San Mateo Progressive International Motorcycle Show

Well, it's not the best show we've ever had but certainly not the worst. The crowds were really good, the promoters did a great job, but there were show layout circumstances beyond our control that made it a little tough for customers to find us. There were three buildings at this venue and we ended up in the littlest out building which was a little hard to find and not marked very well for the night time hours.

It also got really cold here and it rained the whole weekend. I'm sure that kept forlks from riding in for the show. Even so, I think a good crowd came and enjoyed the show. It was a 4 day drive for us out here and really probably not worth the drive though it beats our inventory sitting at the shop not selling. We like to go and enjoyed the travel and met some really nice folks here.

We've decided to help make it worth our while to stay out and go to Long Beach, CA for another show. This one is supposed to be the biggest show on the tour so we're excited about it. We are going to go visit friends and leave our trailer at their place after spending Thanksgiving with them and then fly home for a week to check on the house and the shop. Then we'll fly back and pick up our trailer and go to Long Beach for the show.

We'll sure miss our mama's cooking but know we'll enjoy the time with our friends. Hopefully the Thanksgiving sacrifice will pay off big at Long Beach!

We're staying onsite in our camper and boy has it been cold! Who knew CA could be so cold..it's a damp cold too. A cold that goes to your bones even though the temps are not below freezing.

Dallas International Motorcycle Show 2011

The economy is down according to all the media and jobless reports and other reports seem to verify it. It's certainly affected the amount of vendors that are on the road and setting up at the motorcycle shows. The Dallas show while good, was at least half the size of past events. We've seen many of our vendor friends come off the road due to high gas prices and we assume lack of sales. While we've had a few down shows this year, I guess we're lucky to be holding steady. It's not like 2006/2007 when you didn't even have to try to sell yet sold everything but sales are still good and it doesn't hurt to have to work hard for what you earn as it builds your character, at least that is what mama said.

We set up this year at the Dallas Convention Center. The motorcycle factory folks were here, Honda, Harley, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki and oh yeah Ducati and Ural. BMW was a no show but they pick choose their events anyway.

These shows have gotten kind of stale but this year they have set up interactive things for customers to participate in and it seem to liven things up. There were several motorcycle seminars throughout the weekend, a fashion show, a custom bikeshow that gave away big dollars, Jason Britton was there doing his biker boys stunts on his sportbike, and there was plenty of giveaways and places to shop for all kinds of neat motorcycle stuff. Also Progressive Insurance has become the sponsor and they have put a fresh look on things.

We stayed on site in the camper and while the lows were in the high 40's it was pretty comfortable. We had a slow start Friday night but had a great Saturday which made the trip worth our while. We met some great customers this weekend and got them all geared up, (pun intended).

We were headed home but got an offer we couldn't refuse to head to the second show tour stop in San Mateo, California. Sooo, we owe, we owe, it's off to work we go :) San Mateo isn't a very big show but we have a better chance at making money there than looking at it at the shop. It's 26 hours from here to make the drive and that means over 40 hours home...that should put us home and to mama's around Thanksgiving :) No more shows till mid December from there when the show hits Seattle, Washington and Long Beach, California.