Jan. 25, 2026

Chinese Motorcycles Shift Gears: Affordable, Stylish, and Global

Chinese motorcycle brands are rapidly shedding their old reputation for low quality and uninspired design. In 2026, Chinese motorcycles shift gears, launching stylish, innovative, and affordable models across cruiser, sport, naked, and adventure categories. Brands like Benda, CFMoto, QJ Motor, Kove, and Moto Morini are gaining global traction by offering features and aesthetics once reserved for premium European and Japanese bikes—often at a fraction of the price. As Chinese motorcycles shift gears, they're attracting new riders worldwide and challenging established manufacturers in value and design.

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00:00 - Introduction

00:48 - Chinese brand background

10:23 - Chinese Cruisers

17:45 - Chinese sports bikes

20:19 - Chinese naked bikes

22:49 - Chinese ADV bikes

28:09 - Wrap up

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This year might officially be the year of the horse, but from some of the launches we've seen, it might be the year of the iron horse.

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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. The Chinese New Year begins in just a few short weeks, but it's also bringing a ton of new motorcycles from China to markets around the world. I'll look at some of the history of some of these Chinese brands making waves and look at some of the new models launching in 2026 that have designs we wouldn't have seen on older Chinese bikes.

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Have the Chinese manufacturers become more than just the cheap option?

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So we have to start with the pink elephant in the room.

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China is a manufacturing powerhouse. Almost any kind of product that you want to purchase around the globe has likelihood that it is produced in China. They have really focused over the past 50 years, really, of just building up their manufacturing prowess. Now in most of the time, they've been what you might describe as a production partner, so usually it was another manufacturer who was designing the parts, who was marketing products, and they were having them produced in mostly because they had low-cost labor and they had the factory capabilities to be able to do this. And this is across every industry. It could be in electronics, it could be in manufacture of toys, But what has started to change in recent years, and roughly, I'd say about the past 10 years, is that China has not only been the manufacturer of literally producing the parts or the products, but has actually started to become the whole creator of this. And you see this. And you see this with a few different things. If you think of the drone market DJI has been building drones in there. If you think of the action camera, especially on the 360 camera, Insta360 another Chinese brand. So they've really been expanding their prowess from being purely the manufacturing into actually becoming the designer and the marketer of these products. And the same thing has happened for And in particular, there's a few different different brands that I'll highlight here that have really been a Chinese manufacturing brand, some of them may not be quite as well-known, but they are becoming more widely spread. And you're going to probably start to hear about many more of these over the years. So let's start with Benda. Now, Benda started about 10 years ago, and they've been expanding throughout both Europe and the US over the past decade, producing a wide variety of Now, CFMoto is probably a little bit well-known, certainly here in the United States, they were originally known as a brand mostly for low-cost ATVs and UTVs, but they've been expanding into motorcycles for the past several years. And they have a number of value positioned models. Now in Europe, of course, they actually have many more motorcycle models and they've been known for that for a lot longer in now, Moto Marini is probably the one that most of our listeners will be most familiar with. They were originally an Italian brand producing their first motorcycles back in the 1940s and it came under control of Cagiva in the 1980s and then later was controlled by Ducati.

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And the name was purchased in 1999 by a company owned by the nephew of the original founder.

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And five years later, new models were announced, but they were unable to pay some of their suppliers and the company went into bankruptcy by 2009 Now it was acquired by other Italian investors in 2011. Although the factory wasn't included in that sale. And while an effort to restart production did result in some new models being produced along with bicycles, it was in really small numbers, but in 2018, it came under Chinese ownership and production volumes have been increasing ever since.

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Although the motorcycles are now being produced in China, not in Italy. Now, QJ Motor is another, probably not well-known name, and perhaps not even one you'd care to remember, I mean, this is one of the unfortunate things with some of the brands that we'll highlight here is it's a couple of initials, and then Motor or Moto, so it's not really the most compelling branding, but it is descriptive, and that might be sort of a common sense that you'll see across a few of these brands.

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But they have a complete line of motorcycles ranging from small 50 to 150 cc scooters up to 750 cc middleweight adventure motorcycles, and their SRT 750X reminds me a lot of the Suzuki V-Strom, but it comes in at just$8, 600, undercutting the V-Strom 800 by nearly $2, 000.

