What's New in the Parts Department?
Black Friday is Almost Here!   

Save the dates : November 25^th and November 26^th!

Day after Thanksgiving Sale - Save Big in the Parts Department - Get your holiday shopping done early for all of the motorcyclists in your life (or get yourself a little something!). We'll have all kinds of parts and accessories on sale, including some items we've never discounted before (!), just in time for the holidays. Get ready to save 10% - 50% or more! Just like last year, we'll have signs scattered throughout the store indicating exactly what we're clearing out. You won't want to miss it!

Thanks for coming to the Parts Swap - As always, you made it a huge success. We love deals as much as you do and there were plenty to be had at this year's fall Parts and Apparel Swap. Each year the event gets just a bit bigger, and as we continue to expand, we hope to make it easier than ever to find deals by streamlining our checkout process, having plenty of cashiers on hand and expanding the floor space to help alleviate the congestion during the first few hours of the event. Our resources and space restrictions are always a challenge with events this big, and we always welcome your feedback and ideas on how to make this event better for all of you. Thanks again!

Gearswap - Trade-in program - Remember, those of you who have gear that didn't sell in the Parts Swap can always use it for partial trade-in on new products!  Have a used jacket that needs updating? Perhaps a set of luggage for a bike you no longer have? Bring it by the shop and we'll give you a trade-in value (of course it needs to be in decent, usable condition). Give us a call or stop by for details and use Gearswap to get a break on the accessories you've always wanted! (not applicable for most sale items).  

Schuberth Helmets - more stock than ever and a new color - Anthracite Grey!!! - Schuberth helmets are now (finally) in better supply, so if you've been thinking about upgrading to (or just trying on) the lightest, quietest, most talked about modular helmet, now is the time! Plus, it now comes in a beautiful gloss Anthracite Grey. The holidays are coming...you know. Perhaps your old helmet is worth something?

Rev'it! Rain Gear - We'll be receiving brand new rain gear (in Hi-Viz!) from Rev'it! within the next few weeks! Included will be the all new one piece rain suit, the Pacific H2O, the Nitric H2O and Cyclone H2O rain jackets, as well as the Acid pants.   This new rain gear packs down small and should be an immediate hit. We're hoping to see it in our store sometime in the first week or 2 of November.

Hi-Viz Safety Vests - Need more visibility? You might want to consider a new Hi-Viz military spec vest by First Gear or Ogio. Visibility from here on out gets bad in the Northwest, and we believe any thing you can do to increase your visibility can only help. Now in stock.

Tire Repair - Introducing the Stop-&-Go Tubeless Puncture Pilot. This kit has EVERYTHING YOU NEED to plug a tubeless tire on the go, including am amazing compact air pump, all in a compact case! The tried and true "mushroom" plugs are one of our favorite ways to fix a flat and Stop-&-Go's latest offering includes plenty of them. It also includes their exclusive plugging tool, rasp, cigarette power adapter, extension, inflatable adapters, and the SAE battery harness.

K1600GT/GTL Accessories - More and more accessories continue to trickle in (BMW thanks everyone for their patience!) Someone on your list might have a new "6 Series" and could use some inner luggage bags or a GPS, right? Or is a high-performance exhaust system more their "tune"? Whatever's on their (or your!) K1600 wish list, give us a call or stop by and we'll get you the add-ons you need!

We'll see you on the 25th!

A Message From Our Owners

Big Plans for Ride West BMW 

This happens to us every year.  Our new motorcycle inventory is finally filling up the showroom and we have product to sell---in November, just as our sales begin to dive into the winter months.  Those of you who have been in the showroom since the middle of the summer know that our inventory of new BMW motorcycles has been very light.  We normally like to keep sixty to eighty new units on hand so that we have all colors available in all models of the brand.  And it is normal that as the new model year is about to be introduced (usually in August-September) BMW corporate and the dealerships like to sell out the expiring model year.  But this year it has been particularly difficult for us to maintain a sufficient inventory level.  There are several reasons for this.

First, this particular BMW administration is very cognizant of nationwide inventory levels and as each year passes they become more adept at running out the current model year for the incoming product.  In 2010 BMW sold about 10,000 units in the US and with the downward trajectory of the economy they projected the same number for 2011.  And, of course, a couple of new models were introduced in early 2011, the K1600 GT and GTL.  They projected 1500 of these units being sold, so the existing base models were expected to have a reduction in sales.  Well, that did not happen, at least to many of the larger dealers, which means that we had to scramble to get units to sell.  Our sales staff was busy for several months calling all around the country trying to get bikes from other dealers.  As you can imagine, most of the time this goes over like a lead balloon, since everyone needs bikes to sell.  But occasionally we would get lucky with a dealer that had a bike in inventory too long, or might be experiencing a geographical problem (like the fires in Texas), or perhaps a dealer that was going out of business.  The end result is that we could have sold more units had they been available, but we did pretty well under the circumstances. 

Secondly, BMW in Germany has their own issues.  They shut down the factory in mid-summer for one month to retool for the new models.  Everybody goes on vacation.  So we are left with no bikes in the "pipeline"; with no new stock coming we have to rely on the bikes we are carrying in inventory.  And as mentioned earlier, sales of the base models were stronger than expected so we ran out of units to sell and had to rely on the few bikes we were able to pick up from other dealers.  Additionally, BMW in Germany treats each country they provide bikes to like a separate customer.  Each country has to negotiate the number of units and the pricing of those units for budgeting purposes.  And those numbers are fairly well etched in stone.  If a country finds that demand is exceeding projections, like it did in the US this year, there is not much that can be done.  The factory has designed their production models based on the budgeted numbers and can not easily change it to accommodate one particular customer (country). 

And so we suffered for sales this summer.  And now with winter coming on we have enough new motorcycles to last well in to the Spring.  Maybe we ought to buy a dealership in Arizona so we would always have a strong season at any time of the year.  Then we could just transfer the inventory, and personnel, to the store experiencing the strong season.  Not a bad idea--if we were only 20 or 30 years younger.

Ann and Keith Thye

ADV Rider -  Sound Rider -  GlobeRiders -  TourUSA