The bike seems fine at a cursory glance. What I wanted to comment about was this:

But here’s my two cents: Most US motorcycle riders tend to lean toward heavier, higher-displacement bikes, owing to long-distance riding and highway commuting. The W175’s output may feel underwhelming for most American riders, essentially restricting its market appeal to commuters or moped-class buyers.

That seems to me as: 1) probably correct, and 2) really devastating for what motorcycling will be in the next few decades in the USA. Already, the rate of motorcycle registrations (8.1 million in 2011, to 8.6 million in 2020) is not keeping pace with population growth (311 million in 2011, 343 million in 2020). Then add the likelihood that if younger folks are less inclined to want to drive (indicated by lower new driving license issuances), they’re also probably even less likely to want to ride a motorcycle.

On that last comparison, the link does explain some of the factors for why under-25’s might delay or never obtain a driving license, and some will apply directly to motorcycles as well: the costs, especially insurance, and a growing irrelevance of needing to go somewhere just to connect with friends, when the Internet and smartphones can do that. I personally do value seeing people face-to-face but that’s becoming less of a predominant view amongst younger folks.

And all that before we look into what makes learning to ride a motorcycle harder than learning to drive an automobile. While some riders may just have a knack for motorized two-wheeling, I would hazard that many riders learned or knew someone who rode, and that’s how the prospect of even wanting a motorcycle came into being. This is not unlike most other human endeavors: someone else is doing it, it looks fun, I wanna do it too.

But if there are fewer riders overall, no parent or distant relative that rides, fewer instances of nonfictional motorcycles depicted in movies, scaremongering stories in the news about how a motorist murders a motorcyclists and gets away with it, then I can’t really blame people for thinking that motorcycles are more like skydiving and less like everyday transport. Sadly, it seems that as an activity, motorcycles are approaching what aviation calls the death spiral, when it will only be a matter of time before it disappears from view.

Keeping the discussion germane to that original quote from the article, I think the explosion of ebikes – and good, ol fashioned acoustic bikes – has filled a large gap in demand, where people want cheap, simple, short-range mobility. It’s often quoted that of trips that Americans make, the majority are less than six miles (10 km) away. And so ebikes meet a good portion of that need, and what disadvantages they have (eg weather exposure, road hazards, motorist hazards) are compensated by being ridiculously cheaper than driving and insuring an automobile.

So that kinda leaves only the commuter or touring use-cases left for motorcyclists. I personally am bullish on a slow-but-positive-growth for public transportation in the USA, and given that costs for all motorized transportation have historically gone up over time, the difference will be that public transportation can split those costs over more people. So growing transit ridership can overcome rising costs, making it the cheaper option at some crossover point, at least in or near urban areas. In such case, the commuter scenario on a motorcycle would make less sense than it does now.

Will there be enough motorcycle enthusiasts in future to support a functioning domestic market? The winds are not in its favor.