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So, if you like the V-Strom, and you liked it because it was an even more cost-effective option compared to some of the, let's say, the European middleweight motorcycles, this is an even cheaper option that's out there.

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And this is the sort of story that you're going to see amongst most of these Chinese brands is they give you a lot of similar capability, some of the maybe European brands that are out there, but at a far lower cost.

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Now, another one, and this one's actually probably been the most, I'd say, one of the more popular brands that have been coming out of China is Kove or Kove motorcycles. I'm not sure of the exact way that they prefer their pronunciation, but they've been offering some competition styled ADV bikes. Kove distrubution in the United United States. Their\ 450 Rally really looks like a bike straight out of the Dakar Rally, and it's available in both street-legal and off-road-only variants. While their larger 800X compares with the BMW F900GS, but it's priced at about $13, 000.

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Now, ZXMoto is a sister brand to Kove motorcycles founded by Zhang Xue, taking his initials to form the company name. And in some ways, I think the way to think of ZXMoto is almost like KTM and Husqvarna. They are sister brands, and a lot of the engineering under the hood is exactly the same, with some minor stylistic differences. So it is a way that you can still get some of those Kove Motorcycles, in another brand, and maybe you prefer styling of one versus the other. And another one that's also been pretty well-known is Voge Motorcycles, or Voge, depending upon how they prefer pronunciation. And this is produced by Loncin, and they're well-known as a low-cost engine manufacturer. And the Loncin motors have been used in a lot of other brands. Now, Voge has become its own brand, covering much of Asia and branching out into Europe and South America.

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It's not yet in the U. S., but that may change in the coming years. And they offer sport models ranging from 250 to 660 cc's naked bikes from 125 to 625 cc's, dual sport and motorcycles ranging to 900 cc's, plus scooters, cruisers, and even e-bikes. Now, the big story of all of these brands Chinese manufacturers is that they've been having a growing presence, pretty much starting, I'd say, in Europe, which, if we're kind of honest about it, Europe has a larger motorcycle scene than the United States. Obviously, Asia is even larger still. they've been growing in presence in Europe and starting to come into the United States. for our listeners here in the U. S., these are probably brands you're going to start to see a little bit more often than you might have in the past few years. And compared to European or US manufacturers, the Chinese motorcycles come in thousands less than an equivalent bike from the more legacy motorcycle manufacturers. And with Harley's average model selling for $30, 000, Royal Enfield has really been a lot of the value option that looked great, was a low cost model, certainly here in the US. And that's why I think their sales have continued to climb, even in Europe their sales have climbed. But now you have some of Chinese motorcycles that are also offering similar good looks and prices, so it's not just going to be Royal Enfield that is offering these value priced models within major markets like Europe and the US.

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the next thing I want to cover is some of the new models that have come out, because this is really, I think, what to me has been the most eye opening as you're looking at some of these other brands. if we're kind of honest about it, most of the time, Chinese bikes in the past were really bare bones, both from a specification perspective and quite frankly, from a design perspective. They weren't anything that you sat there and said like, "That's a really good looking bike." It was kind of like, "It's got two wheels, it's got an engine, pretty ugly," but it was cheap. And while that utilitarian approach kept prices low. It just wasn't the kind of bike that you might be proud to show off or even to be riding around. And it was utilitarian and that was its intention. The other problem is that some of these bikes were not just low cost, but also low quality. They may not have had a lot of the fit and finish that we come to expect with some of the higher end brands. They may not have lasted quite as long, the tolerances and everything of the precision of manufacturing was just, it was meant to cut corners and keep it cheap. But they've started to shift this focus onto more of a high quality motorcycle over the past few years. Now, the other one, and this is the one that's the most surprising to me, is that the designs have changed as well.

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some of these designs will actually catch the eye of some of your fellow riders. And you might get a lot of questions like, "What kind of bike is that?" Not in a dismissive or negative way, but out of genuine interest because some of these designs are actually quite fetching. They actually look really good.

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So I want to start with some of the cruiser style motorcycles. Now, if you are a American cruiser rider, you might have the perspective that if it's anything less than 1800 CCs, you're like, "That's not even a motorcycle. That's a baby bike." And while that is certainly a perspective that some of the classic large engined V-twin motorcycles have had for a long time, it does not necessarily reflect the totality of the motorcycle market.

