Catching up...

I'm sorry I haven't been able to post this past week, or so. I won't make excuses except to say I have been very busy. Soooooo, hang in there with me. I should be back posting by the weekend. Thanks for your patience. 

"I Hope My Judgements Have Been Vindicated..." Part 3

Willie Mac: Let’s talk about taking a bike from concept to showroom.

Warburton: Starting backwards there is not much you can do in less than two years. Normally, it would be three to four years. A new bike from scratch four years. Update to an existing bike may be two, two and a half years. You might get it down under two years, but not by much, because even if you have a relatively small project when you start messing around, you may have to develop a new tool, for instance. That takes up time which cannot be collapsed.

Willie Mac: Talk to me about starting a project.

Warburton: There are a few different ways to start a project. You can recognize you have a bike that needs an update. You need to figure out what needs to be done to the bike and me putting a list together of things we could improve. That’s based on feedback from customers that have actually had a chance to ride it. Feedback from the press. Feedback from our own engineers.

A bit more difficult is when you have an empty hole to fill with no bike. It takes a bit more head scratching. It comes down to a piece of paper. A list of attributes.

Willie Mac: How do you know you have a hole if nothing is there?

Warburton: I guess that comes from the world around you. There’s lots of this kind of bike and we don’t have anything to compete. More rarely you might think “there’s a good kind of bike that we could do.” Just from your experience in motorcycles. Once you start pushing them into boxes you can categorize them and figure out where you don’t have one.

Willie Mac: How is the decision reached to actually move ahead with the idea?

Warburton: There is a few months work on feasibility, the likely impact on the business. See how many engineers we’re going to need and for how long. How much money it’s going to cost to get it together. How many we can expect to sell. How much we’ll make on each one. An economic case for the bike. How it fits with Triumph. How it fits alongside other bikes in the range. This is what it would be like. This is how hard it would be to do. Present all that data to what we call the stakeholders, which is the boss, of course, Mr. Bloor.

Everything goes past him first. Then to our CEO and various of the sectional managers in the company. To be honest, once John (Bloor) says we’re doing it, and then it is more of a case of letting everyone else know what we’re doing. We have a lot of projects going on simultaneously, so the whole thing has to be doable with the people we’ve got.

Willie Mac: How about marketing research?

Warburton: We don’t do as much marketing research as those outside the industry assume. We certainly do when we are approaching a project we haven’t done before. We need to understand it properly. And, we do some research when updating bikes as well. Not in every country we operate in. Frankly, the US is one of the more difficult countries in which to do research because you are so big and spread out. It is difficult to find people to talk to. But, when you do find them, especially with motorcycles, they are most happy to talk to you.

Feedback is very difficult to quantify. We get negative feedback from or dealers every month. The US has a very organized system in that the area managers – about nine of them – get to all the dealerships in their area and get comments back from the dealers in their area including about our bikes. Suggestions for improvements on the new bikes, comments on the existing ones. That all comes back to me. I often find, that if we are doing our job properly we have already picked up on the stuff. We understand our own motorcycles well enough to know what we need to do on them. Sometimes you get a “well, that’s a good idea.”

Willie Mac: How many motorcycles does Triumph have under development at any one time?

Warburton: If you will hold on for just one moment I will count them up and tell you (computer keyboard clicking in background). One, two, three…fourteen…twenty-seven, twenty-eight under development. Some of them we’re just getting kicked off on. Some of these are relatively minor updates.

Willie Mac: You folks are busy.

Warburton: We’re very busy. We get a lot of requests from people saying why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that? The answer is often yes, that would make a nice bike, but we can’t do all the bikes we would like to do. We have to prioritize.

Willie Mac: Is there anything I should know that I haven’t asked you?

Warburton (laughing): What our model plans are for the next five years (laughing). I guess I should tell you we are doing very well. Doing better than most. Production sales last year sold more models than ever, in the history of Triumph. Officially, we are more successful than Triumph has ever been for the last 107 years.

