(12-05-2016, 11:38 AM)Capo_imp Wrote: Buell is no longer involved with Hero, they're the ones who pulled the financing and sent EBR into bankruptcy. They're coming back on their own.
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I will be watching with interest.
If I were to come into the motorcycling market with any hope of long-term success, I would start at the bottom, as Hero appears to be doing.
I would not under any circumstances start at the top with a superbike.
From a business perspective that assures failure. "Norton" seems to be using that tactic, propped up by government funds. EBR used that tactic, propped up by money from Hero.
Now we'll see if the folks who are attempting to revive EBR will go about it in a more sensible way.
There is no possiblity at all in this world that a small firm like EBR or Norton can conceivably compete with Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, or BMW when it comes to supers. Kawasaki has just tucked away three WSBK titles. Honda and Yamaha own MotoGP, with Suzuki now very much in contention. All those decades of experience should not be underestimated.
Even though Ducati is still a player in superbikes and MotoGP, they have yet to sort out their MotoGP machine, and they don't even try to make a bike that's competitive in WSBK; their open-class bikes are street candy, for a price.
In MotoGP, even Ducati, with all its funding and background, has had serious chassis issues the last several years. The most recent chassis, while capable of winning on certain tracks under certain conditions, is not competitive with Yamaha or Honda. They have an issue with cornering stability and understeer, [url=http://www.sportrider.com/motogp-so-what-does-lorenzo-really-think-about-ducati-after-his-first-ride#page-6]as Sport Rider explains, quoting Lorenzo from the most recent post-season test:
Lorenzo experienced Ducati’s known cornering problems. Despite some improvement in this area, this was an issue Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone still complained about the entire season. After trying to improve his lap time with specific settings, Lorenzo finally stopped and told Ducati racing boss Gigi Dall’Igna, “No Gigi, with this bike there is no way to lap here in 1:29…”
At the superbike level, handling and performance, as well as racing pedigree and credibility are everything, even for the street rider. There is no way for an upstart company to compete on that level. It leads to business failure. Hero is doing it right. EBR and Norton are doing it wrong, but as Steve Miller has said, "Go on, take the money and run."
(12-05-2016, 03:08 PM)Flynrider_imp Wrote: I hope they've got a really good Market Research department. They make a lot of cool small bikes for the Asian markets, but not much that would interest the typical American buyer.
Since their split from Honda, they're on their own as far as technology and breaking into new markets. Could go either way.
The typical American buyer has changed dramatically in the last decade. Sub-500cc motorcycles are flying out of the dealerships from every major marque. New bikes in the category are introduced yearly. We now have BMW's first 300cc motorcycle, which promises to be a superb machine. All four Japanese makers have multiple offerings in this class, with sport, naked, and adventure bikes (KLR300 looks very promising).
As Capo has lamented, Honda has many bikes gathering dust in the corners of shops across the country; the CB1100 is perhaps foremost among these white elephants, with the VFR800 and CTX keeping it company. There is a class of buyer now who is smart, wants to ride, and is not interested in what anyone thinks about his or her bike at the local roadhouse crowded with wizened geezers and road warriors. They are "the nicest people" to whom Honda wisely introduced to two wheels three generations ago. And they are back.
I can tell you with certainty that even though my Wolf Classic 150 is sub-15HP, it is a superb bike. The build quality and handling are first-rate, it holds its own very well in an urban setting, and is fun to ride and work on. It also gets more attention than my CB1100. And the dealer tells me they sell a "lot" of these bikes.
You double that displacement, making the bike truly useful for freeway or even two-up duty, you've got a real motorcycle.
I am definitely planning to purchase a 300-class bike next year, probably the BMW. That thing will own the twisties near my home; I've got about 15 miles of 30-50 mph stuff close at hand, been riding that same road for 25 years, and the Wolf Classic gets down it faster than any bike I've owned.
I can tell you the guy on the Versys 1000 who blasted past me at the stoplight probably signed up for Keith Codes' school and made an appointment with his service department to try to find out what was the matter with his motorcycle when he could not shake me.
I love that.
We also see hundreds of these smaller motorcycles which are becoming the favorites of hipsters and millenials, zipping along between cars and trucks on the freeway, prowling the urban jungle, and getting places where auto drivers, locked in their cages with a huge lease and insurance payment, cannot go.
I love to see this because when I sold bikes in the 1980's there were many kinds of bikes of all displacements available, so new riders didn't have to buy a 600 supersport as a first bike. Now we are back to that, and I am very sure both the [url=http://americanmotorcyclist.com]AMA and [url=http://www.mic.org/#/]MIC are quite happy about it. Not to mention the [url=http://www.motorpressguild.org]MPG.
