Or maybe to be more precise , congratulations to Harley-
Davidson ' s engineering teams and to ' corporate ' ( under Matt Levatich and Jochen Zeitz ) for giving its engineers the freedom and space to sit at the top table of contemporary motorcycle industry technology . No new platform is ever perfect , all design and engineering is a compromise , but the quantum leap needed to jump from Cruisers and Tourers ( even the M-8 iterations ) to the Pan America , genuinely is the kind of era starting initiative that isn ' t seen that often during even the longest of careers . Regular readers will know that while I have been optimistic and excited at the prospects of seeing Harley ' get it right ', I have also been pessimistic and fearful that they would not do so . I guess it has as much to do with the split identity my own career has , one that sees me focussed on my ' day job ' in the custom motorcycle industry , which is what I think of as ' home ', and my moonlighting in the ' mainstream ' ( metric ) motorcycle market in Europe . Through International Dealer News I am accustomed to reporting on all the other major ( and many not so major ) OEMs and on most of the ' other ' sectors of the international motorcycle industry - to a greater or lesser extent . The advent of and subsequent gradual growth of the ' Dual Sport ' market - or what is mostly thought of these days as being the Adventure Touring market , has been a long , gradual evolution rather than an immediate revolution . The first real ADV to appear from one of the ' majors ' and go on to sell in significant numbers was Honda ' s ' Africa Twin '. Initially it was born out of Honda ' s Paris-Dakar success as the XRV650 / RD-03 . Those first ' Africa Twin ' models were so closely based on their race bike design that they were produced by HRC - Honda Racing Corporation - rather than Honda Corporate . It made its debut in May 1988 . Within a year or two , Honda had upped its game in a market where the other principal players ( certainly in race terms ) were BMW , Cagiva and Yamaha , by upgrading to the four-time Paris-Dakar winning NXR750 derived volume produced XRV750 ( RD-04 ). From then on more than a decade of sales saw frame improvements and a steady increase in what we ' d think of these days as creature comforts , rather than race aids , as Honda and the other manufacturers in the sector gradually moved away from their race bike origins with their production offerings and focussed on improving and developing their bikes ' road-going characteristics . Honda ceased production of the ' Africa Twin ' in 2003 . At that stage , end-of-series was a relatively more commonplace response to the increasingly tight emissions regulations than it is now . In response to the clamour from enthusiasts and dealers , especially as BMW ADV sales surged , Honda brought the ' Africa Twin ' back in 2016 ( as the CRF1000L ) and has been updating it every 24 months ever since ( narrower frame , Venture Sport version etc ). The reason for using the history of Honda ' s place in the ADV market as a case study for Harley ' s entry into this space is to demonstrate just how gradual the process of evolution in the market has been , even for one of the majors , and how central race results have been . a bloody good start-point
The market that Harley is entering is very different now . BMW and Yamaha are still there ( the current Yamaha Ténéré 700 is pulling up trees in retail sales terms in Europe , and everyone knows about the GS of course ) but , as a brand , Cagiva is mostly ' resting ' at present . Instead , Triumph ( Tiger ), Ducati of all people with its ' Multistrada ', and KTM are the players eating away at the others . They are , effectively , growing the market by spreading the ADV gospel to their own brand-base . In doing so they are injecting capital into the sector and offering an ever-deepening arsenal of advanced tech in the cockpit , the engine , the chassis and the suspension . The ADV market is now mature , and contrary to the glamourous videos , is mostly to be found in urban , suburban and peri-urban environments . That ' s where some 80 percent of the miles get done . The ADV market is no longer one where simply being robust enough is good enough . It is one where rugged and durable build quality have to be matched by design and engineering sophistication - with advanced suspensions , chassis tech that is so way ahead of anything we were seeing just 20 years ago and , thanks to regulatory pressure , engine technology that is just ' out there ' compare to what we were seeing ten years ago . The future-facing progress that the ' mainstream ' OEM community has been driven to make in the past decade has been staggering - probably more even than was seen in the prior three decades . Hence my excitement being mixed with pessimism . The air the likes of BMW , Yamaha , Honda and , especially , Ducati all breathe is not the same that we have seen being allowed to fill the lungs of Harley ' s engineers in the same timescale . Despite the Rushmore touring chassis and the largely 80s / 90s tech M-8 , Harley ' s engineers have been held back in the past decade . Could they step up ? Would they be allowed to step up ? As individuals , of course they could , but in the past watching Harley corporate changing direction has been like watching an aircraft carrier trying to do a 180 in a swimming pool . So , my fear was that either they wouldn ' t be able to do it at all , or that if they did , by the time they were ready to go to market , their target would have moved . In contrast to Harley ' s historically glacial pace , European and Japanese ( and even Chinese and Indian ) manufacturers are lightning fast and responsive . There was potential for considerable brand damage - damage that might be generational in reputational terms . So , to coin a phrase - " and now breathe ." Stage One has been successfully navigated . The Pan America ( RA1250 / S ) is not just a good start-point , it is a bloody good start-point - for any manufacturer .
Robin Bradley Co-owner / Editor-in-Chief robin @ dealer-world . com
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