You have only yourselves to blame! The police wouldn’t have to hide doing all the things they shouldn’t be doing if you didn’t insist that they didn’t do them!

I feel for any modern publicly traded company a general DEI program is nearly a requirement and just simple good HR practice. Polaris, Indian’s parent company, BMW and the Japanese Bike company have DEI progams just as they have safety or quality control programs.

“Lynch reportedly decided to go on a Mediterranean vacation to celebrate being found not guilty on all counts in his recent fraud trial.”

Only in the sense that they’ve deliberately cultivated a customer base of Confederate flag-waving Boomers with a leather clothing fetish. A customer base that is already rapidly aging out of bike ridership. Doubling down on the “anti-woke” stuff will get them a few more years of loyalty from that rapidly shrinking…

HD has been on life support for years because their core customer base has been shrinking for decades. This will just accelerate the decline. They’ve failed in growing beyond their traditional market, and when that’s gone, HD will go with it. 

So, this whole “Harley-Davidson is woke” thing happened because Harley realized it needed to bring more people into the brand. Harley’s typical customers are getting too old to ride. It’s bad for business if your customer base is shrinking with every year.

I typed a similar comment and then deleted it. HD is in the business of making money, that’s it. They’re no different than any other major brand.  HD doesn’t care about DEI any more than Bud Light did.  They care about money.  That’s it.  Money.

20 years ago, if you asked me to picture a Harley rider I would have pictured someone in their 40s. Today, if you asked me to do the same I would picture someone in their 60s. I strongly suspect the sales demographics backs up that aging trend. They are appealing to a smaller and smaller base of ever more fanatical…

They’re old, fat, antiquated, and afraid of the future. The bikes are just like a typical Harley owner, + expensive.

The irony is that anyone that really wanted a HD was going to but a HD anyway, regardless of whether the kid behind the parts counter had green hair and might be, you know, a little different. But now HD has slammed the door shut to any other more progressive types that *might* have ventured into their showrooms at…

It’s weird to deliberately hitch your wagon to a dying species.  

I mean even if it was DEI, would you really want to work for them?

Not sure if I dislike the dimwits that pushed them for this or the spineless twits that capitulated to the dimwits more. I’d say HD lost a customer but their image already held zero appeal.

“...you’d just wish they had given the story a second look-over.”

I think you meant to say “... given the store a second look-over.”

We definitely are in need of new solutions for fighting these kinds of fires. Although this is not quite so nasty as chlorine trifluoride, this reminds me of the title of Derek Lowe’s fantastic piece on that chemical, “Sand Won’t Save You This Time”:

I’m genuinely curious if these trucks should carry a “hazardous materials” marker at all times, due to the battery packs, forcing them to take “hazardous materials” driving routes at all times. Normally, any truck carrying this kind of load, that can catch on fire like this, be impossible to put out, burn this hot,…

The Bayesian sinks, killing one defendant; and the other is killed by a car collision. What are the odds of that?

Haha. I was thinking of exactly that rock when I read the first comment.

If this premium is truly unjustifiable, then wouldn’t its existence imply a price-fixing cartel?