Road Kill Diaries

Bruce Rossmeyer, the world's largest Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealer, died Thursday in a motorcycle accident in Wyoming while en route to the annual bike rally in Sturgis, SD.

Rossmeyer attempted to pass a pickup truck and camper that was turning left and struck the passenger-side door. He was not wearing a helmet or any protective gear, police said.

Rossmeyer was riding with five other bikers on his way to a meeting with a motorcycle club in Wyoming when the crash occurred.

Although he began his career as an automobile dealer, Rossmeyer had a lifelong passion for Harley-Davidsons and opened his first dealership in 1994, riding the wave of renewed interest in motorcycles.

Reports The Orlando Sentinel:

A longtime motorcycle rider, he opened a Harley-Davidson dealership in Daytona Beach, almost as a hobby.

"I thought this would be neat to mess around on weekends and have some fun," Rossmeyer said in a 2007 interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

But that 1994 opening of the Daytona dealership coincided with the dramatic jump in motorcycle sales. During the next decade, Harley-Davidsons and the whole biker culture roared into the mainstream, becoming a billion-dollar business, and Rossmeyer enjoyed the ride.

He continued to expand his Harley empire, opening dealerships in New Smyrna Beach, in Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach, as well as in Colorado, Massachusetts, Mississippi and the Graceland-themed dealership in Memphis, Tenn.

The crown jewel of his empire was the 109,000-square-foot Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach, a 150-acre resort for bikers with hotels, condominiums, restaurants and stores anchored by his big-box-size dealership, which ranks as the world’s largest Harley dealership. It opened in 2005 as Bike Week hit its peak in Daytona Beach and was attracting a half-million motorcycle riders to town.

Rossmeyer never envisioned he would become such a motorcycle magnate and credited his success to hard work, luck, family support and good timing.

He reveled in building a business that he called "Halloween for adults."

"You can dress up, put on your leathers, go act like you’re a biker and on Monday morning, go back to Wall Street," he said in a Sentinel interview.

The owner of 15 Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealerships around the country, including the mega-showroom at Destination Daytona in Florida, Rossmeyer was 66.

He will be buried in Ormond, Florida on Monday.

In response to moves by many communities to crack down on noisy motorcycle pipes by ticketing bikes with mufflers that don't have a valid EPA imprint certifying complaince with emission and noise standards, Harley-Davidson is now stampting their street-legal series of Screaming Eagle slip-on mufflers with EPA certification information.

The moves comes in an attempt to offset complaints that the company is only paying lip-service to the problem of noisy motorcycle pipes.

Harley-Davidson, we are told, is a leader in efforts to reduce the noise levels of motorcyles with loud, aftermarket pipes.

Good marketing campaign, perhaps, but one shrouded in double-talk, hypocrisy and a bad habit of looking the other way.

While Harley the company talks one thing, it's dealers continue to remove stock exhaust systems from new motorcycles and replacie those systems with aftermaket ones that produce more noise and may violate Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

When I bought my 2009 Harley Super Glide, the salesman recommended a set of Rush aftermarket slip-on mufflers for what he said would be "better performance and sound."  Based on his recommendation, I swapped out my stock mufflers for a set of Rushes with 1.75 inch baffles at the bike's 1,000-mile service.

Motorcycles manufactured for road use in the United States are required to maintain an exhaust system that meets EPA regulations and a label certifying that compliance is required on both the bike frame and the muffler. Denver used the law for a new ordinance to regulate motorcycle noise. New York City is considering a drastic enforcement of the law that levys a $1,000 fine for the first offense and a $2,500 fine and bike forfeiture for a second ticket.

Harley-Davison stopped shipping to dealers any "racing" exhaust systems that could be fitted to street bikes. However, many dealers still offer aftermarket systems that do the same thing. The company continues to look the other way when their own dealers apear to undermine the efforts of the company they represent.

Fault for the backlash of loud motorcycle pipes lies with the owners who roar through residential areas or rev their engines in national parks and other areas where quiet should be the norm. I ride the Blue Ridge Parkway a lot and the behavior of too many bikers with loud pipes is obnoxious at best.

Reports today's Wall Street Journal:

Harley-Davidson Inc.'s second-quarter earnings plunged 91% amid its planned decline in shipments as the motorcycle maker will cut 1,000 more jobs and slashed its forecast for shipments again.

The company said it would cut another 700 hourly production workers and 300 nonproduction, mostly salaried workers, as a result of the lowered shipment volume. It slashed its expectations for this year's shipments, saying it now expects to ship 212,000 to 228,000 motorcycles this year, compared to April's estimate of 264,000 to 273,000.

Harley Davidson had already cut 1,400 to 1,500 hourly jobs earlier this year. The company has about 9,300 workers.

The high-end motorcycle manufacturer, which for years couldn't make enough motorcycles to meet demand, has been curtailing production and cutting jobs during the downturn. The credit crunch wreaked havoc on its finance unit, its main source of financing for buyers. However, Harley said in May that it had secured the $1 billion it needs to fund the finance unit for the year. The company also has been working to diversify its customer base to include women and young riders.

I had wrapped up a photography project in the Mount Rogers Recreation area of Southwestern Virginia and headed towards Wytheville to pick up I-81 for the ride back home.

Normally, I don't like riding crowded Interstates on a bike but I was running late for a video shoot back in Floyd and needed to get back.

The clouds that had threatened all day opened up as I entered the Wytheville city limits so I ducked into a self-serve car wash and changed into my rain gear then turned north onto I-81. The ran dropped to a drizzle and then stopped.

But a few miles down the road, near Pulaski, the rain started again, turning into a relentless downpour that limited visibility. At 65 miles-per-hour, while passing an 18-wheeler, a spotted a short 2x4 lying in the road at a skewed angle. Braking was out of the question. So was swerving. I leaned the bike slightly to the left and missed the board by about three or four inches. Had I hit, I would have gone down and that, as they say, would have been it.

With the rain increasing, I looked for a place to turn off or at least an underpass where I could wait out the deluge.  That turned out to be a rest stop near Radford. After about 20 minutes, the rain eased and I proceeded on to Floyd.

That rest stop, however, is due to close on July 21 because of budget cuts by the Virginia Department of Transportation. Had I hit that rain two weeks from now, I would have been out of luck for a place to wait out the rain and avoid the dangers of traveling at Interstate speeds with limited visibility.