Meeting of the Minds, 2023

By Dave Dwyer

The best idea of the Conference is “We are purposely built for the challenges we are facing today” by Hardtail. Yes, we have some serious challenges in front of us up and including the end of Motorcycling as we know it. We are facing the end of production of internal combustion engines (ICE), the phasing out of gasoline as a motor fuel. What about being forced to surrender our Motorcycles at a certain age, mileage, or arbitrary repair cost estimate called “End of Life Directive” like they are facing in Europe?

Those who say none of the above, it could never happen here, have not been paying attention to regional and national conversations about the Green New Deal. Some states are starting to follow the lead of California in banning the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles and small engine tools in the coming 6 years. When there are not enough ICE vehicles left on the road to make gasoline sales profitable, motorcycling as we know it is dead.

Electric motorcycles may appeal to some people, but not to me, and most likely not too many of you either. Can you imagine riding your electric motorcycle to Tomahawk and trying to find a place to charge it for the ride home with thousands of others doing the same? How will the city of Milwaukee handle the Harley Davidson anniversaries once we have gone all electric? It was interesting to note that at the Harley Davidson test ride lot at Deadwood during the Sturgis Rally this year that there was a large diesel generator supplying electricity to their charging station. How is that “green?”

We are in for the fight for our very survival as Motorcyclists with the Federal and many State governments and we are well positioned to win these battles.

We are working closely with the National Council of Clubs and now have an open invitation to their National meeting with a scheduled speaking role during that meeting. They are working with us on Legislative Strategy to help all Motorcyclists. If you haven’t yet, go to the Motorcycling Profiling Project.com and take their Profiling Survey even if you don’t feel that you have been profiled. This is a new survey every year, so even if you have filled it out in past years, do it again.

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) has been requested to open up a new membership category for a new group – the Independent Motorcycle Aftermarket group (IMA) and we have agreed to do so. We are now partnering with the IMA to get the word out to all the independent shops and related motorcycle aftermarket businesses.

We have hashed out our differences with the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM) and will be working closely with them again. Their Leadership joined us at MOTM and had nothing but good to say about working together to protect Motorcycling.

Where is this all going, you may ask? The answer is Members, Members, Members. Wisconsin has more MRF Members than any other State, but we still don’t have enough. Membership money and Membership numbers are needed to win the fights ahead of us. Politicians look at numbers, and the bigger our Membership, the more clout we have. If you are not currently an MRF Member, fill out and mail in the MRF Application in this newsletter. Or go to mrf.org and sign up online. Be sure to put DAD in the “referred by” space.

If we all join together in this fight we will win.