New riders seem to be foregoing the Brotherhood of bikers and waving less
I try to ride as much as possible, and one of the things I have always done is wave at fellow motorcyclists. Most of them wave back. Some of them so subtly that it’s hard to catch it, but they do return my wave.
However, I’ve noticed that one set of riders on one brand; who shall go nameless, but whose initials are Harley-Davidson, are waving back less and less. This has always been a trend over the years, but I have noticed it more and more lately.
I have also noticed lately that another set of riders on another brand are waving less and less, and that is those who ride BMWs.
It raised some questions in my mind: Why is this happening more often? Do they think they are better than us? Is it just me? Are they just shy?
I admire Harley-Davidson. I admire their marketing prowess in raising a brand up from where they were languishing as part of a large company that really didn’t understand what the brand was. I was selling H-D soon after Willie G. and Vaughn Beals took over, and H-D hasn’t looked back since then.
Despite their difficulties, they are doing well as a corporation, and I’m sure that they will survive for a long time to come.
BMW, as well, has come a long way in the last forty years, from underpowered weeping bikes to some of the best built machines in the world.
But back to the lack of comradery; and that’s what I look at the lack of waving as. Are these H-D riders refusing to wave at us because we ride foreign motorcycles? Or are they just afraid that my 150-hp V-twin is an affront to the genre? Do BMW riders have a better engineered bike than mine? I don’t think so.
The point to all of this is that we represent, in our entirety, three percent or so, of the population, and it seems to me that we should be more than happy to be one cohesive group, rather than a splintered group with no real voice or ability to lobby for any rights or legislation that would protect us when we are being treated poorly.
Yes, it’s a small thing, this waving, but as dealers, I believe that it’s our responsibility to encourage our customers to treat all riders as comrades. It is up to us to get them to realize that we are all in this together. How many of the riders who refuse to wave started out on small Japanese dirt bikes?
It is in our nature to want to be with our own kind. Instead of being Harley riders, or BMW riders, let’s be RIDERS. And let us, as dealers, show the way.
