Harley-Davidson to teach a town to ride

Harley-Davidson revealed plans to encourage 2 million people over the next decade to ride motorcycles – and their first step is to try to teach a whole town how to ride. Harley is rolling into the appropriately named Ryder, North Dakota, to deliver a two day motorcycle training programme to the town’s 50 eligible residents.

The local Magic City Harley-Davidson delership, of Minot, North Dakota, will roll into town bringing bikes, instructors, barbecue grills, and a few other attractions too. And for the whole summer, the town is also going to change its name to ‘Rider’. Apart from the potential fun to be had with the town’s name, the company also chose Ryder due to the fact it has a water tower that looks almost identical to the one at the H-D headquarters in Milwaukee – and they’ve painted the Harley-Davidson logo on its side, to make the connection even clearer.

Harley is offering a two-day experience that sees future riders learning the basic skills of operating a bike in a closed environment. There won’t be any public road riding, and riders from Ryder will also have to bring their own safety gear.

The company will also provide a batch of new Street 500 models as training vehicles. The model was introduced to the range a couple of years ago as a beginner/urban bike, offering a more relaxed position, better handling and manageable power from a water-cooled 500cc V-twin engine