| culcune |
10-10-2014 10:33 PM |
Are you guys going to bring in the police bikes, CSCDude? Johnny Pag had a niche market with their 250cc police bikes. They were used by departments to save $ on fuel, but obviously not for speed traps and chase duties, but rather for quieter, lower profile bikes around suburban housing developments and such. I think these would make more sense, however, since they are technically enduros meaning they can ride off curbs chasing drug dealers and such. Or for patrolling in areas like the foothills where there are dirt roads.
Here in Yuma, we have the full-bore Harley police bikes, and of course the riders are well trained, but they seem like overkill riding along the parade routes during our several parades we have. Our department uses UTVs to patrol the several parks located along the river, but these would be more maneuverable transitioning from a dirt trail to the paved parking lot. I could imagine the possibilities are endless for small police departments.
Also, on another note, years ago, when Cobrasales were distributing TGB scooters, a few of the company employees/owners rode a small group of the 150cc delivery scooters from New York to L.A. with no issues, keeping a daily blog. All made it with no problems if I remember. I know they were making a point that Taiwanese scooters have quality built in to them like Japanese, but I do believe a better point would have been to supply the same scooters to a busy New York pizzeria for a few months of daily deliveries to show how much more efficient they were than cars.
However, your bikes, even being 'adventure' tourers, would make more sense doing the same thing on highways and freeways. There are many people on Horizonsunlimited looking for bikes when they land in New York, or L.A., and want to ride around the US, before heading south or north. Even without going off-road (although it probably couldn't hurt to find long stretches of dirt roads like those I used to drive my Buick on when I lived and worked on the Navajo Nation 'rez'), it would show this niche market, as well as general buyers, how stout these bikes are.
If there are distributors in Mexico, Central and South America, it couldn't hurt to find out who they are, and offer your bikes as budget alternatives to the big money bikes to foreigners starting their months long motorcycle adventure in the US--not only will they be road proven here, the buyers would have some peace of mind when they turned south. With the ease of titling and plating a bike here in AZ, believe me, I have been thinking about how to fill this niche market with your bikes here on the border (one of the concerns of riding bikes through Mexico, and points south is having a bike registered and titled in the rider's name which is pretty much on the spot here in AZ, while more difficult in Calif.)--you will be selling to dealers, right?
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