Willie Mac: Last question, how do you want to be remembered?

Warburton: Fondly (chuckling). As a motorcyclist, I suppose. Regarding the products that have been coming out for the last year, or so, I hope my judgments have been vindicated.

"I Hope My Judgements Have Been Vindicated..." Part 2

Well, here we are back at it with Simon Warburton. I keep forgetting to talk to him about the Ural…

Willie Mac: Ever think you would be where you are now?

Warburton: Not actually. When I was growing up the British motorcycle industry was pretty much dead. When I was up at the university I knew that John Bloor was working up the Triumph, but I didn’t have a clue. It was launched on a relatively small scale, just before I left for Spain. So, I sort of missed out on the first few years of Triumph. To be honest, after my years of travel and teaching, I thought I had lost my chance at getting back into engineering. So, I was very grateful to Triumph for letting me back in.

When I came back to the UK after living in Spain I actually studied to be a secondary school teacher, with the plan of moving abroad again. While I was in the UK working as a teacher, a friend of mine, from when I was taking engineering, started working for Triumph. He said I should try applying here. They weren’t too worried about you past experience.

Willie Mac: Do you personally own a bike, or just ride factory?

Warburton: I don’t really own a bike. I own a dirt bike. I had a Daytona for a couple years, but only put on about 750 miles a year. I have to ride factory bikes. I have a couple small children so don’t get to ride much. I ride during the week, to and from work, testing the bikes out.

Willie Mac: What is your favorite bike?

Warburton: That is a tricky question. I used to be a sports touring rider. I had a succession of Sprints and put a lot of miles in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK. I used to cover between fifteen and twenty thousand miles a year. More recently, because I have the kids at home and I don’t go off covering distance anymore, it’s been track days on the Daytona. If I am riding around the streets, I quite like my Speed Triples. My wife started me reducing the number of bikes in my garage which was up to eight, at one time.

I’m a big fan of the Sprint ST, having owned two and covered a lot of miles in France and Spain on them. What I like best about the ST is that it’s comfortable and “long-legged”, meaning you can cover some serious distance easily, but it’s also agile and sporty enough to have some fun on the way.

Willie Mac: Other than motorcycles what occupies you life?

Warburton: I did mention two boys, aged three and five. They are great fun and take a lot of time. I’m quite fond of reading, read all sorts of stuff. Again, I don’t have enough time to do that. I’m a bit of a languages buff. I do like traveling and learning languages. To be honest, with this job, it’s all time consuming.

Willie Mac: What motivates you?

Warburton: That’s what life is all about. You’ve got to enjoy it. I have to enjoy what I’m doing. I guess it’s childish in a way, just riding motorbikes. I went through a phase fifteen, or twenty, years ago, “I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be enjoying this. I should be getting around doing serious stuff.” If that’s what you enjoy doing, don’t be ashamed of it. Just go for it. It has been such a positive experience going anywhere on a motorbike compared to any other form of transport. You feel much more connected with the world around you. You experience it more, more natural experience.

Next time Simon will take us from motorcycle concept to the showroom.

"I Hope My Judgements Have Been Vindicated..." Part 1

My letter to Hinckley was carefully addressed to: The Someone That Cares Department. My intention was to jot off a quick note to Triumph Motorcycles, about their new to be released Thunderbird. Keeping it brief, I scribbled a rambling discourse of three single spaced pages in which the T-bird, Bonneville, Sprint ST, Speed Triple, Rocket III, Honda, Ducati, and Harley were all mentioned. I dropped it in the post. Then, I chewed my lip for awhile thinking they really should be warned about getting blindsided by Ural. Ah, what the heck. No one reads those letters anyway.

