Is the classic sport-touring motorcycle doomed to extinction?

TPadden said:
Revisionist history, it was and is BMW not Honda or Yamaha that historically epitomized all day sport touring. ;)

The Honda ST line was way later than both R and K sport touring bikes. It can be argued that the ST was an answer to BMW's flopped 4 (flying brick) sport tourer, the K100RT/LT/RS line, which preceeded the ST by almost 10 years (1983-92).

Tom

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"What did Honda do? It decided to revamp the CBX into a sport-touring machine." 1981 from rider magazine... Al
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the Ferret said:
Guess that explains it. So sad for true motorcycle enthusiasts. :(
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I don't see much in the 6 years since the article was published, to refute it.

If anything, the USA has continued to prove the accuracy of the piece... while there are some new models announced, I think it's safe to say we won't see another motorcycle "boom" like when most of us were beginning to ride.

In fact, at that time I was too young to even be aware it was a boom time, because I wasn't yet riding in the 60s, so the 70s heyday was just normal.

Another reason to be glad I was born when I was and lived in these times. And reason to be sad for those young people who missed the lessons we all learned about (to some degree) freedom and self reliance.
 
One other thing that I didn't see mentioned. During the gas crisis of the late '70s the idea of riding a motorcycle that got 50mpg vs. a car looked like a smart alternative, especially for us southern Californians who could ride it year round with little chance of being caught in the rain. As the fuel economy of cars improved over the years, that advantage has mostly evaporated as well, various hybrids can get 50+ MPG these days.

Those of us who prefer to ride over driving anyway are becoming more rare every year.
 
Well, the guy has a point...riding can be uncomfortable, and it can be dangerous. You can't really do anything but ride while on a motorcycle, and it requires a lot of concentration, which those of us who love motorcycling are willing to deal with. For many the heat, the cold, the wind, the rain, the traffic, not being able to take a call, read a text, or drink an espresso are just too much to deal with, so motorcycles are not really an option for them. Too much isolation. The younger generation are just too used to comfort and convenience to bother with motorcycles.

Heck, they want to drive autonomous cars, so they don't have to do anything but be a passenger.
 
Donk said:
Part of the problem is the marketing folks consider us obsolete too.
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Yeah, but they should remember its us who pay the bills... ;)

My mother got into the personal computing craze when it was first starting. She would tell me she bought this or that application for her computer. I would ask her why she bought it. Well, because it'll do so much and the advertisement made it seem like I just had to have it. My response was usually along the lines of, "That's what they are paid to do. Make you think you need something, that you really don't."

I took a trip out to the coast yesterday. Pics will be forthcoming. I was thinking about this idea of classic sport touring bikes and thought that sport touring has evolved. The old is not obsolete, but the new has its own advantages too. My "adventure touring" bike isn't designed for off-road riding. But there's a lot of advantages in that seating position. I sit slightly leaned over, but not too much. Sort of like the three bears. On my F800GT that was on the sport side of sport-touring, I had bar risers. I don't need them on the F900XR. It's a bit higher, but I also get about 6.5 inches of suspension travel. On our lousy roads in Puget Sound, that's helpful. The windscreen and fairing move the air away from me, but aren't so large that they act like a barn door. And it is effortless to ride. After a full day, I'm not exhausted.

So in my mind, there's still a market for the old, and the new just has come up with new designs to do the same thing.

Chris
 
the Ferret said:
an up-to-date article just came across my google news

www.bloomberg.com

The Allure of the Motorcycle Is Stalling Out

US bike sales never recovered after the recession. To figure out why, a new citizen put an American tradition to the test.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com
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Aside from the danger, there is a litany of things you can do in a car that you can’t on a bike.

You can’t carry much luggage. You can’t go much more than 100 miles on a tank. You can’t adjust the air conditioning. An outside temperature shift of just a few degrees can make it too hot or too cold. Fog or rain make it miserable, not to mention even more dangerous. You can't scratch an itch, blow your nose, take off your sunglasses, browse music playlists, talk to a passenger, sip a drink, nibble a snack, dictate a text message to your phone, sing (your visor fogs up), or pull over and tilt your seat back for a power nap.


Road surfaces that car drivers breeze over without a second thought are bristling with hazards to a motorcyclist. Potholes, tar snakes, cracks, grooves, a lip between lanes where one has been repaved and the other has not — all these can wrest control from an unwary rider.
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Gosh...that's what is appealing for riding! It's not a negative. :D

One of the reasons I ride, is that it challenges me. I have to think. To plan for the conditions I'll be riding in. And put up with things like bugs sacrificing themselves and all their innards directly in front of my eyes. We don't have to kill the wooly mammoth for dinner any more. We just go down to the Super Safeway and dodge shopping carts. Motorcycling makes me feel alive...and I don't think he'll ever get it.

Chris
 
What I like about my St1100 is it's comfortable and no required maintenance on a trip ,other than gas. I won't even consider anything with a chain drive, after fixing cars for forty blanking years to beep if I want to think about fixing anything while on a bike trip. I think a lot has change since the Internet came along.
 
the Ferret said:
You can't really do anything but ride while on a motorcycle, and it requires a lot of concentration
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A primary reason I prefer to ride, year round when the roads aren't white. I like to think that this has helped a lot with the process of getting older. And if something bad should happen, I don't want to get real old anyway!
 
Daboo said:
Yeah, but they should remember its us who pay the bills... ;)
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not really, if we truly paid the bills then they'd still be offering the bikes we want to ride. We're a minority of the market that can be largely ignored without sacrificing profits, or possibly ignored while raising profits. The bikes we like don't generate enough profits, or maybe even incur losses, and that's why they're no longer offering them.
 
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