Handlebars and more with Marshall Tucker

Marshall Tucker from La Choppers sits in with us and talks about all kinds of stuff.  We talk about how he made it through 2020 and how the business is booming.  We also talk about the new Sportster S, while we may have pushed Aaron a little too far.  

Episode Transcript

Roy Merritt (00:00):
She's a pilot. Now I haven't seen idiocracy go
watch it. Homework. Alright,that means intro.
Once again, it's time to openyour ears and expand your mind.

(00:22):
Or maybe it's Delhi your mind.
Either way, I think these boyshave some of the said. So sit
back, grab a broom, we're gonnahave some to give you our point
of view here on Talkin Braap Allright, so I'm gonna start

(01:11):
backing this down, becausewelcome back is Talkin Braap. I
am not sure. Season Three. Ican't remember how many episodes
we've done because we took alittle break. Yeah, it's been a
couple of months since we'verecorded I've been getting
people hit me up on socialmedia. Like what the fuck?
Where's the next episode? You'remaking that up? No. There was

(01:34):
even two but there was people.
Yeah, there's like, or like,record. We're all sitting here.

(01:56):
No matter what I do. It's been acouple of months. I was still
getting like 100 a week orsomething. You know, average,
which is not bad for anything.
Yeah, I'm not advertising. I'lltake them. So where did you go?
After a short little break? Weare back. We have Marshall
Tucker with us today. Yo. Sowe're going to talk a little bit

(02:19):
about what he does. And I kindof want to talk about a little
bit about the difference andCOVID and stuff and everything's
covered back now.

Aaron Staudinger (02:28):
He's not in a band.

Roy Merritt (02:32):
Marshall, Tucker, you pay me I'll do whatever.
Yeah. Yeah. For your wedding.
Yeah, terrible, but I'll shootmy way out. What do you think I
did? I took the ball gag off.

(02:56):
That's horrible. But anyways,I'm Marshall was in the shop
yesterday and you work for LAchoppers. Yes, sir. So what do
you do for LA choppers?

Marshall Tucker (03:07):
Alright, so I'm there outside sales managers. So
basically, well, I mean, that'sjust the one title. I wear many,
many hats. You know, a lot ofpeople have the misconception
that we've just got like a wholephone bank of people sitting at
the factory answering phones,you know, wait for you to call.
I mean, besides the people inthe factory, I mean, there's

(03:29):
five of us. I mean,

Aaron Staudinger (03:31):
shoppers and I know there's nobody answering
the phone

Roy Merritt (03:39):
You know what's funny is in you say that because
a lot of businesses are that wayyou guys just automatically
assume that you're big time andyou have all these people and
all this stuff and in the realworld when you actually get down
to it. Most of these really coolcompanies that know the needs of
this stuff. This shit it's a fewpeople man grinding it. Yeah,
I'm grinding and making ithappen. Yo.

Aaron Staudinger (04:02):
Your YouTube channels gonna shit on this

Roy Merritt (04:08):
show. But I mean, like my wife to ask better.

Marshall Tucker (04:14):
Bad Bad. Bad we don't even meet through issues
here with my gimbal here. Comeon. Yeah.

Roy Merritt (04:20):
Oh, no, she doesn't get offended.

Marshall Tucker (04:22):
So basically what my job is to use for LA
choppers. We also have Trinityracing. We have Baron customs.
All three of our companies caterto the motors Motorsports Harley
Davidson UTV ATV market. Andbasically, I'm finally getting
back to my primary purpose oftraveling and coming in to see
dealers like you guys and hangout with you guys. Believe me,
it's really where I'd rather bebecause 16 months of working

(04:46):
from home was just I mean, itwas brutal. Absolutely. Yeah,
answering phones at 130 appearsnot terrible, you know, I mean,
so if you maybe got a wronganswer for me on the phone, I
apologize. may have been drawnduring now. But it's so good to
be back out on the road. I wasvery thankful to keep my

(05:08):
position. They kind ofrepurposed me a little bit
through the whole thing. Butthat was fine. You know, like I
was kind of joking yesterday,you know, I created a YouTube
channel, revamped our Instagram,I'm still contacting our dealers
and reps. And it was just likeone thing after the other, I
just kept wearing differenthats. I mean, I even told him
like, dude, as long as thepaycheck there's you can fly me
out. I'll clean the shutters onFriday. I was just thankful to

(05:29):
have a job and a job that andwork for a company. That's
really rad. I mean, we have wewe have a good time.

