OLD BLASTARD: Best deals may be now

Look, there's nothing scientific about this.

I didn't go to school to learn business. I don't have an MBA or Ph.d or TLC or BFF or even a ROFLMAO. But I do BS a lot and I got ears and a little mass built up between them and I think what I'm hearing is true: The price run on left-over bikes is pretty much dying out.

In informal chats with various and sundry dealers of things motorcycle, of different brands and in different states, the same thing comes up.

Sales are good because people are buying up languishing inventory that has rebates and price incentives on it.

Factories will soon be dropping the price incentives.

Factories planned to decrease the volume of production.

The earthquake/tidal wave in Japan shut down factories and helped limit supply.

"I think we'll see the factories cut back production and inventory and raise prices," said one dealer in Virginia. "They took a pretty big hit these past two years because of the economy and they are going to play it safe."

Motorcycle sales have been hit hard the past two years in almost every state in which I've chatted with dealers and that would be, well, several. All said the same thing, that people were willing to buy but banks weren't willing to loan. The slow sales convinced Suzuki to halt shipping of 2010 models to the U.S. until the pipeline could get declogged of inventory. That led to cash incentives on bikes often already discounted by dealers.

New bikes are likely to carry higher price tags now, even those models that have long been in production. And those 2008 and 2009 models are likely to be long gone.

"The deals aren't going to be as good because the inventory will be down," said another dealer. "A lot of the incentives that have been running for a couple of months will expire in April or soon."

Dealers predict that will lead to higher MSRPs, higher dealer prices to reflect the markup and an increase in the value of used bikes as new bikes rise in cost.

"Hopefully the economy will be back on track," said another. "That would be the best thing for sales."