Hasta la Vista HoCo Harley

In May of 2004, Harley Davidson of Maryland celebrated the grand opening of their new location in the Troy Hill Commerce Center in Elkridge. According to this story by Liz F. Kay in The Sun the festivities included “a parade of motorcycles, fire engines and public officials in SUVs celebrated the dealership's reopening - a symbol of the transformation that county officials hope will continue along U.S. 1”

“With County Executive James N. Robey adorned in an orange and black leather jacket for his remarks - and Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" blasting from stereo speakers - the store opened to great fanfare in the Troy Hill Commerce Center, just north of Route 100.”

Those wild days are now over.  This week I received a mailer from my buddy Rob Freedman informing me that the property is for sale. According to this story by Frank Hazzard in Elkridge Patch the motorcycle dealership, “will close permanently on Feb. 28.”

“The business is closing, in part, due to the down economy,” said Tina Ice, 66, who has owned the Elkridge dealership for 20 years.”

Meanwhile, across town in Annapolis Junction, Bob Henig a BMW motorcycle dealer holds his own. Bob told Frank he’d been prudent.

“We had plans in January of ’09 to double the size of  [Bob's BMW] and triple the parking, but we put that on hold when we saw what was coming in terms of the economy. Good decision."

I was never much attracted to motorcycles. They just didn’t look like that much fun to me, which is probably a good thing.