Roy Merritt (05:34):
Yeah, we went through and you know, same
thing. We moved around and did abunch of stuff when COVID came
and everything changed. I thinkprobably most businesses
probably had to reevaluate theway of doing things. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, and you really have, butyou know, now that you're back
out, I mean, you know, does itseem like the shops are doing
good? Or, you know, what do yousee different are the same, or

Marshall Tucker (05:58):
I can't see my hand on my damn face. we're so
busy. I mean, it's, it's insane.
You know, going right into it. Imean, the moment the world shut
down for two weeks, I was like,dude, I'm out of a job. My
primary function is null andvoid. Right? Yeah. So yeah, I
thought I was gonna I thought Iwas gonna be, you know, cut real
soon. But my company saw thevalue in in what I do and what I
can do for my dealers. And likeI said, they just repurpose

(06:21):
those, but it's been insane. Wecannot keep up. I mean, we are
we are running three shifts aday, seven days a week just
trying to get this product inour customers hands and, you
know, our fillory it has beenway better than most. For the
most part. Let's not talk aboutcables. Nobody's take cables,
please. But you know, yeah, likewe were talking yesterday, you
kind of have to joke about it,you know, all the back orders

(06:42):
that are going on, and it'sinsane. I mean, there's a
massive, massive demand formotorcycle equipment,
motorcycles. I mean, back orderson, you know, funds on backorder
right now.

Roy Merritt (06:53):
I mean, if it has to do with motorcycles, it has
to do with utvs ATVs, campers,guns, anything that you like to
have on list? It's on backorderright now I see at least one
post a day blasting somebodylike layer prozone you saw
yesterday, or somebody that Iguy told me 16 weeks 12 what the
fog is and I'm like, Man, it'shappening everywhere. Yeah,

(07:13):
everywhere you look. You neverwant to

Aaron Staudinger (07:15):
be stupid, though. To think that like this
is only happening to you. Whenit's out to you everywhere you
go. Yeah, yeah. No, everywhereyou go. There's no batteries
right.

Marshall Tucker (07:26):
banners made right now because our banner
company is, is making me helpone at a time. Yeah, it's not
so. I mean, yeah, a lot of haschanged that we have been very,
very fortunate we are we're justto the moon, man. I mean, la
choppers is like those goingright now. We're just hoping it
doesn't crash. But I mean,handlebars are just that the
pandemic thing. You know, acouple years ago, everybody in

(07:48):
the industry was kind of lookingat each other and asking
ourselves, you know, how do wemake motorcycles cool again,
because it didn't seem like wehad a lot of ridership and who
knew the answer was endemic?

Roy Merritt (07:59):
Oh, yeah, motorcycles are through the roof
right now. And we can't keep himhere. No, he can use a lot of
stuff. And it goes on because wego on cycle trainer right now.

Shane Langdon (08:07):
And you look up anything newer than like 17. And
even some of the old ones itjust says no price listed page
after page after page visits tohaggle at this point. Yeah,

Aaron Staudinger (08:18):
pandemic hit.
And I was picturing people athome sitting there just flipping
through catalogs looking atstuff that's cool. That's cool.

Marshall Tucker (08:26):
They often buying it man. Well, they
weren't taking the kids toDisneyland you know, spending 20
grand doing that they weren'tthey weren't spending money on
lunches going to lunch every daythey weren't spending money on
gas. Government government checkwas kicking in I'm semi checked
ironically doing handlebarsabout 1500 bucks. You got paid

(08:49):
well and you have to look at ourclientele or to write you know
our clientele. But yes, there isthat that that white collar
businessman that likes to goparty on his Harley on the
weekend? You know, obviously hedidn't go anywhere. He's working
from home and then the remainderof our majority of our clientele
is that blue collar worker. Whatwere they doing? Yeah, building
houses used to work. You know,jokers Yeah, that stuff didn't

(09:11):
flow down. So those guys had allthis expendable cash and they
just threw it at motorcycles.
I'm very happy about

Aaron Staudinger (09:19):
this, is it?
Is it out of storage, highvolume? Or is it because we're
having such cuts in supply chainand material that making it
sold? Well?

Marshall Tucker (09:31):
I can't speak for I can't speak for everybody
in the industry. What I can tellyou with la choppers is we are
at a monumental point right nowwe've never I mean we were
already doing very well. Myfirst year coming on with the
company I was you know obviouslymade huge leaps and bounds and
that first year I was like No,no, we're going to beat these
numbers and then we kept edgingthem out and now I mean we're up

(09:53):
triple digits on percentagesalmost every month so it's not I
mean when it comes down to yesbender supply is has been an
issue Customers just, you know,they think that we're at the
factory ordering tables likethey're Bitcoin, right? Like,
like, any cables. No, I want Iwant the product in our
customers hands by the cablesare in

Mike VO (10:21):
what you can invest in the cable. Exactly.

Marshall Tucker (10:25):
I mean, from our point of view, it is, like I
said, it's been a monumentallevel of output right now. I
mean, on a real busy week,between our brand and our
private labels. I mean, we werebeat, we were hit pretty high
volume at like 1000 bars, 1200bars a week, during our high
point trying to keep up nowwe're closer like 18 to
2000 2000 hammers a week.

