Fast Motorcycle Industry News

American Flat Track Racing. Battle Of The 2 Sponsors. Harley-Davidson And Indian. Harley-Davidson® Motor Company is the Official Motorcycle of AFT Twins as part of an expanded, multi-year partnership renewal. Harley is the entitlement sponsor for eight rounds on the calendar. Indian Motorcycle will sponsor six American Flat Track events. Both companies will be integral partners one the one-hour, tape delayed NBC Sport broadcasts. All AFT events are also streamed live on FansChoice.tv.

Florida Has The Most Motorcycle Fatalities In The USA. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration motorcycle fatalities in Florida rose 30% between 2014 and 2015. Motorcyclists accounted for 20% of motor vehicle fatalities in the state, yet motorcycles only account for 3% of registered vehicles. In 2015, 606 people died and 9,045 were injured in motorcycle crashes on Florida roads. Watch out during this Daytona Bike Week.

Ducati Unveils Financing Program Looking Like Leasing For 2017 Model Motorcycles. The program for American consumers, which launched March 1, applies to all 2017 Ducati models through Ducati Premier Financing. “This is just one more tool Ducati is using to position our motorcycles to be] more accessible to a broader array of riders,” Jason Chinnock, Ducati North America’s Chief Executive, said. The financing looks like a leasing option with the owners having the option to sell the motorcycle privately, trade for a newer model, or pay it off. There are no wear-and-tear or mileage restrictions, and consumers can opt for a shorter trading cycle if they would like to trade-in for a newer model. Accessories can also be added. This financing option was used last year by Harley-Davidson offering for $7 a day a brand new Dark Custom Harley-Davidson Roadster model.

15 Responses to “Fast Motorcycle Industry News”


  1. 1 BobS Mar 10th, 2017 at 9:19 am

    I’d be interested in how many of those FL fatalities involved rear end collisions that can be prevented with legal lane splitting.

  2. 2 blu dog Mar 10th, 2017 at 12:04 pm

    Lane splitting wouldn’t do anything for most of the drivers trying to cause my death. Prevention of the use of hand-held electronics while driving, however, would.

  3. 3 BobS Mar 10th, 2017 at 12:32 pm

    Agree completely on hands free driving, but legal lane splitting absolutely would protect me from that when it comes to being rear ended.

  4. 4 Zundap Mar 10th, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    How many are DUI, REAR ENDS at stop lights, and LANE INCURSIONS by on coming traffic using electronics while driving?

  5. 5 Tom Ryan Mar 10th, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    What about all of these inexperienced sportbike riders etc. who are losing control popping wheelies and practicing their riding tricks on the streets and highways?

  6. 6 Chris Mar 10th, 2017 at 3:36 pm

    I’ve driven in just about every state in the country and find the driving habits of the typical central Floridian to be outrageous in a general sense. It’s not so much that folks are going fast, I typically am too, but it’s that there seems to be a very “me first” attitude that, while not confined to Florida, seems to be much worse than elsewhere.

    I thought that nobody used turned signals in Florida just because it was passe and uncool. It turns out that in Florida, a turn signal is a signal to the driver behind you to slam on the gas and prevent you from changing lanes, lest your motorcycle being in front of them insult their manhood or some such thing.

  7. 7 Knucklehead Mar 10th, 2017 at 10:01 pm

    It’s already been proven……helmets. Yes rear end….. texting….. drunks and a host of others. But #1 is you need to wear a helmet. I once bounced a biker bar I too had a love of bare knuckle fighting and when someone hit me good in the head it would at times take daze to re-cover. A fist and the body behind it are forgiving. A curb…the concrete…a mailbox…are NOT forgiving. I’ve lost too many friends that I believe would still be here had they been wearing a helmet.

  8. 8 Pat h Mar 10th, 2017 at 10:45 pm

    That’s a real uneducated simple explanation just like saying more people in chicago wouldn’t be dead if they were wearing bullet proof vests or outlawing cars because they contribute to drunk driving

  9. 9 Brad Ervin Mar 11th, 2017 at 7:00 am

    There were two motorcyclists killed in Omaha in high profile accidents. One was a kid riding a fast bike on an empty road late at night. A great time to wind it out, which he did. A lady turned left not realizing the one headlight was a bike and not expecting him to be doing in excess of 80 on a road posted at 45. The bike hit the car in the back door killing the rider and also killing the small boy in the car seat. The other accident was someone that launched himself off an elevated highway. They say, at one point, he was over a hundred feet in the air. He landed just short of a popular restaurant. For him, it did not end well. Both riders were helmeted.

