And I have heard good things about the reliability of them. It was really just about the money. So as I was strolling past the line of used bikes, a salesman swoops in on me. He starts plying me. "Whadya looking for?" I tell him I have a certain amount of money budgeted to spend. He tries selling me on a 1997 Dyna for $8,500. I get on the bike. Nice fit, I like the color of the bike, but the leather tassels on the hand controls have got to go. The bike has 30,000 miles on it, but for the age of the bike it doesn't concern me. I look around some more and give him my number as we leave.

Two days later the Harley salesman calls me back to tell me he has sold the Dyna but that he has another bike in my price range. It is a 2000 Sportster 1200 Custom. When he tells me about the bike, I review the image I have of the bike in my head. I had seen the bike; nice bike and in good shape. They wanted $4,500 for it which meant I could save some money I had budgeted. It had a 1200 cc engine so it would have plenty of power for me. There was only a minor problem with the bike. It was purple. I do not consider myself a chauvinist by any stretch, but there was no way I was going to be seen on a purple motorcycle. Especially when the windscreen on the bike had rose-shaped decals adorning the corners. I'm sorry, but the bike just screams "I'm a girl's bike!" I tell the salesman I will come by later to look at it. When I arrive at the dealership, I head over to the line of used bikes. There at the end is the purple Sporty. I cringe when I see the color, so I ask the salesman how much would it be to have the bike painted. He runs in to talk to the Service Manager to find out. As I'm waiting, I see another Sportster sitting next to the purple one. It is red with aftermarket exhaust pipes, leather saddlebags and dual front brakes. It doesn't look like a girl's bike at all. In fact, it looks pretty cool! I find my heart's beating a little faster at the thought of riding the bike. When the salesman returns, he tells me it would be $700 to repaint the bike. And, since they don't have a paint shop on site, it will have to be done by a 3rd party paint shop. Which means I will have to take off and put back on the tank and fenders myself.  I then ask him how much for the red Sporty. He tells me $6,000. I counter that I would rather spend the extra $700 at the dealership instead of giving it to the paint shop and buy the red Sporty for $5,200. He goes to check with the Sales Manager for approval. He returns with the counter-offer of $5,400. Sold. That is how I ended up owning a Harley. Not because I wanted to be an outlaw biker or go on crazy poker runs or live some adolescent "Sons of Anarchy" fantasy. I bought a Harley because it happened to be the make of bike I wanted to buy.

My Decent (Part One)

I must admit that I went into riding with truly innocent reasons. My first and foremost thought in getting a motorcycle was to have a cheap form of transportation. I also wanted to get back to riding motorcycles after a 20-plus year hiatus. As I considered how much I could spend on a bike (not much) and what kind of bike I wanted to ride (no crotch rockets, please) I never truly considered owning a Harley. Perhaps it was cost. A good illustration of this is an encounter I had in a local motorcycle shop. In the early part of my bike hunting expedition, I would drag my family with me all over the valley, looking in every motorcycle sales floor I could find. I was getting re-acquainted with the motorcycle market and what it had to offer. I was partial to Hondas, as the previous bike I owned was a 1984 Honda Sabre. It as a bit of a cold-blooded bike, but once she warmed up, it was fun to ride. In this particular dealership, there were several used bikes I looked at. The one that caught my eye was a 2004 Honda VTX 1800. This bike was a beast of a bike: huge 1800cc liquid-cooled engine, smoke silver paint and chrome for miles. It only had 5,500 miles and the dealer was asking $7,000 for it. Next to the Honda was a 2007 Harley Sportster. It was at the opposite end of the beefy scale to the Honda it sat next to. The sporty only had a 883cc engine. It was short and light and it looked anemic next to the metric brute. I think it only had a thousand miles on it and it showed. It looked like it had never been ridden. The price tag? $8,995. I didn't even get on the thing. I simply smirked at the outrageous price tag and continued to drool over the Honda. To me that experience summed up my feeling about Harleys: you are overpaying for the name. Why would I buy an underpowered, under-featured bike when for less money I can have a badass bike with tons of bling?

Flash forward to today, where my 2004 Sportster sits waiting and its all I can do from playing hooky to go on a ride on it.

What happened between the Honda wanderlust to now? Why does my closet look like the men's section of the Harley-Davidson Motor clothes catalog? I would hate to think that I was somehow sucked into the marketing genius that Harley-Davidson has crafted though many years. It rivals the brand prowess of Apple. The ability to create a brand that is so appealing that people will pay good money for your product based on brand strength alone is a marketer's wet dream. But I don't think I am that sheepish. I think my ascent (descent?) into the Harley world has more to do with how the products are intertwined with the culture of the people who use them...