Ducati North America's CEO Michael Lock gave his views on Harley-Davidson's bombshell decision to shut down the Buell Motor Company and sell MV Agusta.

Lock spoke this afternoon via cell phone from Mexico City.

"It's an interesting day in the bike business, isn't it?" Lock asked.

"Honestly, I'm pretty sad to see Buell fold. They weren't really a competitor to Ducati, but they were trying to run the line of a small engineering company. Sad to see that Harley has pulled the plug, because Buell enriched the choices. Everybody knows that Buell struggled in the last few years, volume stagnated and so on. But they had started to branch out, and had stuck their branch in the water in racing, muddied it up. I'm glad that they did because that class would have been little without the Buell controversy."

Lock, formerly the head at Triumph USA and a staffer at American Honda, found the news that Harley would sell MV much more profound than the closing of Buell.

"They made the decision to sell MV within a year of buying it. I feel this is much more significant than them shutting down Buell. MV was to be their great, white shining hope in Europe, the future of Harley and a way to entice sport bike riders in Europe into Harley dealers and so on."

"To put it on the market within a year of buying it (MV) ... it beggars belief really," Lock said.