127774 Resource 106832 108325 108325 1147901127118 1147901127118 Controlled Harley Continues to Amaze

Harley Does a Lot for Our Sport - But Some Complaints Remain

Harley Davidson has once again pulled out all of the stops.  They have 883 sportsters to entice a new rider at less than $100.00 per month, putting a Harley in reach of almost everyone.They have brilliant promotion, such as rooms for Strugis through the Harley site, bazillions of summer events, presence at even more summer events, such as the upcoming women in motorcycling conference, and even a new rider course, which shows marketing sense and a sense of responsibility.However, I am astounded by the failure to separate fashion wear from motorcycle gear.  Thin lambskin jackets for women riders priced over $400.00.  Party wear?  Absolutely.  Serious safety gear?  No way.Yes, we all make our choices, and we all take personal responsibility for the choices we make.  No, I don't think that all of the women who buy thin lambskin jackets understand how their skin will look if they slide wearing them.We all know that real motorcycle jackets require 1.3mm or better thickness, can't be too soft of a leather, can't pull open or pull up too easily in a slide, and that body armour is a big improvement over not having it.Whenever I talk to a new client, I want to know what they were wearing, and how it performed.  Sometimes they do surprisingly well with proper gear.  Always, they do worse without it.At a minimum, fashion wear should be clearly labelled so that the purchaser fully understands the limitations of the clothing if they intend to wear it while riding a motorcycle.I appreciate so much of what Harley does, that I hate to highlight them on this issue, but I hope that they get the message.  There's nothing wrong with motorcycle fashion wear, as long as the buyer understands that they are not buying motorcycle gear. 10 application/xml false 883 Sportster Fashion Wear Harley Davidson Leather Jacket Motorcycle Jacket Women and Motorcycling Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; Media Center PC 2.8) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 mpadway false true false false true 201650 false false true false false false true 106832 blog blogsite/MichaelPadway/web