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Certainly, Honda has had some smaller capacity bikes over the years. Triumph, of course, if you look at their Bobber, you look at Speedmaster. These are smaller than a typical large V-twin would be, but still a compelling option. And the Benda Napoleon Bob 500 kind of fits this framing. And if you look at it visually, I think the Bobber rear end is reminiscent to me of the Triumph Bobber with that floating seat. And it's a really cool design, just having that floating seat. It's one of the things I really love about the Triumph Bobber, but this motorcycle has that same visual.

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Now, the other thing that's weird with this if you like the style of design of this, this could really be appealing to you, but it has these front fork covers that make it almost it has girder-style forks or a springer front end. It's got that kind of like towards the front of the motorcycle up near the top of the fork, and it's not a real thing. It's just a cap that's sitting on top of it.

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When you're looking at it from a from a distance, it gives the outline of that style. And this could be really a cool visual design language to have. Now, it does have the forward controls, and it also has a bit of a gold tone to the engine, which to me kind of looks a little bit like the new Harley Sportster. or even the Ducati magnesium-colored V-twin engines that we've had. So it has a little bit more of a engine coloring. But the cool thing, and this is where I think it works really well for our European listeners, is it fits into the A2 license restrictions with just 47 horsepower. And it's a really good-looking option aimed at really those earlier tenure riders that might even keep their attention for many years because it's a really good-looking bike. And I was surprised when I saw this because it's not what I would expect from a Chinese manufacturer. And a lot of the bikes that I'm going to go through this are reflective of that. These are surprise to me of, wow, these are really pretty good-looking bikes. Now, another bike from Benda that I want to highlight is the Darkflag 950.

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Now, if you're looking for something that has a little bit more punch than the one that we just covered with a 500-cc engine, the Darkflag 950 is a V4 delivering 109 horsepower. With 63 foot-pounds of torque. This gives it 0-60 in just under 4 seconds. So it's not a slow bike by any scope of imagination.

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It's going to be a pretty quick bike. And as I've said before many times on this podcast, to my mind, once you get around 100 horsepower, you've got a good, fun bike that will give you a spirited ride on public roads.

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Yes, it's not a 200 horsepower sport bike, but you can't necessarily leverage those fully on public roads. At a track, they're amazing. But I think 100 horsepower gives you that really nice sweet spot. Now, to my eye, this particular bike has many elements of the Indian Scout line. Though it's maybe not quite as polished, at least visually, it does give a lot of the essence into that. And you can bet it's coming in at a far cry less than an Indian Scout would. Now, of course, these couple bikes that we've highlighted are on the smaller end of the in terms of engine capacity. And a V4 may not be a design that you might look at and say, hey, that is, to me, a typical traditional cruiser.

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Well, this is where we have the Benda Rock 707. And this sort of splits that difference between that 500 and 950 in terms of engine capacity. But it's a 692cc V-twin. Now, it also has adaptive suspension to help lower the ride height at a stop.

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Along with an electronic clutch, this really could be something that can appeal to those newer riders, especially those ones with shorter legs, where they want ease of access of having a lower ride height. But they want that traditional V-twin. But they don't want to break the bank. This could be a really cool option. And if you are maybe a little bit more stuck, you need to kind of keep for that lower engine capacity.

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There's also the Benda Rock 250 with a CVT. And this marries the clutchless transmission of a scooter with a small capacity.

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And you get a very beginner-friendly cruiser.

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That's not really bad-looking at all. It's a pretty decent-looking bike. And again, the caveat that I have to say is, the fit and finish polish that you'll get with maybe like a Harley Davidson or some of the European brands. But the price point is just not even in the same playing field, and that's the real essence. What I like about the fact that these bikes are out here is you can a pretty decent-looking motorcycle that's not going to break the bank. And they're making it so that it's available for earlier 10-year riders, where it's not going to be overwhelming. It's not going to be so intimidating as spending $30, 000 on a 950-pound Harley Davidson when this is your first bike. I mean, that's just, it's not realistic for most riders to get as their very first bike.

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And perhaps the bike that I think is the most surprising to me, at least visually, of the Benda bikes is the LFC 700. And this is really, if you love that fat rear tire performance cruiser looks of a Ducati Diavel, but your wallet and, quite frankly, maybe your spouse says LFC 700 might be the answer. And it has an insanely huge 310 35R18 rear tire. And this bike visually just yells it's meant for straight-line performance.

