Saying goodbye to Harley Davidson

I have always stood on principle. You support causes that align with your views. You walk away from things that do not.

As I said a few weeks ago, Harley Davidson has been THE BIGGEST part of my life for 7 years. And for my husband much longer. I have spent thousands of hours and tens of thousands of miles seeing this beautiful continent from behind the handlebars of a Harley Davidson. He has logged almost double the miles I have. I have their logo tattooed on my wrist. I owned more of their clothes than I want to admit. My husband and I went on a “Harley-Moon” when we got married. Part of what brought us together was a mutual love of motorcycle riding.

But I also learned over the last 4 years that if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. Fighting against the covid vaccines changed me in a way that I will never be the same again. In a good way. I woke up to the realities of healthcare, and did a 180 degree pivot. I am a better person and a better healthcare advocate thanks to the last 4 years.

My husband and I have had many many MANY discussions about what to do about Harley. We waffled back and forth. We unbadged our bikes and stopped wearing any of their clothing. We vowed to just not advertise anything for them in hopes they would change course. It took Harley 3 weeks to issue a “statement” that had zero apology, a word salad of “we are stopping DEI”, and it felt disingenuous. Most Harley riders felt the same and decided that the “statement” wasn’t enough. The CEO must go. Thus far, HD Corporate has done NOTHING to get rid of the CEO or the board. In fact, multiple attempts have been made by media to contact the board and they have just gone silent. Emails to corporate go unanswered. They have stopped allowing replies to any of their social media posts. They are playing chicken shit and hoping this blows over. During this process, I discovered that the direction Harley has taken didn’t just suddenly happen. It has been going on for a long time. Sadly, I missed the red flags. I was involved in the healthcare fight for medical autonomy and didn’t see the company that afforded me the hobby I love was being hijacked long long ago. When the entirety of that became clear, we were left with a big decision.

Do we stay, or do we go? After much thought and contemplation, we both knew we couldn’t stay. When the corporate “statement” came out nearly a week ago, it was the final nail in the coffin. In the last month, riding my motorcycle has not even been fun. I can’t own something that no longer aligns with my values. Maybe I could have overlooked it 5 years ago. But now? After how hard I have fought to change healthcare? And fight for my friends and patients? Absolutely not. If your company doesn’t care enough to right a flailing ship, I am not going to throw you a life preserver when you keep listing further into the water. On the flip-side, we LOVE our Harley dealership. They are family to us. They have treated us so kindly, been so good to us. Honestly, leaving Harley wasn’t hard, leaving our DEALERSHIP was hard!!! But life is full of hard decisions. And this was one of the easiest yet hard decisions we have had to make.

Today, we said goodbye to Harley Davidson. We both traded our bikes in for Indian motorcycles. Who most assuredly are NOT on the go woke Equality Act list. I scoured everything I could before we made this decision. We rode our Harley’s the final time, test rode the new bikes, and I found my love of riding a motorcycle all over again. I didn’t want to park it tonight, I wanted to just keep riding.

As my mom said, seasons change. She is right. This was a biggie. But again, you stand for something or you fall for anything. Thank you Indian for making a motorcycle that fits us so perfectly, both as riders and for our personal values. And a SPECIAL thank you to our friends who have ridden Indian’s for years. When we told them we were looking at Indians, they sprang into action. They contacted their dealership, had the bikes we liked put on hold until we could go test ride, sent us referrals for discounts on clothing…….and 3 of them rode with us for the 300 mile round trip to test ride and end up buying the new bikes. We left as a tribe of 2 Harleys and 2 Indians……and returned home a tribe of 4 Indians. They all made this day so special, those that rode with us today, and those who live across the country who were kept updated by photos and texts. Bittersweet. Necessary. And most importantly, a confident and peaceful decision. ♥️