Aaron Staudinger (10:46):
And are your private brands. Because I like
you guys. Right?

Marshall Tucker (10:51):
We have a lot of private labels. Yeah. have to
guess. I mean, dude, if I had toput a number on it 35 to 40% of
some of the stuff in the dragspecialties catalog is at some
point, I

Roy Merritt (11:08):
don't know because you know, we all talk about this
stuff. La chompers makes thefactory there you guys make a
lot of other really nice bars onthe market and stuff like that.
And you know, you guys arealways trying to come out with
something a little different andset yourself apart. And I've
been pretty impressed with that,especially over the last few

(11:29):
years.

Aaron Staudinger (11:29):
Yeah. Like your your your production
facility. I mean, you probablyhave $500 billion, but the
machining in there. Yeah. Imean, that's 500,000,018 100.
Yeah. With 1800 a week.

Marshall Tucker (11:49):
Yeah, that's a freaking mic. So she crashed?
Well, again, not all of them areour handlebars, but, but they
are handlebars are going. Andthat's what I said I you know,
one of my biggest dealers isactually Motown Harley Davidson
up in Detroit. They do somemassive amount of numbers. I

(12:10):
mean, I'm sitting here trying tocrack the numbers. I'm like,
dude, by my calculation, one inlike, five people should have
something from LA County.

Unknown (12:15):
Yeah, Detroit.

Marshall Tucker (12:17):
It's so weird.
That's weird. Yeah. So So yeah,we have a 50,000 square foot
facility. Like I said, Everybodyassumes that we're like, we're
this massive. I mean, 50,000square foot, California. I mean,
that's massive. You really coveran overhead. Right? But so yes,
it was under that roof. 50,000.

(12:41):
We have like that we haveCalifornia's largest laser
table. We have CNC machines thatwe bought just a couple of years
ago that yeah, that were like1.2 million. I mean, right now
we also to be cost effective,our CEO and our and the owners
to be cost effective. We stillhave a CNC machine that runs on
off like street cleaning, right?
Click backslash, a colon, butthat you can still get computer

(13:05):
components for it, you can stillget a hardware for it and still
get tooling for it. It makesvery non essential parts, you
know, so. So for instance, aRoland sans old school bars that
little gusset that goes in thecorner there. We got one. Yeah.
We don't manufacture anythingelse. But we do that little

(13:27):
gusset. Right. Right. And we dosome of the other

Aaron Staudinger (13:32):
point I was getting at is there's not a lot
of, it's not like you just havesomeplace to every town. Yeah,
it can make no they can stampout nutrient levels. And the
bars for any manufacturer. Yes,Harley Davidson. It's not
uncommon for parts to bemanufactured in one location and
then be stamped or whatever,like your proprietary design.

(13:55):
That's your design, but it'smade right next to this guy.
Right, which is made right nextto this company. Yeah. And
there's not too many places onAmerican that can even do it.
No, I

Marshall Tucker (14:03):
mean, yeah, the brothers are really smart. You
know, they were they were earlyon getting into robotics and
machinery. And, and again, Imean, sometimes we cut corners,
we'll buy a refurb. Robot fromfrom automotive, and then, you
know, Scott will reprogram andrewire it and you know, our CEO,
you know, Eric, he'll be down onthe floor working in machine to

(14:25):
make sure that we were gettingorders out. I mean, that that is
something that

Mike VO (14:28):
you have at least one protection robot. arm is
California, robot, robot limitedto 10 rounds. No, I thought they
repealed that.

Marshall Tucker (14:48):
The real question is whether or not you
know, the robot is a

Unknown (14:55):
robot robot Hello, they robot, no robot junk.

Marshall Tucker (15:14):
They are them for everybody to come to us and
want us to produce theirproduct. And you're absolutely
right. It's very cost consuming,very expensive to have those
machines. So yeah, I would makemore sense for somebody to say,
hey, I want to make a bar. Ihave this idea. Can you guys do
it? Well can you do it at andthey they get to go home and sit

(15:36):
at home on out while ourmachines run? Right? The other
benefit of that why we kind ofbrag about it is because yes, we
are very good at makinghandlebar. But on top of that,
that's how we have really goodcosts, right? So it's our
prices, our pricing is not thatbad in comparison to somebody
else in the industry. Becausegenerally they're they're having
to make it in house or they'rehaving to exactly, you know,

(15:59):
back it and all that you guysdo.

Roy Merritt (16:02):
Generally, if somebody comes to us, we I want
to see, you know, less than atleast 100 pieces, at least and
that's actually a smaller wordlike I would imagine, like the
setup of the machines, thetooling, whatever you want to
say we would have about acertain cost. Yeah, we gotta
Yeah, probably not gonna beworth making one handlebar
right? Yeah, we very expensiveset of handlebar we have all the

(16:22):
time. Yeah.

