Are we witnessing the END of Motorcycling?

Every night I wake up in a cold sweat clutching my waifu pillow with memories of my recurring nightmares still lingering behind my eyes. Motorcycling is dying and there is nothing I can do to save it. I try to outrun the Grim Reaper but I can only find an electric bike, the range diminishes rapidly As I go deeper into the abyss, the road is littered with rusty carcasses of four-cylinder superbikes, the sounds of viral Tik challenges Tock echo through the air, I hear a voice telling the motorcycles how to R when the range reaches zero and I stop, I feel a cold, skeletal hand grab my shoulder and I know the end is imminent and I wake up half relieved and half afraid because Death has not yet arrived for

motorcycling

, but it is beginning to seem so.

Being in the not too distant future Today's video is sponsored by Rock Form, let's get into it in 1970. 800,000 motorcycles were sold in the United States in 2021. 550,000 motorcycles were sold for perspective. There are also 130 million more people living in the United States now than there were in 1970, so that fact alone shows pretty clear evidence that

motorcycling

is declining in popularity. There have been multiple booms for the industry in the past for various reasons immediately after World War II, returning soldiers were drawn to motorcycles to retain a sense of adventure in camaraderie after assimilating back into the normal life of motorcycling In the United States it was a way to channel the visc Al Adrenaline Rush that many missed after returning from active duty, they had a soft spot for Harley-Davidson, a brand that had become familiar with the operation of military models ordered abroad that began.

Riding clubs and the brash, tough-guy biker attitude became part of American pop culture and then, after Honda's cute campaign, motorcycling became even more prevalent as other rider demographics were introduced. In everyday sports, Americans could now ride motorcycles without having to assume identity. of leather-clad rebel outlaws The popularity of motorcycling continued to grow in the 1970s due to the oil crisis, where motorcycles served as a more economical and energy-efficient form of transportation as motorcycling grew in popularity, racing events officially sanctioned events, including dirt track racing and hair flips, grew. The sport became a greater form of recreation that would allow manufacturers to begin making more specialized and performance-oriented models.

Motorcycles got better faster and cheaper as the big four began to dominate. The market, combined with a low cost of living, a lot of disposable income, and an attraction to danger and risk. Motorcycling remained a prominent element in American culture. Recently, motorcycling peaked in popularity in 2006. In my opinion, interest in motorcycle racing was at an all-time high. There were several factory-supported teams at ama, which is unthinkable today. The 90s and 2000s were a hotbed of extreme activity, the X Games debuted and coincided with a new resurgence of extreme sports such as skap boarding and motocross. Motorcycling was regularly featured in big Hollywood blockbusters like Matrix Reloaded and even in music like Rage Against the Machine Limpus and Blank 182, although not directly related to motorcycles, it was aimed at a generation that was drawn to rebellion and nonconformity, which are similar characteristics to motorcycling, whether you want to believe it or not, there is no way around the fact that motorcycling is in itself an act of rebellion: by riding a motorcycle you are assuming a greater risk that requires more specialized training and equipment to achieve personal autonomy and an exciting visceral experience.

Motorcycling may no longer be seen as rebellious in the old-school hardcore biker way, but it is rebellious and the culture of the late '90s and early 2000s fostered that mentality. The cultural landscape combined with the ease of obtaining credit and a not-so-bleak view of the economic future led to more people going out and making financial decisions that for many younger people today would be seen as reckless, but at the time it was not I miss going out and buying a Super Sport with no down payment and a very lenient interest rate just because you wanted to and then with the financial crash of 2008, many younger Americans, whether they realized it or not at the time, were about to be screwed for the rest of their lives.

If you are a young person watching this video, there is a good chance that you are watching it on your cell phone and how are you? I'll still be watching YY noob if your phone falls out of your greasy Cheeto fingers and shatters into exactly one little million pieces, luckily for you, I have a solution in the form of a rock. The baby rock shape is the ideal choice for motorcyclists. Their phone cases are drop tested from 6ft so all the short kings in the crowd have nothing to worry about once they have the Rock Form case, it can be seamlessly attached to a Rock Form handlebar mount in just seconds and they can do all the Dank Caners they want and it won't work.

We're not going anywhere we've worked with Rock for a long time here on the channel and then the only phone case and mounting system I recommend for all motorcyclists Rockform has cases for every phone and mount for every style of bike, head over to rock for.com and use the code y 25 to get 25% off your order again that's YN 25 for 25% off your order at rock form thank you so much for the support rock form now back to the video, The average age of a motorcyclist in the United States is around 50, and that average is only decreasing because older motorcyclists continue to die, not because younger people are starting to ride.

