Will Captain America Help Harley Sell New Model?

Pictures courtesy of Marvel

This is the week that Harley-Davidon has been waiting for – the week when Marvel’s much-anticipated “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” opens and shows off its new Street 750 model to moviegoers (and riders) around the planet. The hope is that new and younger riders will be taken by the smaller Street 750 and flock to showrooms to buy them.

The sequel to the 2011 movie hit “Captain America: The First Avenger” opens Friday. Expect to see the Street 750 engaged in action.

When last I checked, Harley still had not announced when the Street 750 and companion model the Street 500 will be in stores. The bikes are being built both in India for the world market and in Kansas City (to be sold in the U.S.).

You’d have thought Harley would have tried to have the new model on showroom floors in time for the movie’s release. If there’s a long delay, an opportunity could quickly become a missed opportunity.

Harley is giving away a Street 750 in a contest that’s tied to the movie. The video has the details:

—

Honda has now attached a price to its outlandish-looking 2015 NM4 model. The 670cc
bike, which Honda says is designed to “attract a whole new segment of forward-thinking riders to motorcycling,” will sell for $10,999.

The NM4 has an automatic, six-speed dual clutch transmission, with ABS, a 200mm rear tire  and a seat height of only 25.6 inches.  Honda pegs the weight at 562 pounds. It will come in one color – black. It will be available in June.

—

Just asking, but in this age of misinformation on the Internet – and so many people passing along this misinformation as gospel without checking its veracity – do April Fool’s Day fibs add to confusion at a time when it’s increasingly difficult to know what’s accurate and what isn’t?

Yesterday, the proprietor of Bikerwriter.com, Mark Gardiner, spun some April 1 whoppers:

– That Ural plans to enter Moto GP racing in 2016 out of fear that cooling U.S.-Russian relations in the wake of Russia invading Crimea will result in an embargo against the sidecar rigs.

– That  the National Association of Embalmers & Undertakers was uniting with ABATE in a pro “choice” alliance.

– That Moto GP star Valentino Rossi “came out as openly heterosexual.”

I also received an email yesterday that declared that Kawasaki was buying Harley-Davidson.

This morning, I noticed another post that also suggested that an embargo on Urals, with a link what purported to be a “Washington Post” story. (Do a search of the actual “Washington Post” website and you’ll find the story doesn’t exist.)

So much of what appears on the Internet these days reads like bad jokes that April Fool’s jokes seem almost redundant. While I applaud Gardiner’s creativity, and appreciate the attempts of others, the fact that so many falsehoods now routinely get posted and spread and makes April Fool’s dangerous.

Information lasts forever on the Internet, and a day later it can be read as truthful – even if it isn’t.