Marshall Tucker (16:25):
Guys don't get it right. And actually, I'm that
asshole, too. I had the company.
I'm like, Hey, man, I'd reallylike our cage fighters. But can
I can I have like sweat andtears on those? Oh, yeah, no
problem. Let's just shut down amillion dollar production line.
Okay, yes. Tomorrow, I mean, so.
So yeah, I mean, I have guys allthe time follow up and they get

(16:46):
real butthurt. They're like,well, you look man, I like that
bar. But I want to be wider. AndI want you guys to make for me,
I'm like, cool, no problem, howmany you want? I just want the
one. I'm like

Aaron Staudinger (16:54):
a $20,000 most expensive handlebar you'll ever
buy. By the way, you're gonnaget 100 other sets. Exactly.

Marshall Tucker (17:06):
I will say to you profitability ratios and how
you should. So yeah, I mean, itmakes more sense for a lot of
people in the industry with somereally quality product to come
to us and say, Hey, you guysalready have machinery. I have a
really great idea. Let's get incahoots. Let's do business. And
I'm very proud to say that wehave some very, very, I mean, we
make all the quarter stuff fordrag specialties there risers as

(17:28):
well. So So companies like that,like a lot of the like I said a
lot of the product that he laidout the catalog is they're
sitting right there sittingright next to each other two
different names made the samepack.

Mike VO (17:37):
What's your biggest seller right now? Dude, so
that's really that's a reallygood question. 2021 clutch
cables. Talking about cablesearlier, I wanted to be like,
yeah, and then Harley had tothrow that fucking clutch right
now. Good. clutch cable.
Correct. Correct. So with theclutch cable Yeah, dude, that

(18:03):
was that I got probably five

Roy Merritt (18:09):
listeners that don't know the 2021 Harley
touring bikes went back to aclutch cable in my life. Yes.

Shane Langdon (18:16):
I have some advice for you. What's up, make
a conversion setup.

Marshall Tucker (18:21):
We actually had that conversation yesterday
where we were actually talkingabout Yeah, well

Roy Merritt (18:29):
well, but I mean the conversion setup you can
just go back if somebody askedyou Yeah, and it's like get the
buy all the well I did that onmy 2010 you want to go do you
want to convert to hydraulic oryou want to convert to cable
convert hydraulic fries so muchcleaner? problems? So I need to
Carly's not running anymore.

Unknown (18:49):
I like Monaco's people complain that they're leaking
just a clutch release that'swhat I really think.

Roy Merritt (18:54):
Yeah, how many recalls? I mean recall a
hydraulic clutch Harley you weretalking about? Yeah. Right yeah,
it was customer input right here

Aaron Staudinger (19:14):
emotionally invested easy No I'm just saying

Roy Merritt (19:16):
easy reason that they went back to a cable

Marshall Tucker (19:19):
yeah no yeah i mean that that first were
getting their their units in Imean, everybody's calling me
like they got they landed thatmost dealers like on a Tuesday
and like Wednesday they callit's like oh what do you got for
21 cable and like do they cameout yesterday with that? Yeah,

Roy Merritt (19:33):
yeah.

Shane Langdon (19:38):
first few t bar setups on some of these bikes
and cables hanging outeverywhere like what we've man
yeah manual.

Unknown (19:48):
So I know Harley has the quick disconnect with spring
adjust previous thought aboutmaking the bar. The cable.

Marshall Tucker (19:57):
Well, here's the here's the real deal with
That if we were to do that, andI know there's other companies
that have that extension, wealways do our best to, we think
about the nightmarish situation,where can this go wrong and work
and it really hurt the company.
And in our opinion, that couldput somebody in a situation if
something fails, and now youhave our product with Harley's
product, and then it turns intoa 20 year litigation. Whose

(20:19):
fault was it? Was it a Harleyfault? You know, we hear these
nightmare stories about peoplegetting sued for having a
trailer hitch or your Harley getsuper trailer hitches on their
bike. I can only imagine whatkind of nightmare

Unknown (20:31):
from a tech standpoint where Oh, hey, I can change
cable without one point.

Marshall Tucker (20:43):
Here's my input on that. And maybe I'm an
asshole for saying this. But thebottom line is I think that
Harley is trying to cater tosome of the

Aaron Staudinger (20:52):
crybabies. Not well, I don't, don't don't want
to test

Marshall Tucker (20:59):
exactly, they make it easier for the person
that's selling it. When reallyall you need to do is take a two
by four loosen up the exhaustwedged in between the frame and
the exhaust and

Aaron Staudinger (21:18):
I think that and I think that half the
engineers that are designingthese from Harley don't ride
motorcycles,

Marshall Tucker (21:24):
dude, I will.
So for a little while they'reright before the pandemic I will
say this as personal as personalinformation I got from

Roy Merritt (21:41):
my producer, they do a fancy name and then they do
all the work.

