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Yamaha MotoGP bike front brake. |
In all candor, the show wasn't great, most of it was booths from the big bike companies, a hand full of interesting customs, a few vintage Japanese bikes that show up at every event here, and an assortment of vendors hawking products in which no one seemed too interested.
Which comes first, a great show or good attendance? I'm thinking the show needs to up it's game a lot, including in promotion, if they expect great attendance. I had reasonable fun at the show but there is lots of room for improvement.
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Yamaha MotoGP racer |
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Yamaha Bolt custom scrambler by Hageman Motorcycles |
Yamaha generally had an interesting booth with some custom bikes created from their Bolt model. The Bolt itself did zilch for me, to me it was another plastic copy of a Sportster. The custom bikes looked nice, if impractical, since the Bolt has a belt drive and that's not a great thing on a dirt bike.
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A Kawasaki for the ladies |
Speaking of double vision, Ducati had a nice booth. I think there were motorcycles in it somewhere.
And finally...
When have adventure bikes gotten too big? I'd say when you need a winch on one.
Other stuff: Harley had their new 500cc entry level bike on display. I sat on it, it seemed nice but pretty much looks like a Honda Shadow. As my friend Brent pointed out "If everyone can copy Harley year after year I guess it's okay if Harley copies them once." Regardless, I think the bike will be a hit with entry level women riders in this country and huge overseas where regulations and high prices force riders onto smaller displacement machines. Harley seems to be doing a fine job of catering to the ladies, they even had a young woman their booth demonstrating how to pick up a dropped bike and she'd pull a woman from the audience to do it to show how it's about technique, not strength. I think that's better marketing than skull shirts and loud pipes.
A few more pictures here on Flickr
4 comments:
Doug:
Our recent Mot
orcycle show was probably too crowded. Hard to see everything as too many people are in your way. They usually give away free bikes (draws) and because we are the largest city in Canada west of the Mississipi we usually get a lot of manufacturers.
. . . but I liked your eye candy. The ones in RED . . .
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
Shows can be hit or miss even between years. We've attended the Seattle one the last few years, but I don't think we are going next month.
You can always count on the Ducati booth having an abundance of gorgeously smooth high maintenance plastic body work. Wink wink. chortle, cough.
Can't figure out why someone would put crystals on a bike, but then if you have too much money, why not.
That Yamaha Bolt looks like a good machine for ripping over the Moroccan desert, one spring!
Looks like a much better show than this past weekend's show in Ottawa - Ducati didn't even bother to send the gals to that one!
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