One day about a week and a half later, I received an email from a Simon Warburton. I know that name. Where do I know it from? Now, Simon is probably the most quoted person at Triumph. Simon is the Product Manager for Triumph Motorcyles, in Hinckley, UK. Read anything about Triumph in the media and most likely Simon will be mentioned at some point. I suddenly realized, that in Hinckley, someone does indeed read those letters! I should have mentioned Ural. Thus started a running conversation over the next few months in which I bored him silly, and he enlightened me as to the way of Triumph. I thought you might enjoy eavesdropping on a little of our on-going conversation.

Willie Mac: You have been involved with motorcycles all your life.

Warburton: Yes, but not professionally until I came to Triumph. It kicked off for me at age eleven, when my father bought myself and my brother a little 50cc. Too small at the time, but we didn’t know that and progressed to a Honda 125SL back in the 70s. I started racing motocross when I was about sixteen, for a few years. I went off to university and I couldn’t afford motocross anymore. I studied engineering. After university I traveled around for awhile. I rode around South America for a few months: Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and Equator. About four months. I planned on six but ran out of money.

Willie Mac: A regular Che.

Warburton: Yeah, I didn’t know much about him at the time, but the route did cover some of his same route. But, to be honest with you, when you are traveling around South America there isn’t much of a choice.

Willie Mac: How about your first job?

Warburton: Teaching, in fact. Several small jobs while I was at university then went traveling around. I decided I wanted to live in Spain. The easiest way to do that was to teach. I was in Spain for three and a half years. I loved Spain. I loved living there. I had great fun.

Willie Mac: Have you spent much time on this side of the pond?

Warburton: Not much at all, some dealer seminars and Daytona a couple of times. Many years ago I spent three weeks riding bikes around. Hot weather testing and high altitude testing, because we are a bit short of both here in the UK. I’ve been over on holiday with the kids a few times. I would absolutely love to spend some time there. The scenery and variety you have over there, during that three week period of test I told you about, mostly in Colorado and Arizona, just riding the bikes around was a wonderful experience.

Willie Mac: Do you have any good adventures about that?

Warburton: Mostly you get an adventure when something goes wrong. Nothing went wrong. It was a fascinating experience.

Book Review: Endless Horizon by Dan Walsh

A Word of Intro

SO CAL. The frequently referred to land of fruits and nuts. Best climate in the country. Classy women and hot cars. Could be, it’s the other way ‘round. Grooviest, ‘this is it!’ places to dine…this fortnight. Happy hours where the mere thought of a cigarette will get you run out of town on a surfboard. The heart of sunshine where political correctness is turning everything gray. This is where I grew up. With the Beach Boys and Sex Wax and Graham’s Drive-In. American Graffiti reality TV.

Grew up and became a cop, ‘til my back gave out on me. Ahhh, new career choices abound. It became quite regular, for awhile, to attend parties where wine coolers were the beverage of choice. What do you mean a Silver Bullet? In a bottle! I suppose you smoke, too? Well, in the morass of self defense and the justification of values the question usually popped up, “Do you miss being a cop?” followed by, “What do you miss about it?”

Took me awhile to figure it out. What I missed. It was the people. I missed talking to the crooks, the homeless, outlaw bikers, street folk, Hare Krishnas and massage parlor operators. Often psychotic. Never dull. Street people have a unique perspective on life most will never know, understand, or even want to.

Streetwise Dan

Dan Walsh knows. He understands. I just finished his book: Endless Horizon: A Very Messy Motorcycle Journey Around the World. I guess it falls somewhere between Travels with Charlie and the Choirboys. It is getting lots of good press. The online forums either love it, or hate it. I loved it. Loved it so much I read it twice. Back to back. Once wasn’t enough.

Walsh is a motorcycling journalist whose dispatches from the road were published in Bike and Motorcyclist magazines. The first time through, like a combo plate, was hard to digest. Maybe I was in too much of a hurry. Most likely it was his Brit accent.