One of the most obvious reasons for the decline of motorcycling is the economic disadvantages faced by younger people. The Millennials were the first. generation is better off financially than their parents and things aren't looking much better for the Zoomers or whatever comes after them, the average income is nowhere near keeping up with inflation or the general rise in productivity and essentially everything from food to housing is becoming exponentially more expensive and people are not earning anywhere near what past generations did relative to inflation and interest rates are pretty high right now, all of this It leads to an inherent financial uncertainty that many young people face and when you're in the middle of all this, the last thing people are interested in is buying a motorcycle, which for most is seen as a luxury good or a hobby. expensive, but that doesn't mean there aren't some very enlightened people who see motorcycling as the antidote to their culture: 1.3 million of them subscribe to this channel, but it's definitely not common among the majority of the population.

Younger generations are also becoming increasingly risk averse with greater access to information thanks to this wonderful gift called the Internet, individuals can now scare themselves. get out of things before they've even had a chance to learn a lesson for themselves the hard way, people used to take more risks, be more adventurous and enjoy the act of thrill seeking, now people can just watch Tik Tok about something and never have to do it. themselves, there is an idea that I have been very interested in lately and it is about how we are replacing the cultural activities that fostered community with mindless consumption and, ultimately, compulsive consumption.

This chart is a neat summary with enough high-quality media for one to even travel. a motorcycle or it is enough to witness how someone else does it the algorithmic classification of media and content tends to flatten culture it is not valuable for society to produce creative, innovative or interesting ideas, we simply have to produce things that attract attention and capture audience retention content media art and yes even motorcycling suffers from this, we are all crushed to the monotony of parallel twins capturing as many sales as possible in a market and instant 360 videos of squid on Tik Tok, Maybe riding a motorcycle isn't enough of a boost for Generation Z and Generation Alpha.

For those who are used to doubling or even tripling content and screens, is it the visceral thrill of going wide open on a leading bike like for adult teens with ADHD or is that drug just not going to affect you in the same way as gambling? compulsive on sports teams. Imagine that before the Internet you were riding a motorcycle with some friends and maybe you had heard a story or two about someone knocking it over, but otherwise your perspective on motorcycling was pretty level-headed and related to only a handful of first-class experiences. hand, while now thanks to action cameras. and on social media, you can see dozens of people crashing their motorcycle the moment you open your feed and you can see people constantly ranting against Gat and you can see yourself inundated with accident statistics and all these things are just scaring people to stop him from riding a motorcycle, which doesn't take much considering that the younger generations are literally afraid of everything, because it turns out that having an iPad on your face the moment you came out of the womb and then having a endless stream of information transmitted to your prefrontal cortex from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to bed at night every day for your entire life is not good for your mental health or the development of your brain and, again, for many people, motorcycling is the antithesis of this, it allows you to disconnect and focus, tap into a primal visceral experience that has been taken away from you in modern life, when access to food, shelter, water, is provides easily, the human brain just thinks okay, what problems am I supposed to solve now that I'm designed to do so? devise creative solutions to adapt and survive in a hostile environment without such problems.

I guess I need to invent new ones to keep myself busy, and that's at least part of the reason why so many young people are anxious, depressed hypochondriacs who think everything is going to kill. them motorcycles are not the problem motorcycles can be a solution don't be afraid of motorcycles another problem is the way motorcycle culture in America still has the stigma it gained in the early days. Non-bikers think of bikers as big bearded leather pirates. that cat called his girlfriend when they passed by the bar at night on their bikes or think about the pejorative crotch rocket.

Stray squids that forked next to him on the road making triple digits, but motorcycling is super diverse and varied with so many types of bikes. Styles and the people who ride them. In fact, I was chatting with my wife the other day and she was surprised to learn that there are a lot of anime-loving idiots on my Discord server who love riding touring and adventure bikes. She thought there were a lot of like you know the dgen Street Squid guys, but yeah, maybe that's the kind of audience that's attracted to the morning Discord server or Discord people in general, but there are a lot of you furries who like to ride against 300, I don't know, but these complexities are not commonly described in popular culture and, being so absent from the Zeitgeist, it is difficult to think of any way in which it can be Introduce people new to motorcycling without stumbling upon a YouTube video or asking a friend or family member to convince them to ride firsthand.

Which again I take a lot of responsibility for the fact that many people are first exposed to motorcycling culture through this channel. It's a little crazy. I have a big responsibility to show you the right and fun way I try to do my job. The best thing here, a perfect example of this is how the long road resulted in a huge increase in interest in adventure bikes and adventure riding style. I'm sure plenty of existing riders watched that series and switched teams, but I bet there were countless non-riders who watched it based solely on Ean McGregor's involvement and thought, wow, that actually looks really cool.