Aaron Staudinger (21:52):
Like the key grips,

Marshall Tucker (21:53):
the key grips you know, I mean, what was it
like for you guys when like inthe market? I mean, I know I
know that I was saying we'vebeen on the gas ever since.
Probably after and how was

Unknown (22:07):
I think Well, for me it's one payment

Aaron Staudinger (22:12):
correct? Yeah, you guys did just very well for
about two weeks we were like

Roy Merritt (22:16):
all right. No, it was longer than that because it
was it was about a month wherewe kind of went bare bones staff
Yeah, but we still have somemotors coming through yeah that
first like month we fell Yeah, Iwouldn't say we slowed down we
play yeah and service keptgoing. Yeah, everybody in sales
probably calm down this probablycalm down quite a bit there. But

(22:36):
us in the back. We are alreadyhad a month's worth. We're
waiting. Yeah. We just keptgoing.

Marshall Tucker (22:42):
It kind of gave you guys a little bit of a
chance to catch up for once.
Catch. Oh, no. I love hearingthat man.

Roy Merritt (22:53):
Yeah, I feel like I can't even take my days off.
Yeah, it's bad. We've got we'veall gotten to a point now
because it's been we've beendoing it so long that everybody
thought yeah, you take days offyour

Unknown (23:05):
vacation time you want to take this time and here's
their vacation. vacation.
Vacation maybe in like NovemberDecember. We're gonna lose all
time. Over

Roy Merritt (23:17):
here that we're going to touch on this next
time. I'm gonna talk about somemore but I just took my next
episode. Layout tree I went toSturgis Kentucky used to call
roll that into this. They theyit is now Kentucky Kentucky bike
rally but it is little Sir 21Why did they change the party

(23:40):
private property? no cops. Noclothes. It's on a fairgrounds
it's way more moves and dogsmight have been out for a little

(24:03):
while I don't helicopter Ialways prefer the Mexican
wristwatch in that shot ofsomeone saying let me see your
dick. I'm like talking to youand I'm like, oh my bad alright.

(24:25):
Sounds like a party. No, youknow, it's funny because we will
talk about a little bit we rollin and it's a Wednesday is
considered early bird so thehardcore people, which will be
mean next time to show upWednesday and get the good
spots. And then Thursday, FridaySaturday is like the bands and
all the stuff that goes on. Andthen Sunday's you know leave

(24:47):
well we got there Thursday nightat like 1030 and the party is
full fucking stain. And youknow, I just rode couple hours.
You know she's in the car.
There's no room. To get anywherejust bikes everywhere and it's
basically everybody's been to acampground. campground. Yeah. So
you know, the paths aren't verywide. Everything is one way. And
you're really not allowed tocruise around in anything but a

(25:11):
motorcycle. That's the rules.
You know, we just got there. Igot no choice. You know, she's
behind me in the car, and I'mriding my motorcycle. So we're
gonna go 10 by 10 all this shit.
And I mean, I'm riding in andthere's like naked people and
drinking and triples andChristmas. Oh, yeah, that's
called good times, legal blackass that. As y'all know, I like

(25:33):
them dark and big. It's way, wayworse. We got back I was I told
my wife. I was like, Damn, didyou see that as we were walking
in and she's like, No. Did yousee the stripper? Oh, he was a
stripper balls. Oh, there was astripper pole. She didn't see
the fucking hell no, I waslooking at that. So as I was
coming. I was we met her. Shewas she was super sweet. Yeah.

(25:55):
Yeah. Yeah, no, I didn't knowher. Oh, man was there. I didn't
I didn't want to embarrass him.
Yeah. You knew it. They do ridesand stuff off property. And
obviously when you get offproperty, you're on your own.

(26:17):
Yeah. You don't want to bedrinking and ride and shake
because the cops are sittingaround. Yeah, they know exactly
what's going on. They're notdone. So it reminded me of like,
the Bike Week campgrounds backin the 90s. Yeah, you know. It's

(26:38):
crazy, man. Yeah, it's alwaysbeen a Boolean flag. Oh, yeah. I
got a Trump, Trump or fuck Bidenflags everywhere. And yeah, it
was it was pretty interesting. Ispent $50 on magnets. And I'm
like, I want a couple of thesemagnets. In the shops gonna want

(27:00):
one for you. I lubricate my gunswith liberal tears. A bunch?
That doesn't seem like that typeof clientele. Really? Yeah. Do

(27:30):
Jody Lawson found jewelrypieces.

