Words by Robin Bradley Pictures : Steve Piehl , James Simonelli and AIMExpo

Tallahassee , Florida (" the only city in Florida with rolling hills and famous canopy roads "), is to welcome Tallahassee Bike Fest - its first annual motorcycle rally on May 13-15 , 2022 . " This up-and-coming motorcycle rally will be featured in the downtown Tallahassee area dubbed Railroad Square Art District ." Founder Giavona " G " Williams says all riders and bike styles and brands are welcome and is targeting between 2,500-3,500 riders for the first year . www . tallybikefest . com

Sources : AMD , IDN , FT , Reuters , PSB , MPN , BDN , MCN , AP , Bloomberg , MSNW , Electrek , electricmotorcycles . news , RideApart . com , Motor1 . com , Cycle World , motorbikewriter . com

The Polaris Industries Board of Directors has approved a 2 % percent increase in the regular quarterly cash dividend , raising the payout to $ 0.64 per share . Effective with the 2022 first quarter dividend , this increase represents the 27th consecutive year of Polaris increasing its dividend . It will be payable on March 15 , 2022 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 1 , 2022 .

AMA Hall of Famer and leading offroad and motocross racer Preston Petty has died . His career spanned the 1950s through the early 1970s and he was the owner of Petty Plastics , a ground-breaking plastic motorcycle component business that changed the face of motorcycle racing . Petty passed away on January 16 . He was 81 .

The iconic BSA Gold Star name is back thanks to Indian conglomerate Mahindra . Having bought the brand in 2016 , at the end of 2020 it announced that it was to open a new production facility at Coventry in the English Midlands . In November last year it unveiled a new traditionally styled , Euro 5 compliant 45 hp , 652 cc watercooled ' naked ' single under the Gold Star name .

RideApart reports that Japanese domestic motorcycle sales hit a 23- year high in 2021 - with Honda , Suzuki and Yamaha reporting increased interest among young riders . JAMA data puts domestic Japanese shipments of 233,059 motorcycles ( 51 cc +) between January-November 2021 . That number is a 20.6 % uptick over the same period in 2020 , and the organization forecasts that the total 2021 shipments will increase to 235,755 when December is factored into the equation .

After two years of Zoom and Doom , the powersports industry finally got the chance to come face-to-face with itself again when AIMExpo opened its doors in Las Vegas in January . Leading the charge of the vendor brigade was Tucker Powersports , who had been waiting for an opportunity for event-based dealer engagement since its last Dealer Show at Fort Worth in January 2020 … In accepting the challenge to be Tucker Powersports ' CEO and president , 24- year Harley veteran Marc McAllister was committing himself to sip from what many believed to be a major poison chalice . That was in March 2020 , and he became the fifth executive to try to steer the Tucker business back towards the proverbial sunlit uplands in just five years since the abortive " merger " with MAG . At the time of his appointment , vendors widely welcomed the arrival of a powersports industry insider into what , at the time , had proven to be the hottest of industry hotseats . Someone who could hopefully combine the business dexterity that the Tucker balance sheet clearly needed with a sensitivity for the unique circadian rhythms of an industry that generally defies all logic to those who haven ' t served their time . Without the need to get up to speed decoding the often counterintuitive and irrational structures , habits and baggage of an industry that has , itself , been in deep transition , McAllister was able to hit the ground running . The fact that , just two years later , Tucker already has so many achievements and changes to look back on is

Marc McAllister , CEO & President of Tucker

Powersports