I saw a Robin
With a hawk in hot pursuit
Flying for its life.
I saw a Coyote
Running through the neighborhood
My cat in it's mouth.
Now this pandemic
Has us hutched up in our dens
Nothing you can shoot.
Death is all around
As we strive to stay alive
Wear that silly mask.
:-{)}
As vintage motorcycle enthusiasts, restorers, racers,
afficionados, hobbyists, whatever we want to call ourselves, we live in a
pleasant little bubble, largely concerned with the past. Our motorcycles were built in the past, and
any history of racing victories and legendary performance is pretty firmly in
the past as well. Newer technology has
caught up with us, and many of our favorite brands have disappeared, but we don’t
care.
We don’t care, much, that our collections have been and are
continuing for the most part to lose value at all levels, especially for the
oldest models with inadequate brakes and acceleration that confines them to
only the most occasional of outings, like the IOVTT. That’s all right with us.
It would seem that our enthusiasm is indifferent to world
economies and trade issues, and the connections we make flow around the
world. I bought a stack of factory
manuals from various British manufacturers one time at the ABATE swap meet,
about 18 of them, and it turned out that many of them were re-patriated back to
England (at a healthy markup), and I have bought bevel-drive Ducati valves from
a guy in Amsterdam when nobody in this country has them.
So when I read about the trade wars with China I tend to
brush it off as irrevelant, mostly. But
Ebay, the platform over which I have bought and sold for many years now, has
made it clear that such indifference is threatened.
It started with leather saddlebags. The Harley aftermarket business, conducted
largely on Ebay and other online venues, used to be wide and deep, with the low
end occupied by horse bags made in Pakistan and the high end populated by
manufacturers like Willie and Max, with prices up in the $300+ range. Now, you type in “Harley leather saddlebags”
in the search bar, and you get page after page of perfect Chinese made
knockoffs at ridiculously low prices. A
set of Heritage Softail bags with all the studs and conchos one would expect is
now $60. All the aftermarket
manufacturers are gone.
The Keihin CV carburetor, first introduced on Harley EVO
models in 1988 and becoming the standard carb for all models until fuel
injection took over in the mid ‘00s, used to be pretty valuable, with good used
ones around $125 and new ones over $300.
I just noticed that that market has been destroyed. You can now buy brand new Chinese made
knockoffs that are probably from the same source as the factory ones for $60,
with free shipping.
How about a nice new muffler for my Moto Guzzi Breva? I can choose between an Italian-made Mivv set
for $4-600 or a brand-new knockoff from China for $56.98. Which do you think will still be available
next year, and what does that say about the value of any inventory a small shop
might have accumulated?
The entire aftermarket business has severely contracted,
with one distributor after another being swallowed up by a fish with a bigger
mouth. One publication reported that in
2018, China produced 34.9% of a $7.1B worldwide market. I couldn’t get further details from them
without shelling out $4500, so they must have had a high opinion of their
facts, anyway.
It’s been going on for years. One list I found from 2014 says Tucker Rocky
merged with Motosport Aftermarket Group (MAG) that year. MAG also owns Vance & Hines, Kuryaken,
Progressive Suspension, Performance Machine, Mustang, Renthal, DragonFire and Roland
Sands Design. MAG also owns Motorcycle
Superstore and J&P Cycle. Surprise,
surprise, it turns out that an anonymous company titled LSI is the majority owner
of MAG and owns Tucker Rocky/ Biker’s Choice.
Can you see the octopus behind the curtain? Think any of the decision-makers at those
companies even ride motorcycles?
Anyone who has flipped through a J&P Cycles catalog
lately knows how thin they are getting, as the bean counters toss anything that
doesn’t sell fast enough, along with the idea of supporting restorers with
aftermarket parts. We’ve seen the same
thing in local Hardware stores, as McLendon’s, which was bought out a few years
ago, and has walked away from the idea that they should stock everything anyone
might possibly want ever, just in case.
Now, you walk in there and half the time you walk back out empty
handed. And people wonder why Amazon is
taking over retail.
What will save us is true unobtanium, the parts that were produced
in such small numbers that there is no aftermarket and will not be one as they
slip under the eyes of analysts looking for another market to destroy. The rarest pieces get to the point where
there is no sum of money that will pry them loose from the tight fists of the crotchety
old-timers who are sitting on them. I
remember selling a busted-up Matchless G80 racing engine to a guy one
time. I asked him what he was going to
do with it, and he said, “I actually don’t have a use for it at all, but there’s
a guy in Anchorage who has a transmission that I want, and he will trade it to
me for this engine.”
That’s how the future will go for vintage motorcycle
enthusiasts, in my opinion. The
important thing to me is that the piles we accumulate, some of which contain
truly precious things, at least in someone’s mind, must not be lost to the
indifferent whims of our heirs, who may or may not realize the value of
them. In my case, where the pile was
less valuable than the square footage it took to store it, and where I knew a
guy who was active in the business and had a good chance to put some of those
pieces back in service again, it was easy.
I dumped everything on him. But
for most of us, given how much time we have left, it is a good idea to think
about such things from time to time, and come up with a plan that will carry our
enthusiasms into the next generation.
That is where we find immortality.
:-{)}
