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Chattanooga: Motorists scale back

By: Amy Williams
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Gary Griffith

Joseph Goetz had wanted a motorcycle for years — the freedom of the wind in his face, the open road and the pure fun of riding a bike.

So as the price of a gallon of gas got closer to $4, he finally began to seriously consider buying one.

“With gas prices as high as they are, I had the perfect excuse to buy it,” Mr. Goetz said. “It always seemed like such a toy before, but now with high gas prices, I can justify it.”

So he parked his 2001 Ford Explorer and bought a 1986 Honda Shadow VT 500 from a friend for $1,200.

Staff Photo by Patrick Smith -- Joseph Goetz backs out from his parking space at an Unum Group parking lot.

Other wanna-be bikers in Chattanooga and across the country are doing the same thing, according to local motorcycle retailers.

As the price for a gallon of gas gets higher, sales of motorcycles and scooters alike are going up across the nation, said Ty Van Hooydonk, spokesman for the Motorcycle Industry Council.

In the first quarter of the year, scooter sales were up almost 24 percent from 2007, he said. Sales of dual-purpose bikes, which resemble dirt bikes and are built for on- and off-road riding, were up almost 8 percent over this time last year, he said.

Gary Griffith, sales manager for Southern Honda Powersports, said he has had customers say their wives are finally letting them get the motorcycles they have always wanted.

But those sales are not translating into increased sales locally, Mr. Griffith said. Instead of driving motorcycle sales, the price of fuel is causing sales to shift, with customers getting different types of bikes than what they bought this time last year, similar to what is happening in the auto industry, he said.

“A lot of people are trading down from larger bikes to smaller bikes to get even better gas mileage,” he said. “Even though the larger bikes do get better mileage than most cars, people still want to save if they can, and they will sacrifice a little bit of power for economy.”

Most bikes at the Honda dealership get between 45 and 70 mpg and start around $4,500, Mr. Griffith said. He tells his customers that a monthly payment of about $140 can easily be offset by considering what will be saved in gas money, he said.

And while sales may not be up as a result of $4-a-gallon gas, business at the Honda store is still pretty good, he said. The store sold 50 bikes on Saturday alone.

Mr. Goetz commutes under three miles to his job at Unum, and he loves that he gets between 45 and 60 mpg because it means his monthly gas bill is now about a third of what it used to be, he said.

Also unaffected by the price of fuel are sales of high-end bikes, like those at Thunder Creek Harley-Davidson on Lee Highway.

Since most people buy bikes during the summer, sales at the store are as strong as usual, said Paul Dwight, the store’s general manager. But he said he has not noticed any spikes as a result of rising gas prices.

A typical Harley-Davidson gets 40 to 45 mpg, much better than a car, Mr. Dwight said, but not as high as many of the so-called metric bikes, or bikes made outside the United States using the metric system for parts measurements.

“When you’re looking at a motorcycle that costs between $7,000 and $30,000 — and the bulk of our sales are touring bikes, the upper end bikes — gas mileage isn’t a big aspect of it,” Mr. Dwight said.