    A helmet will help if you come off the bike but statisticians jump the shark when they say helmets are 37% effective and so would save 37% of accident victims. The primary advantage of seatbelts is that they keep you from being ejected from the car. The primary danger of a motorcycle is that you will ALWAYS be ejected from the bike. I don’t know how you turn a 60mph slide down the asphalt into a good day.

    Also, the Florida stats point out that over 41% of the accidents involves alcohol (I presume by the rider). If you could reduce your chance of an accident by 41% by not drinking, would you? The stats did not address distracted cage drivers but banning their use is pointless without an enforcement regimen. I don’t know, make a car a faraday cage?

  10. 10 JohnnySpeed Mar 11th, 2017 at 8:47 am

    Brad Ervin – It’s simple. People who don’t wear helmets or wear novelty helmets are stupid. You didn’t bother to account for the many situations where a helmet will be helpful, you just cherry picked two extreme examples where it wouldn’t necessarily be helpful. Insurance doesn’t always help me either, but I’m glad to have it in case I ever need it.

  11. 11 blu dog Mar 11th, 2017 at 10:31 am

    It’s funny because, as all these observant posts indicate, you can’t legislate the use of common sense but, if everybody used it more often, we wouldn’t need many laws at all.

  12. 12 Brad Ervin Mar 11th, 2017 at 11:22 am

    There is no cherry picking as all accidents are unique. People who wear helmets, good helmets, are killed everyday. What I object to are 1.) the inference that all you need to do is put on a helmet and you are safe. and 2.) that because a statistic can be generated we all must bow to our superiors and do what they say. If you want to wear a helmet then please do so but don’t think that your decision places you on a pedestal that allows you to judge others for whatever decisions they may make.

    Safety begins with the concepts you hold that drive how you act. Nearly 50% of motorcycle accidents are single vehicle accidents. We, motorcyclists, could do a lot to alleviate our own accident problem with how we operate our machines and how we train ourselves. But it’s easier to mandate helmets and I think there are a lot of people that just want to control the actions of others.

  13. 13 Brad Ervin Mar 11th, 2017 at 11:34 am

    It was a great day to be on a cycle. The year was about 1973 and I was on my Ironhead motoring down an inner-city interstate that I’d been down a million times before and the sign announcing the ending of the lane to my left was old news. The bike was running great and the concrete wall reverberated the multifarious Ironhead sounds back (why have a radio when you ride a symphony). Something changed. I looked back/ left and there was the fender of a Caddy so close I could have laid the palm of my hand on it. The old lady that was going to murder me was hunched over the wheel like a hell-bent demon. Because the Ironhead is a superbike I was able to twist the grip and zoom away. That ol-lady was going to have to find other prey, maybe someone wearing a helmet, one that blocked their hearing. I’d rather be helmetless and live than die with an unscarred face.

    Safety begins with how you ride not what you wear.

  14. 14 BobS Mar 11th, 2017 at 2:50 pm

    Not wearing a helmet is stupid but we’ll never be able to measure the degree to just how stupid going without is because so many pirates wear worthless plastic beanies because they’re too concerned about what others will think. I mean they want something that looks “badass”. Not much we can do about that. Besides, we do have a right to be stupid and it is enjoyable from time to time. But we can do something about my original point. How many times have you taken an exit ramp off the freeway and come to a stop behind several cars waiting on a red light, and you sit there completely vulnerable watching your mirror hoping the driver coming up your rear isn’t texting? Let me legally move over and advance to the front and I know for a fact I’m not getting rear ended there. As the article said, 606 fatalities in one year. We can’t fix all of them but we can some of them so we should focus on that.

  15. 15 takehikes Mar 14th, 2017 at 5:43 pm

    Florida explains it all.

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Cyril Huze