BBR Knocks Itself Off
I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Most of us here at BBR have young kids (or nieces and nephews) that are at the perfect age to really enjoy Christmas and the holidays. We have a big Christmas party every year for the employees, venders, and family. We have an employee smorgasbord with everyone's favorite food and catch up with what's gone on all year. Some years we rent an indoor riding facility and pound each other into the ground in celebration of Christmas. Other years, we have had Moto Santa ride in and hand out motorcycle toys to all the kids. Anyways, Christmas is a fun time of year at BBR. I hope it is for you too.
Rumors have circulated for several years that BBR is working on its own production motorcycle. Certainly, we have built thousands of motorcycles over the years. But, those have always been custom bikes built to the whims of a particular customer. We’re finally ready to start talking about it. The goal is to build an affordable BBR production bike. A bike that is manufactured in large quantities to keep the price down, but is worthy of the BBR name. This would be a bike our customers and dealers can be proud of, and not make excuses for! We have been all over the planet in our quest to "do it right". Trust me; you can do it wrong, and others have proven that. In many ways, we have become the complaint center for "knock-off bikes". Want to know what’s wrong with brand “X” knock-off bike? Just ask our sales guys. The disgruntled customers call us to complain and hope we’ll fix it for them. For example, when one popular brand of knock-off started breaking swingarms, we had dozens of people call us hoping we’d make a better swingarm that wouldn’t break!
There is not a single knock off bike out there that hasn’t shown up on our loading dock (some with BBR stickers on them) with the manufacturer begging us to sell them. We have flown to the factories and checked them out (you probably saw the pictures on the internet forums). All it would take is a single phone call and we could have any number of Chinese bikes with our name on it, delivered to our front door. That would be easy, especially when our dealers and customers are demanding an affordable bike. Actually, who cares where it's made? We'd go to China in a minute if we thought they could build and assemble a whole bike for us to our standards and yours. Maybe someday this will be a good option. But after riding every knock-off bike out there (a lot more than I wanted to) we found this still isn't the best option. Don't get me wrong, for $3,000 some of these bikes aren't bad. Especially when there is no other option; we feel your pain and hear you. But in the long run, selling a disposable bike wouldn’t work out for any of us. The motorcycle world (and everybody that has supported us over the years) is counting on us to do this right. Look how many of the knock-off companies have come and gone. If you could pay a little more and have it done right the first time, with a friendly knowledgeable staff backing it up, with every part in stock, with the best riders in the world doing the testing,... that would be the dream wouldn’t it? Are we still going to build one-off, unlimited budget, hand-carved from a block of aluminum bikes? Of course! That's who we are, and that is what our customers expect from us. The only difference is now, customers can have an affordable starting point if they want,...much like Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, etc. do with their race bikes. They have a production bike that can be modified by their race team or by their customers into a full factory works bike over time.
The bike is done, but we're still shooting photos and wrapping up the boring paperwork and legal matters that go with it. I can't tell you everything about the bike right now (the rest of the BBR guys would kill me), but I can leak a few things 'till it pops up on our web site in the next few days. The first and the most important thing is the bike was 100% designed, engineered, and tested at BBR. We didn’t pick a single existing part out of a book. We developed and tested every part with the same designers and test riders that we’ve used on our BBR USA race team bikes. We know how to build great competition motorcycles and no corner was cut to develop this bike. Second, the production bike is going to be completely assembled at our facility right here in the U.S. This lets us insure several things. Since we are going to be assembling parts that are manufactured for us by our partners from around the world, we can individually inspect every part before it goes on your bike. Another reason for assembling the production bike here is we are not forced to rely on one factory or one country to build an entire bike. Basically, we are not putting all of our eggs in one basket. We are having parts made in Italy, Japan, Taiwan, China, and of course the U.S. All are venders we have used in the past we know we can trust to do it right! Finally, the last thing I can tell you is that every part on our bike will interchange with our current products. No goofy spokes, cheap bolts, odd-sized foot pegs, or incorrect dimensions. We’ll have replacement parts in stock the day these bikes start shipping. The bike will be on display at the Indy trade show and at Mini Moto, so swing by and check it out. We should have pictures on our website in the next couple of days so hang on! I think you will be as excited as we are! Here's a sneak peek at the bike:
Blast from the Past
This week’s blast from the past comes from Mini Moto Magazine and our friends that started it; Tim, Melinda, and Cindy Clark. Timmy Wiegand is on the cover in route to one of his many Langtown wins. This was one of the last races ever held at Langtown. All good things must come to an end but sometimes not a happy end. There are so many great stories, races, and bikes that came out of Langtown over the years and most of them have been told in the media or right here. None of them are exaggerations. This was a truly great race.
