We’re living in an interesting era. Given this is a light-hearted moto nerd publication, we are particularly fascinated with what economists coined as the “Great Wealth Transfer”. This is the phenomenon of over $100 trillion in assets passing from the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers to the younger generations (mainly to Gen X and Millennials).
We’re also living in an era of social media, a myriad of platforms is available, catering to different needs. If you had to draw a Venn diagram of transferor and transferee generations’ and their social media platform of choice you will most certainly find Facebook as the common ground. Gen Z is far past and too cool for FB, may only have one as a result of Meta acquiring Instagram, and Gen Alpha is busy doing goofy TikTok dances in their parents’ kitchen.
Facebook created one of the most comprehensive P2P marketplaces, but then completely fumbled the ball on monetizing it. So, you can be connected with goods and services free of charge with an absolute beast of an algorithm learning what ticks your boxes and making absolutely solid rabbit-hole-inducing recommendations that can keep a grown man (or woman) trapped in mental math and mental garage and parking space logistics for hours. This huge slice of the “wealth exchange” x “social media preference” Venn diagram is where CMCs economic interests lie. Drooling over and saving ads and sharing them in the group in hopes that someone is going to be the voice of reason and help you keep your restraint is a regular occurrence. Some of us in the group are completely hopeless as to ever recover from continuously browsing, while others in the group falsely claim to be the voice of reason while saying “I can go halvsies” on every idiotic machine that comes up. Let you guess who belongs in which category from CMC core.
There are a lot of cool things that the outgoing generations or their heirs are looking to offload while on the receiving end Gen X and Millennials who are reminiscent of the simplicity of mechanical design and beauty are actively browsing with some hard-earned disposable income. Many of us have been endangered by a crazy father, or off the chains uncle or relative giving us an unauthorized ride on something mechanical that smells of gasoline and makes the noise of good times. We’re all looking to find that connection back to these simple times. The cool machines you can get your hands on for peanuts are nostalgia covered in rust, skill preservation and quality time with your young ones disguised as restoration projects. They are a good story brewing with your friends, a creative outlet and escape from the never-ending grind of modern society.
Imagine telling someone 30 years ago that a car or motorcycle can’t be produced because of worldwide microchip shortage! The reality of today’s advanced machines is that they are better than ever. We do enjoy our modern motorcycles at CMC, but with each new generation of bikes there’s a little bit of the mechanical soul that dies forever. Enter Facebook Marketplace! The cars and bikes that covered your walls in the 80s and 90s, from the long-gone era of printed auto and moto magazines, are all for sale by the older generation. No commission, personal connection, the excitement of meeting up with a stranger, doing the song and dance of haggling over the price and doing the deal is all at your fingertips. This is where the interesting part of the “Great Wealth Transfer” is happening today, one 2-for-1 beat up 80’s dirt bike at a time.
As with most of the posts on CMC they’re event driven when something happens or we do something that requires reflection. In this case, we’re happy to cue you in on our upcoming project where we made our 2-for-1 80’s dirt bike dreams a reality so that we have something more appropriate and less sensitive to throw around the NE BDR and the new ADX BDR. You should follow along as we plan to share in some form the journey of getting our “new-to-us” bikes on the backroads and roads of Upstate NY.