Unknown (27:45):
We'll baggers with

Roy Merritt (27:47):
a lot of people like ride to an event. Like if
you're near an event. So youlive near an event like I used
to live near Daytona and youcheck stuff out and you leave
you have not experienced whatthat event is about. Yeah. Even
even still to this day. Youknow, Bike Week is way over
commercialized and it's it'sspread out over miles and miles

(28:10):
and miles of hotels andcampgrounds and everything else.
When you find the rightcampgrounds. There's a hell of a
good party going on there. Yeah,you know, and, you know, in
Daytona, I was thinking likeCabbage Patch, and cackleberry
and all that over there, becausepeople just kind of set up their
stuff and get wasted for acouple of days and don't really
do you know, go anywhere. Andit's a good time. But I mean,

(28:33):
it's a weekend. Private. privateparty rallies. Definitely. That
was a lot of fun. You know,there was a lot of beer
drinking. Everyone there. Ididn't see a single fight. I
didn't see any guys like evengetting like yelling at each
other nothing. I saw some womenyelling on the phone and look at

(28:55):
their old man. That shouldhappen.

Aaron Staudinger (28:56):
Yeah. Man, you're back

Shane Langdon (29:07):
into the party.
Like Did you see the ass onthat? can be some conflicts. You
weren't the only one looking

Roy Merritt (29:18):
know, the you know, but it was a lot of fun. And we
there's another one in Illinoisand they were telling us about

Marshall Tucker (29:23):
was a hard rock. Yeah. I know. I know a lot
of guys that go to that one.
Yeah, there but yeah. Now so youknow, that's kind of a it's
something that we really talkedabout. So I am doing the Lake of
the Ozarks rally there inMissouri, which is become very
popular as guys gotten reallybig. So doing Sturgis doing
rallies and things like that. AI don't have the workforce to

(29:49):
install bars on site and be youhire someone else Set up on
cheese install your bar. guyslike us there because when you

(30:11):
install them on site might be aspirit everybody has a bad day
everybody makes a mistake right?
You can't be 100 over 100 everyday shit happen. So when a
customer just gets their barsinstalled and by whoever and now
they're 500 miles away from homeand their start button doesn't
work now they're sitting at aHarley dealership going Hey, my
start button work and I hadthese dues and all my bars on

(30:33):
site a parking lot and nowthey're calling you going who's
gonna pay this bill?

Aaron Staudinger (30:37):
So those situations Oh, yeah, I was gonna

Roy Merritt (30:43):
correct Yeah, in Florida. That's what we did real
good. Yeah. So

Marshall Tucker (30:47):
again, like not knocking on any particular one
company I mean, shit happensthey these things do happen.
Mistakes happen. So that'salways a nightmare for me and
then go into like Daytona orlike charges. A if you're riding
to Sturgis, chances are and theydo sell a lot of ours there for
those who do it. But the chancesare, you already have a set of
bars, like 1200 miles go toSturgis or something like that
you're not going to ride onstock bar, right. So the input

(31:09):
their input versus the output,how much financially Are we
going to input and how much arewe going to be able to get out
but yeah,

Unknown (31:15):
I can't get any of those bars have been installed
before they get out there. Theperson who did the previous
install may have fucked it up.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, Home Depotspecial. Yeah, you got Yeah.
Hey, what are these wire nuts?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you guysare sitting there going?

Marshall Tucker (31:33):
And they got Yeah, the guy's causton and he's
telling you that it's not goingto be the 695 install special.
It's going to be what are whatare 695 Oh, yeah, me dude.
Stowmarket pinup baggers. He's agreat dude actually out of
Evansville, Indiana, like peoplethis. He's don't don't do that

(31:57):
install for 12 hours. Yeah. Wedon't we don't he does it on his
own. He goes by he goes down toDaytona and he installs all day
tennis balls all day. He gets itdone. Obviously with our bars
that makes it very convenientfor them. We work hard to make
it easy for anyone that needsthe cable. Correct? Yeah, that's

(32:19):
my that's my problem right now.
But yeah, I mean, if you do agood deal like that, but but if
I go to Lake of the Ozarks, andI go to that rally, I can now
look at all of the dealers inthe Missouri area, and see if
they've had an uptick in salesbecause I can talk to people
they're not going to be ascrowded. And let's be honest, if
you're sitting in Sturgis, thedude that you're talking to is
five in the bag. Anyway, right.

