Mosshead

motorcycle shopping Take 1:
Triumph Doesn’t Want Girls

Nearly everyone in the motorcycle course had new boots yesterday. We got to ride a little in the morning, got excellent pointers from the instructors then we took the written exam. Afterwards, A and I went window shopping at the various dealerships.

When I was about 6 years old a 60’s-era Triumph Bonneville entered my radius of consciousness and it factored into childhood fantasies of adulthood for years to come. When I went to London the first time in the 80’s, the Triumph dealership was one of many destinations I never found. Suffice it to say that a Triumph has been a top choice for a long time. When a dealership opened in Olympia a few years ago, I was pretty excited and visited it every few months to sit on bikes, while making silent “vrooom!” noises and to chat with the dealers.

Trouble is, with seat height at minimum 28.3 inches Triumph doesn’t really make a bike for us short legged types. The Bonneville seems farther off the ground than my xs650 was and as nostalgic as they are, those banana seats do eventually cut off the blood flow to your legs if you’re going farther than across town. The Bonneville cafe racer is just that - it was never meant for cruising or touring. So, over the past year I’ve been looking at Triumph’s cruiser - the America/Speedmaster models. Problem is the pegs are located too far up and I can barely reach them. There are no kits for moving them closer.

I guess that Triumph hasn’t really identified women and people under 5′10 as their target demographic (duh!). The seats are too high off the ground, the center of gravity is all wrong for short people, I’d have to spend an additional $1k+ to customize it, and finally their advertising tells all. There isn’t a single woman riding a bike in any of their advertising, and actually I find their advertising to be quite stale.

I’m undergoing a consumer grieving stage. Oh well, I guess we all have to let go of those fantasies at some point. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I will probably not grow any taller to fit the Brit bike image.

Comparison Shopping

We later went to the Yamaha and Honda dealerships. They always leave me so flat and I always catch myself mid-litany saying the same thing … “maybe I’ll get one of these cheap bikes used until I can afford the real bike I want”. Most of the stock is quad-runners and the cruisers are fine, they’re just boring and I don’t like it that mid-size cc Yamaha and Honda cruisers are unnecessarily big. New, they don’t cost much less than an entry level Triumph or Harley. The people working at Yamaha always seem kind of depressed and the guys at the Honda place seem more interested in their 4-wheelers. Dealers at both places pretty much ignore people browsing on the floor. I can walk in, sit on every bike, flutter my eyelashes and make “I’ve-got-cash” noises and they won’t bat an eyelash at me. They must not make much commission. Or maybe the fluttering eyelashes scare them off. Hard to say.
So, for the heck of it, our next stop was Harley Davidson. What a different environment from the other dealers! I can see why Harley is experiencing a bit of a boom in sales.
At Harley, you walk into a large showroom that feels clean and looks neat and tidy. A large desk is placed at the entrance so you can’t really get in the door without at least making eye contact with someone. We walked in, the saleswoman/greeter asked us what we were looking for (boots and gloves) then called ahead to the appropriate floor person and told them what we were looking for. By the time we’d climbed the stairs the floor person had some suggestions ready for us. Impressive.

The Triumph dealership has a few older guys who are very nice but not terribly informative. Part of the shopping experience is also eduational. If we’re going to plunk down over $20k for something, it’s not going to be an entirely gut-based purchase. I want to know why I’m plunking down that much money. That’s a necessary piece of the purchase justification.

I’ve not been very interested in Harleys. They’re so noisy, so branded, such a cliche. When I’ve looked at them in the past I’d get that dirty feeling I get when I see someone shopping for a personality to try on. But here’s the thing. Harley makes bikes that evenn short women like me can find a comfortable center of gravity on.

We walked into the Harley showroom and were greeted by …. 4 women who knew their stuff and all made comments about how psyched they were to see more women coming into the showroom (well, ok, they said “chicks” and would never actually say “psyched”, but I knew what they meant.) Aside from the CRM[1] what’s most impressive is that the center of gravity on a Harley is so well balanced that we were both easily able to find a model that fit us. So, not only did we find bikes that we liked but we left with warm fuzzies and new boots and gloves.

Shopping Tips I picked up:

1. Viewing in clean environment. Cleanliness was part of our walk away warm fuzzy at the Harley dealership. Any bike is going to look better if it’s on regularly cleaned linoleum but most importantly the air needs to be comfortably breathable if we’re going to take our time examining a bike. The other showrooms we visited had dirty carpet (!) and dirty air that was a distraction while viewing the bike. We hurried to get out into fresh air. So, if we find that we’re seriously contemplating a bike that’s in a dirty environment, we’ll ask to examine it somewhere outside or in a garage with cleaner air so that we’re comfortable while examining it.
2. We will likely use the service department at a dealership. We want them to be honest, enthusiastic about the bike, informative and friendly in that order. Total apathy about the bikes doesn’t help my confidence levels.

To do

1. Learn about muffling Harley noise.
2. Learn more about rental programs. This would be a great way to evaluate bikes while getting a trip out of it too.
3. vintage vs. new
4. Find and visit other dealerships in Tacoma/Seattle and Portland
5. Identify engineering requirements
6. Find a store with riding gear to try on

Add comment September 18th, 2005

moto shopping

We picked up a ‘74 Honda cb360 at a garage sale so we’re taking a motorcycle safety course this weekend. I haven’t ridden a motorcycle in over 10 years and I’ve been lusting after a new bike, especially ever since Triumph came back to town. So maybe it’s time.

My last bike was a ‘79 Yamaha 650 special. It was a Bonneville clone that was a smoother ride than the Bonneville and after I hacked the seat, it was easy to manage (I had to cut the seat down so my feet could easily reach the ground at stop signs … ). Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t own a camera and now I don’t have any good pictures. But it looked exactly like Phil Kovac’s here.

Of course, being a little hardheaded, I bought the bike and learned to ride by riding it home. Stupid. Actually I did a lot of stupid stuff on that bike. I had the absolute best luck any irresponsible 19 year old could ever have had and that bike never got a scratch! To make a long story short the bike was stolen and I haven’t had one since.

So … my current lust object is the Triumph Speedmaster - it’s pretty much the America but a little subtler with the engine blacked out. My only issue is that when I sat on the America at the dealership, the pegs were a bit of a stretch - they’ve been moved forward. So, I have to find out what it’ll take to move those closer to the seat.

Add comment September 18th, 2005