Bob and Linda Langin put the race on for twenty consecutive years putting up with egos, the media, and the neighbors'. I can't believe they got away with it for so long! Anyone who has ever put on a race knows how hard it is. Try putting one on at your house (I'm sure your wife will go for it…)! Anyway, the county came in with their red tape, wet land, spotted turtle, and (insert global buzz-word-of-the-day here) and closed down the single most fun race in America!
The thing I remember most about the last Langtown wasn’t the race itself, but the phone call I got the day after. It was from a guy who said his dream was to meet Bob Langin and see his track and wondered if I had his phone number. I told him I couldn’t give it out, but I was happy to call Bob and tell him to call this guy back. The guy seemed a little irritated so I asked him what kind of bikes he had and he really couldn’t name any. It didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t talking to a motorcycle guy. I told him I would give Bob a ring and pass along his phone number. I called Bob the next day and told him about the guy but Bob said he had already shown up on his door step. He was from one of the knock-off bike companies and wanted to use the Langtown name on one of his piles of crap. Bob, being the nice guy he is, sent him nicely on his way. I broke the news to Bob that he was going to have to trademark the Langtown name or it would be whored out. $5000 later and a stack of paperwork, that would make any government official proud, Bob owned his own name.
When we showed up at the Indy Trade Show the next year, the bike was there in all its glory. Displayed in Chinese row, there was the BBR 150 Langtown replica complete with its red, white and blue graphics. Luckily for Bob, the bike didn’t say Langtown on it but it did have prism “BBE” graphics with red checks. Of course, these guys are fooling no one and any publicity is good publicity. That said, I guess we got plenty that year! The bike was really bad (even by Chinese knock-off standards). I’m sure that no one had ever actually ridden it. I doubt it would start and run let alone move under its own power. It was a bad way for Langtown to end, but not even Big Brother or a Chinese knock-off bike can take away from all of the great memories of racing in Bob’s back yard.
Rumors have circulated for several years that BBR is working on its own production motorcycle. Certainly, we have built thousands of motorcycles over the years. But, those have always been custom bikes built to the whims of a particular customer. We’re finally ready to start talking about it. The goal is to build an affordable BBR production bike. A bike that is manufactured in large quantities to keep the price down, but is worthy of the BBR name. This would be a bike our customers and dealers can be proud of, and not make excuses for! We have been all over the planet in our quest to "do it right". Trust me; you can do it wrong, and others have proven that. In many ways, we have become the complaint center for "knock-off bikes". Want to know what’s wrong with brand “X” knock-off bike? Just ask our sales guys. The disgruntled customers call us to complain and hope we’ll fix it for them. For example, when one popular brand of knock-off started breaking swingarms, we had dozens of people call us hoping we’d make a better swingarm that wouldn’t break!
There is not a single knock off bike out there that hasn’t shown up on our loading dock (some with BBR stickers on them) with the manufacturer begging us to sell them. We have flown to the factories and checked them out (you probably saw the pictures on the internet forums). All it would take is a single phone call and we could have any number of Chinese bikes with our name on it, delivered to our front door. That would be easy, especially when our dealers and customers are demanding an affordable bike. Actually, who cares where it's made? We'd go to China in a minute if we thought they could build and assemble a whole bike for us to our standards and yours. Maybe someday this will be a good option. But after riding every knock-off bike out there (a lot more than I wanted to) we found this still isn't the best option. Don't get me wrong, for $3,000 some of these bikes aren't bad. Especially when there is no other option; we feel your pain and hear you. But in the long run, selling a disposable bike wouldn’t work out for any of us. The motorcycle world (and everybody that has supported us over the years) is counting on us to do this right. Look how many of the knock-off companies have come and gone. If you could pay a little more and have it done right the first time, with a friendly knowledgeable staff backing it up, with every part in stock, with the best riders in the world doing the testing,... that would be the dream wouldn’t it? Are we still going to build one-off, unlimited budget, hand-carved from a block of aluminum bikes? Of course! That's who we are, and that is what our customers expect from us. The only difference is now, customers can have an affordable starting point if they want,...much like Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, etc. do with their race bikes. They have a production bike that can be modified by their race team or by their customers into a full factory works bike over time.
