Missing the Point, Harley Style

Hardly's newest ad, "No Cages, Free Yourself," demonstrates the Company's legendary ability to completely miss the point and piss off much of the public at the same time. Hell, lots of motorcyclists call Hardly's hippobike "cages" because of their legendary inability to travel anywhere the road isn't cut and planed perfectly flat and straight. So, the following is funny and clueless:


I'm all for convincing cagers to abandon their gas-guzzling, road-hogging, resource-abusing single-occupant rolling houses (or cages, if you like). However, depicting peds (a means of transportation that we all use) and the 1.7-4.5 million commuting cyclists in cages is silly, even by Hardly's deranged standards.

When I'm touring the country's backroads, the only people I'm even a little bit jealous of are the bicyclists. As much as my motorcycle makes me feel like I'm "out in it," I know the bicyclists are that much more in the world around them. Hikers are even more free of society's restrictions and technology's crutches.

The fact that Hardly's uncaged motorcyclist is the noisiest vehicle in an already noisy environment didn't seem to register in the Hardly marketing department's little mind. Obviously, the Hardly rider should be in an acoustically isolated box, which wouldn't be a huge improvement from the screeching of the cages. An electric bike company ought to reshoot this video, including the Hardly, all wrapped in soundproof plexi boxes showing how the would would be improved with noiseless vehicles.