(32:40):
I had a guy call me He's like,dude, I just got a toner. I see
you guys bars, dude. I want tosell them like weird. We weren't
in Daytona but okay. We're inLA. He kept saying another
brand. And you know, keptdropping that name and dropping
the names as a pointy bar. I'mlike, what you need. So I gave

(33:01):
him the part number andeverything. And he All I know is
he probably wouldn't order thatbar. It definitely wasn't what
he was looking at in Daytonabecause I was I sold it to him.
So that's a perfect example tofly me out. So it's hard to get
someone's attention at a rallyafter they've had a couple beers
or in the good part is a lot ofpeople stop either. I do love
your stuff. But we're, I'm ourbusiness plan right now is I'd

(33:24):
really like to just focus on thegrassroot stuff. I want to get
back to that right now. Becausethis all this big stuff is just
it gets diluted. I mean, you'reon the sturgeons law I mean,
Black Hills they do a great jobsetting up for everybody. You
got so many different vendors onthere begging for your money
begging for your dime beggingfor your business not begging
but it's so much to go there andyou're sitting next to so many

(33:46):
different vendors that the dudeit's just diluted it gets lost
in the 16 Coors Light he has

Aaron Staudinger (33:52):
you know and I would think that like the trade
shows trade shows what's betterfor you guys? Yes Then you're
Yeah, because you're not reallytrying to reach the public at
large you're trying to sell myproduct

Unknown (34:08):
yeah there so you're stealing your stainless bar?
Yeah. The ones come out withstainless steel Are you guys
gonna offer an option to havemulticolor?

Marshall Tucker (34:21):
Well, you know what I've been I'm gonna do that
with my cage fighters on myrookie

Roy Merritt (34:27):
cage fighters on the sporty Becky blown them

Marshall Tucker (34:32):
maybe it's because you don't have a fighter
like a worse man But yeah, Idefinitely want to cook mine I'm
gonna bring some that purple andbluing into my pool because the
wellmark color

Unknown (34:47):
Yeah, if you guys just kind of went through a
multicolor I feel

Aaron Staudinger (34:54):
like Yeah, well, you also consider price
point and time. Yeah, yeah. Theydid that and they would have
charged an extra $100. To cometo our shop. Yeah. Well, but
like, like you would ask. I'lldo it. Yeah. Give me an extra
100 bucks. Oh, yeah.

Marshall Tucker (35:15):
So you asked earlier about what our most
popular seller is now thatyou're talking about cage
fighters. It's the craziestthing right now in that
performance bagger movement,that whole performance movement,
whether it's softail, or dinerbagger right now is really
driving our industry becauseTwin Peaks, everybody knows Twin
Peaks. Dude, there's probablymore Twin Peaks on the planet
than any other handlebar outthere. I have no problem saying

(35:36):
that. Awesome. It's a great bar.
Very popular, classic, timeless.
A lot. No flex. Absolutely.
Because all our stuff is doublewalled. We really pride
ourselves around to that 100pound European contest. Whatever
your Russian says.

Unknown (35:53):
Flex point that we're talking about. Yeah. Flexing.
Oh, yeah. bagger corner at 90miles. Yep. You know, guys are
getting wobbles with other bar,right? Because they flex Yeah,
and it goes in and then theydon't know, you're fighting that
level the bar and then get awhile

Marshall Tucker (36:14):
so that the Twin Peaks, like I was saying, I
mean, that's been our bread andbutter for years, decades
decades. The cage fighter topbar that we use in the in the
stainless steel, the one piece,the multi piece, and the
roguelite application is nowoutselling the Twin Peaks, which
is a massive statement Who wouldhave ever thought tea bars would
be outselling I was just

Shane Langdon (36:34):
gonna ask him Do you think any of that has to do
with the whole king of thebaggers thing and

Marshall Tucker (36:40):
Racing League for me? was huge. It was it was
a blast. I got to go out to UtahIMC the bisogni sansho IMC the
Arlen ness bike show. I was downthere hanging out with with
everybody in the pits hangingout saddleman crew hanging out
with our guys, Tobin brothers adark horse and Hbi. Who took
first place? cage fighters.
That's right. That's how he cameto see Michael Barnes up there

(37:07):
on the podium knowing that ourproduct was charging away. And
the two bytes behind him werefreaking factory teams. Yeah,
Harley factory, an Indianfactory. Man, everybody in that,
in that pit just went freakinnuts. Dude, driving our business
and as we all know,

Roy Merritt (37:25):
yeah, that's my dream is to be like in that

Marshall Tucker (37:28):
you. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm
gonna finish this on my and thenI have a question that I'm going
to point directly at you guys.
But to be out there, and as weknow, and then we can only hope.
How it always works is everybodywants to emulate the track,
right? They want to see whathappens on the track eventually
makes it to the streets, right?
So it's driving our business. Itreally is. But the question that

(37:50):
I have for moonshine, HarleyDavidson and you guys who like I
walked up and I saw the wall?
SNS boxes? Yeah, those are yourpersonal motor kits. You have
your own personal. There's abouttwo weeks supply. Yeah, right.
So why aren't you guys on track?

(38:10):
Why aren't you Why aren't youbetter Racing League? Well,
because I

Aaron Staudinger (38:14):
don't I don't think it would be in your best
interest to talk about what?