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Now, while the 84 horsepower from its inline-four won't match the Ducati Diavel's V4's 168 horsepower, nor will the 630-pound curb weight, it's a sure bet that your wallet will forgive that performance gap.

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It's around €12, 000 or £9, 200, which is a far cry from the nearly €30, 000 that a Diavel V4 costs. And that's the problem here, is you have to think you're getting a bike that has similar visuals. It's not exactly the same. I still think the Diavel is a better-looking bike, but for less than half the price. And that's the real story of Benda.

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Now, if you're a sport bike rider, you're not left out of the cold with some of the Chinese brands either. One of the new bikes that I think is really interesting is the CFMoto 750SR-R. And this is a 110-horsepower inline 4-cylinder engine. And while it is down on power compared to maybe some other modern superbikes, certainly in the 1,000cc class where we're pushing over 200 horsepower, it still has some of the electronics that are pretty common amongst this class. So you have a 6-axis IMU or inertial measurement unit, giving you cornering ABS, traction control, ride modes.

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And it also has Insta360 camera integration. a fellow Chinese brand, as we mentioned. Keyless ignition, tire pressure monitoring. The pricing hasn't been announced quite yet, but there is a sibling bike for it, which is the 750SR-S.

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And that bike is just $6, 300 here in the US. This bike will probably be within a handful of hundreds of dollars of this. And this being a track ready variant, maybe a little bit more expensive, but even if it comes in at $7, 500, that's a far cry from the more than $10, 000 that any other motorcycle in this class will be offered at. Now if you think 750 cc is not enough and that 110 horsepower isn't enough power for you for your sport bike. Well CF Moto really is pushing and trying to fight directly against the Ducatis, the BMWs, the manufacturers that are producing these super high output sports motorcycles. And they have the V4 SR-RR. Now RR in most motorcycles tends to be a race replica sort of a designation. And in this application it's really not all that different. They're claiming of 210 horsepower with semi-active electronic suspension. It has active aerodynamic winglets which are pretty common amongst most of these bikes. The BMW S 1000 RR has had this for a few years at this point. And with a weight under 440 pounds this has all the makings of weapon. Now, while it was presented as a prototype, we could see production models as soon as 2027, and I can guarantee you it will be significantly cheaper than a Ducati Panigale or a BMW S1000RR, let alone the M1000RR. Now, if you prefer your bikes naked, you prefer that sort of stripped down aesthetic. There's a couple of other bikes that are in this category from Chinese manufacturers that are really groundbreaking, at least from an aesthetic perspective. And again, looking at it through that lens of this is a country of manufacture that was really not known for being aesthetically interesting bikes. And the first one I want to talk about is the Benda P-51. And when I hear P-51, I think of the P-51 Mustang, the aircraft that was used in World War II. I don't know if that was their intention from this, but basically take those fork covers suggesting that Springer front end from the earlier bike that we mentioned, the Napoleon Bob 500, add in a 250cc boxer twin with a hybrid power system. And you have a bike that competes at least on price and looks with the BMW R9T line. Now, while it only has 62 horsepower compared to the 110 horsepower of the BMW, Benda also showed a 700cc boxer motor. So there could be a more powerful variance that could be coming in the next year or so.

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But think of this out of a 250cc engine with that hybrid power train. We're getting 62 horsepower. Yes, it's not the biggest power under the sun, but for a 250cc, that's really quite And visually, this thing looks a lot like an R9T. So if you like that aesthetic and you're interested in a boxer engine, but you don't want to spend the BMW premium, this bike is a really interesting option. Now, QJ Motor has a very awkwardly named motorcycle called the EQVVS 600. It doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue. At least my tongue, it doesn't. But this is where they have decided to add in a bit of a V4 into a naked bike. That's only 561 cc's.

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while the production timeline hasn't yet been confirmed, they're estimating it'll have about 70 horsepower, which again, out of a less than 600cc bike, that's not meant to be a high strung sport bike. That's still really And this could be a nice sporty style naked bike for those riders with full licenses in Europe. And maybe we even might get it stateside here in the US.

