August 17–23, 2026

The dust has barely settled from Sturgis, but the American V-Twin world hasn’t exactly slowed down.

This week brought some encouraging numbers out of the Black Hills, a big announcement for the custom motorcycle industry, a little love for the Shovelhead and Ironhead crowd and another sign that Harley-Davidson’s latest course correction may be starting to get some traction.

Here’s what caught our attention this week.

Harley-Davidson Dealers Set a New Sturgis Sales Record

Whatever you may have heard about rally attendance, one thing is certain: people were buying motorcycles in the Black Hills.

Black Hills Harley-Davidson and Sturgis Harley-Davidson sold a combined 1,135 motorcycles during the 86th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, setting a new all-time sales record for the operation.

That’s especially interesting considering reports that overall rally traffic was lighter than in recent years. Fewer people coming through town but more motorcycles going out the door is worth paying attention to.

For an industry that’s spent a lot of time talking about aging riders, shrinking sales and how to bring new blood into motorcycling, 1,135 bikes changing hands during rally time is a pretty healthy reminder that riders are still willing to spend money when the bike, the experience and the timing are right.

And anybody who walked through Exit 55 during rally week knows that selling motorcycles is only part of what happens there. The place has become a full-blown V-Twin marketplace, with builders, manufacturers, aftermarket companies and riders all packed into the same piece of real estate.

That’s good for Harley-Davidson, but it’s also good for the entire American V-Twin aftermarket.

Custom Builders Are Getting a Bigger Seat at the AIMExpo Table

This may be our favorite industry announcement of the week.

AIMExpo announced that it will debut The Builders Cup at its 2027 show in Orlando, bringing a group of selected custom builders and their motorcycles directly onto one of the powersports industry’s biggest trade-show floors.

Even better, this isn’t custom motorcycles being stuck in the corner as decoration.

The Builders Cup will be fueled by Drag Specialties, with support from S and S Cycle, and the motorcycles will be displayed inside a dedicated Builders Club area where builders can mix directly with manufacturers, distributors, dealers and the rest of the industry.

The Sturgis Buffalo Chip is also getting involved with a Spirit of the Chip Award recognizing the motorcycle that best represents the freedom and individuality behind custom motorcycle culture.

We like this for a pretty simple reason: builders matter.

Long before something becomes a factory trend or winds up on a dealer’s accessory wall, somebody in a small shop somewhere is cutting, welding, machining or trying something everybody else thinks is crazy.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

But that’s how this whole thing moves forward.

Seeing the mainstream powersports industry recognize that custom builders aren’t just entertainment—but an important part of product development, style and motorcycle culture—is a step in the right direction.

AIMExpo 2027 is scheduled for March 3–5 in Orlando, Florida, just ahead of Daytona Bike Week.

We’ll be watching this one closely.

Shovelheads and Ironheads Take Center Stage in North Carolina

Some weeks it’s nice to have a story that isn’t about quarterly earnings, market share or the latest piece of technology.

Tilley Harley-Davidson in Statesville, North Carolina, announced Freedom Revival, a 1970s-themed motorcycle show being held August 29 in partnership with the Antique Motorcycle Club of America’s Blue Ridge Chapter.

And the stars of the show? Shovelheads and Ironheads.

The event will include original, restored and customized motorcycles from the era along with live music, vendors and enough ’70s atmosphere to make polyester seem like a reasonable wardrobe decision again.

We spend a lot of time in this industry asking how we’re going to preserve motorcycle history.

This is how.

You ride the motorcycles. You build them. You show them. You introduce somebody younger to one who’s never heard an Ironhead run before.

Old motorcycles don’t belong only in museums.

They belong where people can hear them.

Harley’s “Back to the Bricks” Strategy Gets Another Vote of Confidence

Here’s the business-side story worth watching.

Investment firm DA Davidson raised its price target for Harley-Davidson stock from $30 to $33 this week while maintaining a Buy rating, citing progress under Harley-Davidson’s new “Back to the Bricks” strategy.

That doesn’t mean much to the guy changing cams in his garage on Saturday morning—but what’s happening behind those numbers definitely does.

Harley’s current strategy is heavily focused on healthier dealers, better-managed inventory, motorcycles that lean back into the company’s core identity and a renewed emphasis on parts, accessories and customization.

The company reported in July that North American retail motorcycle sales were up 3 percent during the second quarter while worldwide dealer inventory was down 17 percent from the same period last year.

That’s an important combination.

Moving more motorcycles while forcing fewer unwanted motorcycles into dealerships is a much healthier equation than simply bragging about wholesale numbers.

Harley management has also been talking openly about “blank canvas” motorcycles that encourage owners to customize them.

Now that is language the custom motorcycle world understands.

There’s still a lot of road between announcing a turnaround and actually completing one, but between the latest numbers and what happened at Sturgis, there are at least some legitimate reasons to keep watching.

What We’re Watching

The most interesting theme running through this week’s news isn’t a particular motorcycle.

It’s customization and culture.

Harley is talking about blank-canvas motorcycles. AIMExpo is putting builders closer to the center of the powersports industry. Drag Specialties and S&S are backing a national builder competition. A dealership in North Carolina is celebrating 50-year-old Harleys instead of pretending anything older than five years doesn’t exist.

That’s not a bad week for the V-Twin world.

Because ultimately this industry has never survived on motorcycles alone.

It survives on the people who take them apart.

Change them. Race them. Paint them. Ride them across the country.

And occasionally ignore perfectly good engineering in the pursuit of making something cooler.

That’s the part we’ll keep an eye on.

— Cycle Source