Which brings me back to my intro. Walsh doesn’t mess around with wine coolers and the like. He gets down with the street people. No Hilton and prescribed adventure here. “I’m looking for the cheapest kip in town, ideally run by a bald man with a hairy back and gravy stains down his vest.” He travels solo and takes life as it is dealt out. That is why I liked the book so much. It is also what probably puts off a lot of people. Not many feel comfortable dealing with street folk. If you don’t like touching people don’t become a cop, or a motorcycling journalist taking to the road. I felt comfortable with his travels and the people he rubbed elbows with.

Bon Voyage Twice

The book starts with a frail main squeeze relationship that weakens when he takes off on his Yamaha XT Desert Rat for Africa. The first step in a ‘round the world venture. The book can be exciting, especially when lost he rides through a minefield rather than backtrack in the hope of finding the right set of tire tracks back to the correct route. Can’t get much more on the edge than that.

Walsh returns to the UK for a year with a trip to the US squeezed in. Then he picks up a BMW F650 in Toronto and heads off to Buenos Aires. Along the way he finds the Great Dismal Swamp, New Orleans and the City of Angels. It was here abouts that I started to relate to the book. I could close my eyes and smell the stale beer and body odor in Venice as the afternoon fog mingled with smoggy haze. When he slides across the border into Tijuana I start feeling at home. By the time he reaches Argentina I am ready to saddle up and join him. Well, maybe only as far as Central America. I found what I want there.

Walsh On Walsh

What is nice about this book is he actually spends time talking about the bikes and the problems with them he encountered. Too many books talk where stayed and sights seen, with little about the bike. I happen to like to read about the bike. I can go sightseeing out of a Lonely Planet guide.

He also talks about himself: his relationship problems, his insecurities, and an analysis of his life with alcohol. Deep stuff, thoughtfully written, which is a bit of change from his rough and risqué style. But, mostly it is about the people he meets. The friends and lovers he encounters. And, a solo ride around the world. That, to me, is what life is all about.

Good News...

I just spoke with Mike Traynor's son, Brian, about his dad. Mike appears to be doing well. The hospital staff are optimistic about Mike's recovery, saying that he is getting better. He will be in the hospital for awhile regaining his strength. As Brian said of people that reach a certain "golden age," it is important to keep an eye on all the other body parts as well. In that arena, Mike is doing well. Everything is working like it should. So, while Mike may not be out of the woods yet, it looks like he is hanging in there. And, that's what we want. Get well soon, Mike.

I Made Her a Quiet Promise: Part 2

WM: You are still involved with Ride for Kids. You have been the state director for the Honda Sports Tourning Association (now the Motorcycle Sports Touring Association) in Georgia and founder of the Helen, Georgia regional rally. What else is keep you busy these days?

Traynor: The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation is keeping us busy. We have been fortunate enough to get really involved with the medical community. Diane is probably the most respected non-medical person in America today when it comes to brain tumor research both for adults and pediatric. We are very active in the motorcycle community. We have close relations with all of the magazine editors, and a whole lot of the regional runs as well. We participate in the Life for Kids programs. Our plates are very full.

WM: Is there anything you haven’t accomplished in your life, or maybe something you would have done differently?

Traynor: There is no school to teach you to lead the Ride for Kids program. It is the school of life. Every little thing we have done in our lives has prepared us to all come together as a member of the http://www.pbtfus.org/rideforkids/ team. I think it’s exciting. I wish I could have gone to school. I think we would have been a little farther along now, had I understood better how a non-profit works. There are a few that said we were nuts because we don’t stop. If you had ever been a pall bearer for a little girl who was a brain tumor patient, or if you had ever delivered a eulogy at a funeral for boy that died with a brain tumor, or if you had embraced a parent whose child was grievously ill in a hospital, you would be crazy too.

WM: Who has had a positive influence on your life?

