For the past eight or ten years, many have written about how the motorcycle industry is dying off in the US. The main premise They have written about how older motorcycling generations are leaving the fold and not being replenished by younger riders.
Here are a sprinkling of these articles:
- No easy ride: Motorcycle industry is in deep trouble and needs help fast, panel agrees
- Millennials are killing motorcycles, but subscriptions might rev sales
- Can Millennials Save the Motorcycle Industry?
At issue is the fact that young people born after 1990 have grown up staring at screens, experiencing life vicariously through their phones and driven around by their parents and uber. They are not interested in driving at all, much less getting on a motorcycle.
Graphs of new motorcycle purchases show how number have been climbing since 1990. Things took a big hit during the recession and have been gradually climbing since. It is easy to look at Harley-Davidson’s dwindling profits (read: they are still making money) and feel like the industry is going to disappear.
And yet, the Motorcycle Industry Council released their survey numbers from 2018 and household bike ownership is up 15% since 2014(the last time they did a survey). A little over 8% of households have a motorcycle – they highest numbers recorded in the past decades of polling.
Comparatively, boat ownership is about 10% and boat registration numbers look very similar to motorcycle sales when graphed since 1990. (Side note: Millennials aren’t buying boats either)
The new digital adolescence combined with inadvertent over-protectionism parenting strategies delay real-life experience.
I predict a steady climb in the rate at which 30+ year-olds adopt motorcycling. The new digital adolescence combined with inadvertent over-protectionism parenting strategies delay real-life experience. Young people are graduating from high school and college without having been given the chance to take risks, act in anyway reckless, do anything that exposes them to failure or unwanted social pressure.
These are things that everyone has a desire to do at some point. It’s not so much that generations y and z are being denied (or denying themselves) experiences, but delaying them. The way younger people are getting their licenses (or rather not getting their licenses) is a prime example of a delay that has translated to a delay in motorcycle ownership.
Younger generations believe that they can achieve what their parents thought of as “freedom” or “rebellion” virtually on their phone. It is only as they get older that they seek more real world adventure. In 10 years I expect to look back at how the 30-49 bracket seemingly exploded as a percent of motorcycle ownership.
