motorcycles, technology, music, business

I am a member of the Boston Sport Bike Meetup.com Group. I have only been able to go on two rides so far but they have both been fun.

I have been “planning” on doing a New Hampshire trip on my own this summer. I even have the route all mapped out and loaded in my GPS. But I wasn’t getting out the door. I was unsure of whether to do it in one day or two and I wasn’t sure how much money it would cost and so on. It would have also been my longest ride to date and I may have been intimidated by the miles in my route.

One day I see a scheduled meetup to do a slightly shorter version of my planned trip. I decided that since I wasn’t able to motivate myself to go on my own, I would make myself go on this ride.

We met in the morning, north of the city. It took a bit of getting used to for me to adjust my timing to allow for many riders, up to 15 at one point. I normally ride solo, and as we all know traveling in groups can be a bit of a hurry up and wait situation. There was a bit more futzing around than I would have liked and lunch was much longer than I would have liked but I enjoyed riding with the group and therefore the slight inconveniences were worth it.

I used my Garmin 60CSx to map my route. At Lincoln, NH several of us decided to head home while the rest continued on a bit more.

My Route:

View Larger Map

For a graphic showing the approximate speed and elevation of the ride go to me Garmin Connect activity page.

The Kancamagus is a lot of fun. It is almost as good as so many roads in Northern California. If it weren’t for the cars it would be a fantastic road. I put together a shorter video of some of the twisties. Recorded using a U-bolt camera mount and a Flip Mino. The bike you see most of is Tim’s Ducati 848. I, of course, am on my 2006 Yamaha FZ1.

I hope to get up there on another ride this summer. Hopefully following the route I have mapped out. I would be more than happy to do a smaller group ride of maybe 4 to 6 people. It seams that the best size for motorcycle trips is also the best size for project teams.

Thanks for reading and happy riding.

I’ve been thinking about why Harley-Davidson had a significant negative Net Income for the year of 2009. My thinking led me to look at the number of models that H-D has. They seem to have very few engines and very many models per engine. This seemed like a slow moving and high cost product strategy.

From that initial idea I decided to look at the number of models offered by the various motorcycle brands. Since H-D is a cruiser only company I tried to break up the motorcycle market into ‘cruiser’ and non-cruiser or ‘sport’. I took the number of families the company groups its bikes into, plus the number of different engines it offers, plus the total number of models it touts. The families are the least important of the three, since families are largely a marketing decision and therefore slightly arbitrary.

What I was left with was a general idea of product complexity per brand.

As I expected H-D is the most complex of the cruiser brands, yet I was surprised to see Star so close behind. The problem with the complexity of H-D products is the narrow band of its appeal. Star is very complex as well, however, Yamaha Motors, Star’s parent company, is a much more diversified company than H-D, especially after the closing of Buell. If large displacement cruisers fall out of favor, as they did in 2009, H-D is really far up the creek without a paddle and with a hole in their boat.
Victory, H-D’s main competitor, is much more focused in it’s product offering. Indian is a competitor but not a strong one due to their market position, however, we can see their ultra-focused product line: One family, one engine, seven models.

Complexity in the ‘sport’ market, as it is here defined, is less troublesome since it includes many different riding styles and applications. As I have defined it, the ‘sport’ market includes any two wheeled vehicle that is not a cruiser/retro style bike. This includes, super-sport, sport, touring, motocross, scooters, and so on. Since there are many sub-markets to the sport market risk is spread out over many different types of consumers.

I started this idea thinking about H-D, so that is how I will end it as well. H-D is introducing too many models that are very similar. I suggest cutting out several models. For example the Nightster and the Forty-Eight are so similar, why not have a base model of something similar to the NIghtster then having customers opt in to having it modified to the Forty-Eight.

Since, in general, H-D owners are so quick to customize their rides, the strategy I am explaining is a hybrid of what already takes place. Currently, consumers purchase an H-D then use after market parts to make it “their own”. This strategy would be similar only there would be fewer base models to choose from initially, yet with a few changes of parts, performed locally at the dealer, the consumer can have the base model modified to one of several base+ models.