Traynor: Her name is Meredith Bottin. I met her in maybe 1987. A beautiful 10 year old girl, God she was just the prettiest little thing. She had pretty red hair and she acted like this gracious grown up woman. She was so elegant. It just didn’t really make sense, unless you have been around these kids with brain tumors. We had a Ride for Kids event coming up. So I met her mom, who was a really outgoing delightful lady. I met her dad and her brother Joe. Diane and I became really good friends with the family. Meredith became kind of like the icon for the event. Meredith began to have recurrences of her brain tumor. She had three different surgeries at three different hospitals. She went through a bone marrow

transplant. She spent her 11^th birthday in an isolation tent. She had surgery in Oregon. A lady wrote a book and said that people could heal their bodies with their mind. Meredith’s mother took her down to have her meet with the doctor to get Meredith to think herself well. They did everything that a parent could do. I’m sure they put themselves in grievous financial condition doing all of those things. They desperately were fighting to save their little girl. In the mean time Diane and I were watching this little girl dissipate before us.

Diane and I got a phone call early in the morning. Julia saying that Meredith passed in the night. She had gone to be with the angels. We were very sad, but at the same time she was suffering so badly. We said that we were grateful that she had gone on to be with God. I was a pall bearer for her, and while I was carrying her casket I made her a quiet promise, that I would leave my job and work full time to cure the disease. It was the most emotional thing that I have ever gone through in my entire life.

Traynor comments: I think it is an incredible testimony to the motorcyclist community that ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of those who participated in the Ride for Kids program over the last twenty-five years do not have a child with a brain tumor. Doctors would say why are they doing this? We are good people. When motorcyclists contributed doctors could not understand. We tapped into our fellow motorcyclists. It made sense to us that if our community was willing to help, that we would find more. The Ride for Kids program has raised in excess of forty-five million dollars in the last twenty-five years. In most cases, that money did not come from the pockets of the motorcyclist. It came from the sweat equity of the motorcyclists that knocked on doors; that talked to people at work and at church. The positive public relations that emerged are incalculable.

I Made Her a Quiet Promise: Part 1

As I started to post this I received an email that Mike is in the hospital with a serious case of pneumonia. I, and I am sure you folks, wish Mike a speedy recovery.

Ex-soldier, motor sports racer, and newspaper man Mike Traynor, always an avid motorcyclist, founded the Ride for Kids charity events and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. I had the opportunity to talk with Mike about his life and passion.

WM: How did you get interested in motorcycles?

Traynor: There is a picture of me on a Honda Dream 250. I had hair then. I turned it into a race bike. It was my great love, and interested me in riding. I was in the army, in Japan. I worked with engineers in the army and we built a quarter mile flat track and a half mile TT course. We all became motorcyclists and racers. I was the president of the Smoke and Draggers Motorcycle Club. I have no idea where that name came from. It was there when I came to that duty station. We raced with fellow soldiers and had a high number of Japanese college students who had bikes. We had a lot of fun.

WM: You got the Ride for Kids program going in 1984. Would you like to talk to us about that start-up?

Traynor: It was about the occasion for the first Ride for Kids in 1984. We attached the Ride for Kids to an AMA race that was being held at Road Atlanta that weekend. I came up with an idea that I would start up this charitable motorcycle event. We got a great full page about the race and the disease. We promoted Ride for Kids participants could get discounted tickets to the race. We had 100 people come to the event. It wasn’t easy. But we were off and running.

WM: To some, motorcyclists still represent a bad public image. Did you run into image problems outside the motorcycle community?

Traynor: There were two cities that did create problems. But, we were able to work around that by going to a neighboring community. We were challenged when we brought the program to Florida, because of Daytona. Television does sensationalize events. Unfortunately some things happened there that were not in the best interests of the motorcycling community. They were very aware of that. I gave them the names of police agencies, park districts, mayors, all kinds of people. After that they warmly embraced us. They were doing due diligence, that’s what they should have done. We don’t have much problem with that now. Mostly because Ride for Kids has achieved such prominence, and much more leverage.

WM: When did you first become aware of the huge impact the Ride for Kids program had on the cure of pediatric brain tumors?

