Maggie Valley, North Carolina Motorcycle Mama Show

We just got back from Maggie Valley at the Motorcycle Mama women's ride in. There weren't that many participants but for the first time it really wasn't expected. For $45 you could go on two or three guided rides, enjoy a dinner buffet and banquet, watch a fashion show, and just meet up with other women who ride. It was low key but fun.

GearUpHelmets.com didn't set up for this event. As we are woman owned, we thought we'd go and just enjoy the rally as participants and as women riders. Me and Dee pulled our our VStrom and BMW respectively, and took off to North Carolina. It was a great ride up into the mountains and the weather was just perfect. We pulled into the Maggie Valley Resort and saw quite a few bikes and a good sized vendor area. For a minute, I wish we would have set up...only for a minute though. There was so much good riding in front of us that I was glad for once we weren't stuck selling while everyone else got to enjoy the event and the rides.

We visited Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum which was awesome. If any of you ever travel that a way, you must stop to see this place. If you've been riding for years or a part of the business for years, your heart strings will be tugged all day. There were old motorcycles, great old pictures of racers and riders, a women's section of art and pictures, authentic motor clothes from back in the day, and so much more...I saw an old cash register that my dad had in his motorcycle shop from back in the 60's....it was truly something to see and it brought back plenty of memories.

From there, we made a visit to Folk Moot in Waynesville, North Carolina. This is an International Event of sorts. People and places come from all over the world and share their cultures and customs with the folks in North Carolina. While we missed much of the entertainment, we got to see quite a few folks in their native clothes and saw a ton of shoppes and booths selling items with an international flavor. It was a really fun time and I'd recommend it to anyone who may be in the area during this time.

The event hosted a ride to Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina and to Hot Springs...we didn't get to make them but we heard they were really good rides to go on. Mt. Mitchell is supposed to be the highest point in North Carolina and I'm not sure what Hot Springs's lure was but I'm sure it was something special.

We left the event on Saturday afternoon and headed to Pigeon Forge, TN as we wanted to see Craft Days at Dollywood. We arrived too late Saturday night and it was raining when we got up Sunday so we'll have to catch it the next time.

Next show is the Biker RoundUp in Atlanta, Georgia at the Atlanta Motorspeedway this next weekend. We've never been but excited about going. We'll see how it goes and post the details when we get back.

GearUpHelmets.com at Carlisle Bikefest July 17-19

You would have to see it to believe all the motorcycles that showed up to the Carlisle Bikefest here in Carlisle, PA. The fairgrounds were packed full of parked bikes while riders enjoyed the motorcycle rodeo, the MX jumpers, Biker Billy, all the bands, and shopping at the over 100 motorcycle vendors set up at the show.

New that Harley Davidson had just laid off 1200 more folks closeby here at York, PA on top of the earlier in the year layoffs, had us worried about sales. And while we did run into a few of these folks, it didn't seem to effect buyers all that much. We were down some but considering we came off a big spike year last year, it's fully understandable.

Carlisle Bikefest is an all bike rally and has more entertainment at one venue than most of the shows we attend each year. It's family oriented, they give away new motorcycles and trailer, and the organization of the entire event is outstanding. If you ever have the chance you should go.

We had our www.gearuphelmets.com sign up but due to rain and storms forecast we had to take it down...we gave out plenty of business cards though and hope we'll see some folks dropping into our webstore after the fact. We sold quite a few Scorpion EXO 100's and VEGA Summit II's and NT200's...and surprisingly enough, we sold alot of the VEGA Merit Mesh Jackets. VEGA and Scorpion both offer products direct from the factory which cuts out about 40% markup from having a distributor. I think this helps the average rider to afford alot of riding gear they may not necessarily been able to afford.

It's Sunday and the last day of the show. We're gonna help all the folks we can and then pack up and head to Tennessee. We have the Maggie Valley Women's Sportbike show coming up as well as the Virginia BMW District rally this weekend. After that we are off to Atlanta Motorspeedway for the 2009 Biker Roundup.