A Tribute to Midge’s Harley Dyna Super Glide Sport: Build Something We Want Again

Harley-Davidson motorcycles are cultural icons representing the freedom, independence and self-expression that are part of what it means to be an American.

Not all of Harley’s creations became legendary and timeless designs though. There have been several eras of Harley-Davidson marked by dark times when motorcycle design took a backseat to appeasing the interests of stockholders.

The age of American Machine and Family ownership brought some of the biggest flops in Harley’s history, eliminated some of its most revolutionary projects like Nomad and changed its public image from being known as one of the most innovative and advanced motorcycles of all time to a company that makes some of the most unreliable, low-quality, outdated motorcycles alongside golf karts.

AMF, the restructuring and complacency that went along with being on top of the motorcycle industry nearly bankrupted the industry titan in the 1980s before a group of enthusiastic Harley-Davidson employees pooled their own money together to save their company.

The decades following the end of the AMF years brought new technology, fresh styling, more design freedom and improved build and material quality. Along with the better motorcycles came year after year of increased sales.

Imagine that; when the Motor Co. heavily invested resources in motorcycle design, the motorcycles sold well and people started buying back into the Harley-Davidson brand whole-heartedly, creating generations of diehard Harley-Davidson enthusiasts and customers.

Now, those generations are coming to a point in their lives when they could own and ride a motorcycle every day if they wanted. Many younger people are interested in two wheeled transportation because it is cheap to buy, cheap to insure, cheap to maintain and easier to own in a congested area than a car.

Why aren’t they buying enough Harley-Davidson’s to support the company like so many of their parents and grandparents?

Most of us have heard the tired old grandiloquence blaming millennials for the hard times that have befallen the more than one century old company. The assertion that younger generations only care about Instagram and shea butter instead of motorcycles is just wrong.

Motorcycles are inherently cool. Even such styling flops as the recently launched Harley-Davidson FXDR cannot change that. Motorcycles aren’t a fad, so claims that younger people aren’t interested in motorcycles because they’re interested in different fads are inherently flawed.

The Ducati Scrambler is credited by many for saving Ducati, the Italian icon that has faced financial hardships and triumphs through decades of producing air-cooled twin-cylinder motorcycles known for their style and performance worldwide.

Because of the quality, performance, style, personalization and reasonable price, the Scrambler sold like hotcakes while competitors like the Harley-Davidson Street 750, which struggled to make it out of dealership doors even with several thousand dollars off models leftover from previous years.

I hate to say it because I have loved Harley-Davidson and their motorcycles longer than I have been able to spell my own name. I grew up on the floor of my mother’s office proofreading H-D Parts & Accessories catalogs when I was 8. Not the thing magazine-like catalogs either, I’m talking about the catalogs that are thicker than a bible with pages the size of a magazine covered top-to-bottom with part numbers, prices, descriptions and model fitment designations.

I love when my mom lets me ride her concord purple 2000 Super Glide Sport FXDX and I also love to ride my own Buell Firebolt. Nothing Harley currently offers piques my interest, even if I did have enough money to buy the most expensive motorcycle they sell.

As much as I hate to say it, the Ducati Scrambler, Ducati’s offering aimed squarely at young bachelors and bachelorettes looking to spend some of their newly acquired wealth after graduating from lower-income jobs, absolutely smokes the Harley Street family of models in every way imaginable for roughly the same price.

Anyone who has extended experience with at least a few different motorcycles will be able to tell the difference between the value of a Scrambler and a Street within a few miles. Many people who have never even ridden a motorcycle could tell the difference between them before ever riding either, as evidenced by the thousands Instagram posts of millennials riding their Scramblers everywhere and anywhere around the world.

Even the coolest Harley-Davidson models like the LowRider S have been slightly watered down, likely due to the same bureaucracy neutering the rest of the company. Gold wheels should be gold like a Lamborghini Miura SV, not slightly brown like sparkly sand.

We millennials do like Harley-Davidson’s, but the Motor Co. hasn’t made anything as cool as my mother’s bike, so why would I even entertain the idea of buying something new?

The performance hasn’t changed in a revolutionary way. The rear end still wiggles around when you hit a bump mid-corner while accelerating hard. The fasteners holding it all together are still of questionable quality, as evidenced by the numerous saddle-bag hardware recalls in past years. Many of those fasteners still use the antiquated SAE standard, except for the battery terminals, just like my mom’s two-decade old bike. And of course, they still leak. Except newer Harley’s can leak a liquid foreign to most of those old, weathered, leather-vest wearing, beard with more food in it than you ate for lunch having, cursing and lovable bikers: coolant.

Please, Harley-Davidson, make a motorcycle that’s cool and affordable to young people.

The 1960s got the birth of the Sportster. When do we get our revolutionary bike?

Livewire is the most interesting and desirable bike to come out of the Milwaukee-based company in a long time, but due to its high-price is out of reach of most of Harley’s primary target customer group right now.

What will happen to Harley-Davidson in the future?

Will those who know bring the company back from the darkness, just like their AMF-employed predecessors?

Will the company rise again like a phoenix from ashes?

Regardless of what happens, I find it strange that the stockholders looking to profit from Harley-Davidson continue to place people in power who have no business running a motorcycle company. Dell doesn’t make motorcycles and Dell isn’t an American icon.

Plenty of financial and business magazines and forums mocked headlines about Matt Levatich leaving the company to spend time with his family.

What these suits fail to understand is that Levatich gets motorcycles. Nobody owns an XR1200X because it’s nice to ride to the store or comfortably cruise on for an afternoon. XR1200 is a rider’s motorcycle. No other modern Harley-Davidson is as focused on the connection between rider and machine as this bike.

Levatich’s predecessor nearly crashed several rented motorcycles while riding with people I know and then made fun of those same people for worrying about crashing their most prized possessions.

Keith Wandell didn’t care about anyone else’s motorcycle, much less his own, which he claimed to have a dead battery nearly every time he wanted to ride it. He barely passed the test to get his motorcycle endorsement.

Harley-Davidson didn’t become an American icon because of a computer salesman.

Suits can argue about financial statistics all they want, but the only reason Harley-Davidson is on their radar right now is because of some bicycle mechanics working out of a garage located at the same place on Milwaukee’s north side those suits now hold conferences.

The people who make the products that have carried the Harley-Davidson legacy forward through the hardest of times are the ones who can be considered essential parts of that icon.

The people who work to create a system of bureaucratic hoops for people who just want to make cool motorcycles to jump through only work to confine and cage the American dream that is Harley-Davidson.

Dreams make Harley-Davidson, not a rotating system of contract workers employed without benefits or much job security or a system of brainwashing new employees to make them think they are the coolest people on earth simply because their paychecks say Harley-Davidson at the top.

Never forget the story behind those paychecks and why we are where we are today.