Traynor: It was gradual. In the early days it was very difficult to give our money to people if we demanded it be used for pediatric brain tumors. The researchers weren’t bad guys and gals, but because they had programs being funded by universities, and philanthropic money, they had their research projects going in the direction of adults. They were going to have to hang a left if they were going to do pediatrics. These were business people. It wouldn’t make good business sense for them to do that. We didn’t understand that in the beginning.

As we became more successful , and that happened more and more quickly over the next few years, we began to amass much greater sums of money that we could put into research. It was quite reasonable for them to say “I’ll take the money and put it into adult brain tumors. And we’ll put it in a specific tumor because some kids get this tumor, too.” So we weren’t wasting our money. There is a trickle down effect from some of the adult brain tumors. We were doing the kids a favor in the only way the research community would allow us. That was perfectly reasonable once we understood what that was all about.

In 1992 we launched the national Ride for Kids program. That was because we had the money from Honda to be able to afford to do that. They were giving us motorcycles to give away. They were also giving us a good sized check to help us cover our operating expenses. Our financial growth became exponential at that point. Probably over the next five years. I would probably say around ’97 we began see a lot more acceptance of researchers wanting to do childhood brain tumor research. We were getting more and more exposure in the general media in more and more cities.

Book Review: Around the World on a Motorcycle 1928 to 1936 by Zoltan Sulkowsky: Part 2

Yes, to really enjoy this book you need to know the secret. The book is really no more than Sulkowsky’s journal notes of the trip, expanded upon after he returned to Hungary. The text seems to skip from one situation to the next very quickly. For instance, when the guys meet with Benito Mussolini only a couple of sentences in the book mention it. Then the story moves on. It is the same with most all famous people, political or celebrity, that they meet. Just a couple lines about the meeting. Most folks tend to go on about meeting someone famous. Name dropping.

Not these guys. That wasn’t their gig. That’s when I figured it out. The book is about everyday people and culture. That's the secret. That’s what slowed me down. Once I started to pay attention to the everyday folks these two Marco Polos came across, the cultures they strove so hard to understand and explain, Around the World became an adventure, an education. I didn’t want it to end. I read more slowly and enjoyed more. Another secret: take your time reading this book.

Did I mention when these guys got lost THEY ACTUALLY ASKED DIRECTIONS? Unfortunately, when they did ask, the locals knew little more than they did. It became a matter of finding the best road and hoping it led where they wanted to go. Many of those good roads were … ah … not so good. They did use discretion, though. When confronted by bandits (more than once) they opted to run, rather than ask “Which way?” Road maps weren’t state of the art back then, even if you had one. GPS! What’s that?

This book doesn’t read like some cultural text. It can be quite funny. Take, for instance, when the Harley breaks down (gotta bite my tongue here) in the middle of the Australian outback. Our two heroes are down to very little food and water. There are wild animals howling in the night. They are thinking of when the next traveler will find their bones and wonder who they were. There may have been a bit of hallucination going on. They wrote letters of farewell to family and friends. Just in time, they hear someone coming. They are going to be saved! They look out through the shimmering heat waves to see a cotton caravan approaching. Not just any cotton caravan. One huge wagon stacked high with cotton bales being pulled by sixteen camels.

Or, the time they were held ransom in the middle of a river by the fellow that brought a knife to a gun fight.

While Around the World could have used some sort of time line to anchor it to history, it is a minor point. What impressed me was the display of Hungarian national pride. Whenever discussing anything to do with their country, or their heritage, Hungary was shown in a positive light. National pride is something seen too little of these days.

There are just too many stories to talk about. The cultural studies are really amazing, opening us to worlds that will never be seen again. Worlds between World Wars. A time of Depression and change and innocence. It is truly an adventure.

Gertrude Stein said, “If it can be done, why do it?” Well, this adventure hadn’t been done. They took the challenge. They did it. This is a must read…especially if you own a Harley.