I've never heard of that style of driving before, but now I'll go to my BMW dealer in Noal and take a look. a GS thinks about the popularity of van life. The trend is basically an idealization of homelessness by middle class 20 year olds who get their parents to financea sprinter van so I could drive around the country and take selfies for 6 months. I've been road tripping for as long as the automobile has existed and people have been camping for even longer. I mean, maybe you could classify the original wagons that crossed the West as van life people, but many of them just died, but van life has been packaged up. in a way that suggests it is a solution to late capitalism, putting forward the idea that spending tens of thousands of dollars on a van that you will live in your entire life is a valid long-term solution to the economic problems facing older generations. youths.

So now all these people are living in Vans and clogging up state parks and Anytime Fitness bathrooms because social media has branded van life as the answer to widespread generational problems when really it's just camping, it's expensive to camp, they've gentrified to the homeless, friend. You have to be mentally ill to pay tens of thousands of dollars to build a van that you live in full time with another full grown adult and several animals, that's just not right, but what I mean is its popularity as a result of our cultural landscape. The way motorcycling had been for generations prior to our collective values ​​as a society has just moved away from motorcycling and while many brands have placed an emphasis on attracting new motorcyclists with affordable value bikes, they don't seem to be grasping there is literally no better time to be a new motorcyclist.

I made a whole video about these bikes. They are as well built as ever. They are as safe as ever. They are super reliable. And the offers are so diverse. As always in the 80s and 90s, if you're a beginner you get a Ninja 250 or a Rebel 250, but there were still more people riding if new people were brought into the sport, which doesn't negate the fact that all of our favorite motorcycles eventually or early may be discontinued, we are seeing it happen in real time as emissions regulations continue to tighten, many of our beloved motorcycle models no longer remain in production as manufacturers deny the evolution of the four-cylinder. older bikes to meet newer standards, instead investing in building new engines that are cheaper to produce and more versatile, they can be included in everything from roadsters to Adventure Bikes.

Plus, there's the ever-present threat of electric vehicles that seems to constantly loom overhead. They've been ranting about EVS in a lot of videos recently, so go check them out if you want to hear them. Today I'll spare you the details and sum it up with the feeling that EVS really aren't doing much good in the world of motorcycling as a whole. The declining rate of riders is not just limited to motorcycles. Younger generations even drive fewer cars. The number of people with driver's licenses is declining as increasing urbanization and other transportation options make some people feel like it's not even worth it. driving or owning a car, let alone a motorcycle, whether with Shure options like Uber or yt or rentable bikes and scooters, people can get around without personal transportation now, personally I think it's a net benefit to society .

I would love to see more public transportation. and people who get on motorcycles because they really love it. I think more trains, more options, and more walkability is generally a good thing for society as a whole, but the use of scooters and mopeds is even declining, which previously served as a gateway for cyclists. On larger bikes, with the popularity of electric bikes that do not need to be registered and require a special license, the need for small displacement scooters is becoming non-existent and lastly, motorcycling has always been very focused on community, there are bike nights, groups of motorcyclists that compete. events that serve to unite people.

I hear people say they stopped riding bikes because they no longer had anyone to ride with much more often than I hear people say they stopped because they crashed, got hurt, or couldn't afford it anymore. modern society has become increasingly lonely people go to school online do their work online make friends online and community forums or through gaming platforms maintain friendships with people who live in all kinds of different places in the country around the world, so it's very difficult to build that in-person motorcycle community that can encourage you to ride or help you maintain your interest in it.

I'd like to think that what we do here at yob gets people excited about motorcycling and involved in the online community, whether it's our content or on our Discord server, and it seems to be becoming more and more important as time goes on. time, but what I love to see the most on Discord is when people get together in real life because they live close to each other and we connect them and then their friends and they go riding, that's the best thing I see there, but there are only so many tangible moments and experiences someone has in the real world that can flip the switch and get you hooked on riding a bike, so what do you think we're really

witnessing

? end of motorcycling or am I being too pessimistic do you think this is going to become some weird niche hobby like horse riding or something?

I bet you there are more riders than motorcyclists there are more bird watchers than motorcyclists I know this for a fact, so you might be thinking, what can I do to help if you know someone who you think could benefit from having more motorcycles in their life? Beg them, plead with them, inundate them with memes and motorcycle videos relentlessly until they take the leap and sign. Get ready for an MSF class. It's really your duty as a cyclist to get at least one other person hooked on it so we can keep this industry alive. Thanks for watching.

I will see you later. The Earth's gravitational pole is not uniform due to the The distribution of mass throughout the planet is not uniform. Regions with denser material, such as mountains or large underground deposits, exert slightly stronger gravitational forces than areas with less dense material, creating variations in gravity on the Earth's surface. Bye, keep watching YY.