The wife and I love to ride, and we ride often with a mix of twisties on the weekends. We load the bikes down with camping gear and find a mountain campground or ride to Myrtle Beach or Daytona. We’ve even done a few track days.
There is a lot to be said for mixing it up and experiencing different things on your motorcycle. It’s funny how much stuff we load in the car for a beach trip compared to how little we take on the bikes. I can remember loading down our SUV with golf clubs, kayaks, bicycles, and boogie boards for a long weekend trip. We were exhausted just from packing the car. When we take the bikes, all our stuff must fit into my two panniers and topbox while leaving room for tools and rain gear. The required simplicity adds to the feeling of freedom we all enjoy on a motorcycle.
Mountain roads, aka the twisties, are probably my favorite roads to ride. I love hitting the twisties and mixing the fast S-turns and long sweepers with the more technical stuff like Skyuka Mountain Road outside Columbus, North Carolina. There is something special about the freedom that comes with a one-day ride, no need to worry about any gear but I also really like having a destination and that’s where the poker chips come in.
Motorcycle dealerships have become one of my favorite destinations. You always meet other riders, you get to look at cool bikes, occasionally even test ride a few, and if it’s a Harley dealer, chances are they are serving food or food is nearby. So what’s all this got to do with poker chips?
Harley Davidson knows this about us, or at least me. They have figured out their dealerships are destinations. During peak riding season, hardly a weekend goes by that there is not an event at a nearby local Harley dealer. Music, chili cook offs, food trucks, toy runs, group rides, you name it. Some of these events are hosted by the dealer while others are hosted by the local Harley Owners Group. Several local Harley dealers near me are adjacent to biker-friendly restaurants and the two go hand-in-hand. Motorcycles, music and food, what more could you ask for? Plus, Harley Davidson dealers are everywhere. There are 29 dealerships in North Carolina, 14 in South Carolina and 25 in Tennessee. Compare that to 156 total BMW dealerships in the entire United States.
Harley dealers have capitalized on this trend. Every dealership offers their own T-shirts and custom labeled poker chip. In fact, they are just as happy to sell you stuff as they are motorcycles. Some dealerships have satellite locations that don’t even sell bikes. I like T-shirts as much as the next guy, but you can only have so many and the poker chip is only a couple of dollars. Now every time we find a new Harley dealer, we buy a poker chip. The poker chips are small and don’t take up a lot of room. Mine are kept in a little cloth bag in the bottom of a drawer. Occasionally I dump them out and sort through them trying to remember how and when I got each one. Harley sells big fancy poker chip display racks, but I prefer my cloth bag.
Harley has figured out their audience and they know how to sell bikes. If you have ever been to Bike Week in Daytona, you know Harleys out number every other bike brand probably a 100-to-1. I rode my BMW R1200R to bike week in 2021. There were thousands and thousands of motorcycles, but I saw less than 10 Beemers the whole time I was there.
So if I don’t own or ride a Harley, why do I go to Harley dealerships? I guess it is because I like every aspect of motorcycles.
I’ve owned many motorcycles, but I’ve never owned a Harley. I’ve ridden many Harleys — big ones, bigger ones, loud ones, and louder ones — but so far I’ve never owned one. Don’t get me wrong, just because I’ve never owned a Harley doesn’t mean I don’t want one. If money were no object, I would own a small collection of motorcycles, cruisers, sport bikes, tourers and adventure bikes.
I guess the obvious reason I like Harleys is because they are made in America and they project that bad-ass biker attitude. I don’t own a leather vest — well, not anymore — I’m not flashing colors and I’m not a 1%er, but truth be told, maybe a small part of me would like to be.
I’ve been known to call my friends up at the last minute and say let’s make a three-poker chip run today. We set our GPS to avoid highways and hit the backroads to start collecting poker chips.
Next time the weather keeps me off the bike, I’ll probably dump out my poker chips and reminisce a little. y
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