The bike is done, but we're still shooting photos and wrapping up the boring paperwork and legal matters that go with it. I can't tell you everything about the bike right now (the rest of the BBR guys would kill me), but I can leak a few things 'till it pops up on our web site in the next few days. The first and the most important thing is the bike was 100% designed, engineered, and tested at BBR. We didn’t pick a single existing part out of a book. We developed and tested every part with the same designers and test riders that we’ve used on our BBR USA race team bikes. We know how to build great competition motorcycles and no corner was cut to develop this bike. Second, the production bike is going to be completely assembled at our facility right here in the U.S. This lets us insure several things. Since we are going to be assembling parts that are manufactured for us by our partners from around the world, we can individually inspect every part before it goes on your bike. Another reason for assembling the production bike here is we are not forced to rely on one factory or one country to build an entire bike. Basically, we are not putting all of our eggs in one basket. We are having parts made in Italy, Japan, Taiwan, China, and of course the U.S. All are venders we have used in the past we know we can trust to do it right! Finally, the last thing I can tell you is that every part on our bike will interchange with our current products. No goofy spokes, cheap bolts, odd-sized foot pegs, or incorrect dimensions. We’ll have replacement parts in stock the day these bikes start shipping. The bike will be on display at the Indy trade show and at Mini Moto, so swing by and check it out. We should have pictures on our website in the next couple of days so hang on! I think you will be as excited as we are! Here's a sneak peek at the bike:
Blast from the Past
This week’s blast from the past comes from Mini Moto Magazine and our friends that started it; Tim, Melinda, and Cindy Clark. Timmy Wiegand is on the cover in route to one of his many Langtown wins. This was one of the last races ever held at Langtown. All good things must come to an end but sometimes not a happy end. There are so many great stories, races, and bikes that came out of Langtown over the years and most of them have been told in the media or right here. None of them are exaggerations. This was a truly great race.
Bob and Linda Langin put the race on for twenty consecutive years putting up with egos, the media, and the neighbors'. I can't believe they got away with it for so long! Anyone who has ever put on a race knows how hard it is. Try putting one on at your house (I'm sure your wife will go for it…)! Anyway, the county came in with their red tape, wet land, spotted turtle, and (insert global buzz-word-of-the-day here) and closed down the single most fun race in America!
The thing I remember most about the last Langtown wasn’t the race itself, but the phone call I got the day after. It was from a guy who said his dream was to meet Bob Langin and see his track and wondered if I had his phone number. I told him I couldn’t give it out, but I was happy to call Bob and tell him to call this guy back. The guy seemed a little irritated so I asked him what kind of bikes he had and he really couldn’t name any. It didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t talking to a motorcycle guy. I told him I would give Bob a ring and pass along his phone number. I called Bob the next day and told him about the guy but Bob said he had already shown up on his door step. He was from one of the knock-off bike companies and wanted to use the Langtown name on one of his piles of crap. Bob, being the nice guy he is, sent him nicely on his way. I broke the news to Bob that he was going to have to trademark the Langtown name or it would be whored out. $5000 later and a stack of paperwork, that would make any government official proud, Bob owned his own name.
When we showed up at the Indy Trade Show the next year, the bike was there in all its glory. Displayed in Chinese row, there was the BBR 150 Langtown replica complete with its red, white and blue graphics. Luckily for Bob, the bike didn’t say Langtown on it but it did have prism “BBE” graphics with red checks. Of course, these guys are fooling no one and any publicity is good publicity. That said, I guess we got plenty that year! The bike was really bad (even by Chinese knock-off standards). I’m sure that no one had ever actually ridden it. I doubt it would start and run let alone move under its own power. It was a bad way for Langtown to end, but not even Big Brother or a Chinese knock-off bike can take away from all of the great memories of racing in Bob’s back yard.
posted by DuaneBrown at
3:09 PM