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But the truest story of where the Chinese manufacturers have been really shaking up the industry has to be in the most popular category of motorcycling, which is motorcycles. Now the Voge DS625X is a middleweight ADV bike that'll compete with bikes like the Honda NX 500, the Yamaha Tracer 7, and other bikes in this class. It's not really meant to be a hardcore off-road bike. It's more of that tall rounder, but it undercuts even the historically lower cost Japanese bikes by a large margin, offering an even more value conscious offering in a market where prices seem to ever be increasing. And a lot of that increasing price obviously has to do with inflating the engine capacity. I mean, it's kind of crazy to think back in the 70s, a 750 would be a really big motorcycle. So this being a 625, that's still like a good sized motorcycle for that era. And this is what I think we're going to start to see more of is having these smaller engine capacity motorcycles kind of counters this ever increasing cost basis that we have on a lot of bikes. And especially with modern engineering, we can get to the, what I'll say is that 100 horsepower figure without having to go all the way up to a 12, 15, 1800 cc engine, you can still get away with it. Now, CFMoto also has a bike in the adventure bike They classify it as sort of a middleweight ADV, although it is a little bit lower on the engine capacity scale with the CFMoto 450 MT.

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This is another good option for A2 license holders as it's over a thousand pounds less expensive than equivalent Japanese models.

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It's kind of like getting a Tenere 700, at least visually, but with a little bit less power.

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So if you like that aesthetic, this is a really interesting option out there. Now, another bike, if you like that Tenere 700 style, look of the rally racer, the Moto Morini XCAPE 700 is a brand new model that has just been announced. And this will be available for just $8, 300. And this gives another really compelling mid-sized ADV offering at a price substantially below competing brands. If you look at a Tenere 700, you're, you're paying around $10, 000 or more for that bike. So this is coming in 20% basically cheaper and you're getting, yes, it's an Italian name, even though it's a Chinese manufactured motorcycle and even a Chinese owned brand at this point. But it's a pretty good bike for what it does. Moto Morini also has a bike that it's a little bit of a play on how it's spelled, but it's meant to sound like a kangaroo. So it's spelled K-A-N-G-U-R-O, kangaroo.

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So imagine the Honda CRF300 and its Rally variant. And it will be very close to what the Kanguro looks like, both in appearance and specs. It's a 34 horsepower, single cylinder with 9.8 inches of travel at either end. And this puts it right in competition with these low cost Honda models. Now, if you love Triumph's adventure bikes, but you don't love Triumph's prices, look at the QJ Motor Rhino 900.

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And this features an inline often associated with Triumph's adventure line. And this bike should put out about 120 horsepower. And with styling from a European design studio, it's a handsome looking road biased adventure tour. And it will likely be priced far below competitive brands. It's expected to be released in about mid-2026, at least in Europe.

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But we might get something offered here in the U. S. as well. I mentioned earlier that brand ZX Moto that's sort of a sister brand to Voge. And there's another bike that they have out called the 820 ADV. And this, again, looks a lot like a V-Strom with the same engine as the ZX Moto 820RR sport bike and their naked variant. And in those applications, the engine produces between 128 and 148 horsepower. While the tuning for the ADV model gives it 115 horsepower out of this inline triple at about 800 cc's. So it's a pretty decent power output for this kind of an application and gives you an opportunity to have perhaps something that's more powerful than you would get out of a V-Strom, but with similar aesthetics and certainly a lower price point. Now, as I mentioned, the Kove is really a sister brand to ZX Moto. And the ZX Moto 450 Rally looks, to my eye, almost exactly like the Kove 450 Rally. And sort of KTM Husqvarna playbook of having similar models, but just on your different brands is what they're attempting to do here. They may have some slight aesthetic variation, but it's another good option if you like that aesthetic of that rally style motorcycle.

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So we looked at some of the history of the Chinese brands that are becoming more mainstream in Western markets today. We also covered some of the exciting new models coming in 2026 that shed this utilitarian appearance and, quite frankly, low-quality history that many of the Chinese brands had, while also bringing some good-looking bikes at really affordable prices. Now, while they are smaller capacity than some other Western bikes would be, these might be just what is needed to jumpstart interest by younger riders whose wallets aren't overfilled with cash to spend $30, 000 on a new Harley. So my question for you is, what do you think of these new bikes? Would you consider buying one? Why or why not?

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Share your thoughts through the Text the Show link in the show notes, or leave a voicemail at throttle and roast dot com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening.

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I'll talk to you next week.