This won’t be an easy transition for the company nor for the public, however, with such a high level of complexity H-D stand to have drastic lows like it did in 2009. By example, producing a Nightster plus some Forty-Eight parts, tank, mirror…., is a lot cheaper than producing and stocking inventory of both the Nightster and the Forty-Eight.

I wish Harley-Davidson then best of luck in coming years. With proper leadership the company should be fine.

Thanks for reading and happy riding.

While trapped inside for so many hours my mind can’t help but wander to open roads on powerful two wheeled machines. What would any motorcycle enthusiast do but dream about what his next bike is going to be and rank them in order of preference. I took a more realistic approach at least and also considered the cost of ownership.
If I had my druthers, my bike of choice would be a hybrid of two bikes which may or may not be possible to build, and even if it is, it may prove to be cost prohibitive. It would be a Harley Nightster with the front end and rear swing arm of the XR1200. Here is a rough photoshopping of my idea. I didn’t bother to make the wheels match.
The reason for this is that I really like the look and feel of the nightster but I want more up to date components like suspension, brakes, and electronics. The cost of this would probably be a nightster with several thousand in parts and tools or labor depending on whether I did the work or not.

Now on to bikes that actually exist and there order. I first made a spreadsheet of the bikes in question.
I then considered the styling and potential ride characteristics of each bike and how they fit my current riding preferences and needs.
1st Place:
The first bike is still the Harley-Davidson Nightster, even without major alterations. This bike wins for several reason. The first is that it is a Harley and I really like the look and feel of the sportsters. For the most part I like to use my bike for fun commutes to and from places. I prefer to take back roads and take in the scenery. The sportsters do this well and they accelerate relatively quickly. I do not need to go 150mph or even 100mph. As for cost of ownership, sportsters with their belt drive and 50mpg fuel economy are relatively cheap to maintain. The downsides are behind the times technologies and weight. The nightster is the lightest sportster but still weighs 100lbs more than the non-harley bikes on my spreadsheet. Low horsepower is also a down side but this can be partially remedied through add-ons and upgrades.
2nd Place:
The second bike is the Yamaha FZ1. This is because it has so much horsepower (150) and is cheaper (retail) than the nightster. This bike also offers a relatively comfortable ride. The down sides are the styling and the fuel economy of 35 mpg. The styling is much better on the European version. Also, I don’t need to go 172mph which is the top speed for this bike. I want to get from zero to 45 really quickly and then maintain that speed comfortably.
3rd Place:
The third bike might be a tie between the Triumph Speed Triple and the BMW R1200R. I am not really crazy about the styling of either and both have similar power ratings. They both have similar to the yamaha fuel economy and would be similar to each other in terms of maintenance since parts would need to be imported and dealerships get more spread out than Harley and/or Yamaha dealers. I am however partial to Triumphs since I learned to ride on a 1974 Triumph Trident (never mind the neighbor’s tomato plants in the background). BMW is always a front runner in new technology which is why I am drawn to their bikes.
Honorable Mention:
The new Ducati Monster 1100 is a beast (aided by its absurdly light 370lbs of dry weight)  but is also a beast to maintain. The KTM Super Duke looks to be a downright blast but is too exotic and would require imports for every fix and dealers are ever so scarce. It is also the most expensive of the lot. Finally the Harley-Davidson XR1200. I like it but not enough to make me want to buy the whole bike. I just want the front suspension, brakes, electronics, and rear swing arm (which is stiffer and lighter than the stock) on my Nightster which would have a stage one upgrade to increase the power rating to something more respectable.

Please suggest any other bikes I may have left out, however please note that I will not consider Kawasaki or Suzuki bikes for reasons of personal experience, taste, and opinions. Honda doesn’t sell any standard motorcycles in the USA. They have plenty in Europe, even though their styling is uninspired. I have also been warned by many to steer clear of Buell.