Roy Merritt (38:20):
Yeah, no, no, I was just saying, you know, we, we
have quite a few bikes thatcould probably compete on that
level. But they're not our theircustomer. But you know, there
would be a private tier goingout there doing it,

Shane Langdon (38:32):
you know, and kind of patiently waiting to see
if there's gonna be somebodywho's gonna come up and say,
build me that bike. Yeah, I'mgonna go Yeah, it hasn't
happened yet.

Roy Merritt (38:44):
From the kids that Kahoot is whoever we did with
the two over big barrel andsprint in to one of the only
ones we had, he was talkingabout a wobble and like, 120.
And he's doing the baggers andI'm like, Man, you're not rodney
king in the batter's box. You'reon the street. You know, there's
a point where you can't doeverything that's on the track.

(39:05):
Yeah. You know, and you at thatsame time, you know, because he
was asking me about what heshould do about the wobble in
the front end. I was like, 100%honest with you, man. You're
you're working with a, yeah,you're working with a front end,
and I know nothing. I wouldn'tgo to over and do what he did.
You know, that's just what I'mworking with. You know, he's

(39:27):
like, well, that's what they'redoing on kicking the backers.
And I'm like, Well, yeah, I getthat. But how many turns are you
hitting at 120 miles a day? Youknow, how many? How many
racetracks Are you hitting onthis? I personally, we stay on
the street, you know, so what Ithink about is the street, not
the track, I'd love to be on thetrail,

Unknown (39:44):
like that's a whole different thing. Here's the 135
that first carbon that tire evermade, because the guys that VSD
made just a flat tire, carbonwheel that's better. So the
wheel weighs as much probablyless than my feet. Yep. But what

(40:04):
bars?

Mike VO (40:06):
Some of those? It was as a huge one of those. What do
they call it? I can't remember.
Oh, they kicked back on the bargonna see me telling him put
back on the freeway. I'm notthat's not my Wi Fi like your

(40:28):
friend

Unknown (40:31):
told him, Hey, you're building a homeless boat. Oh,
you all here don't want somesome crowds or something that's
30. Right? And he didn't believeus. And then he was like, well
with my stuff this in the cornernine. I started to get a wall.
So we did this 500 miles backfor service, everything else. So

(40:54):
he's sitting there and one ofour techs are our service
specialists. Show them the T barset up. And you go sit on this
display. I mean, he's by 240.
Like he's strong, dude. He'sgrabbing the bars and you can't
move them. He comes back on thebike rack, he fits on these
flats in these bar. And I said,cuz I told him I can adjust your

(41:18):
suspension. He's got three wayadjustable all these rear lens
brought. I can try to just benchit. But you know, let's let's
start with the rear because therear everybody overlooks as far
as suspension caused wobble. Hecomes to us on that and it goes
back and he's literally flexingthe bars on the rack like this.
That will not happen. I said,hey, that's your issue, because

(41:43):
the bushings and bars andthey're super thin. And yeah,
just overmanned him not. Notmyself. But that's the whole
thing of form for some. Yeah, alot of guys. You know, I want to
23 or 26 that well, you're goingway up on form very loves really

Shane Langdon (42:07):
cool is like now you've seen like, what used to
be cool back in the day in the60s in there like plenty car
days, where stuff was just madeto work. Yep. functional. Yeah,
man. And what works and is onthe bike looks super cool right
now.
Exactly. Love it. Love it. Imean, let's the whole function.
Like well, function is cool ashell right now. Hang on, let

(42:30):
stuff be loose.

Unknown (42:32):
Like hanging on the side. Bar is form. And our stuff
its function is drag race inCalifornia. They're not hitting
corner. No.

Roy Merritt (42:49):
Your drag race and you don't want to be but you
really are there. Yeah, this oneI wrote. I wrote one today. I
wrote one today. In the front.
We don't even make it out of theparking lot. And I was like, I'm
like Jesus Christ. How do peoplewrite these exams?

Marshall Tucker (43:12):
You have to think of it this way. You have
to look at it this way. You knowand even when I you know, as you
guys know, I worked at thedealership network for a long
time I built you know, we wecollaborated Jane did 23 years
and 26 years. And we did. I hada dude who wanted to he bought a
131 or a 120 our motor. One day,the next day comes in he goes

(43:34):
man, I also want to put a trashturbo on their own by about how
that works. Yeah, I was like thedude. And he didn't care. I'm
like, dude, he was mad. So Icall back. I'm like, he's like,
Yeah, well, yes. Yeah, he'slike, he's like, knock off the
pulley. And that's all we did.
I'm like, Dude, this guy spent$10,000 on a turbo and a motor
that's like four. Engineers. Wehave to look at it this way.

(44:00):
This is the awesome thing aboutthis movement. The performance
bagger movement is think aboutall the money that we've we've
taken from our customersbuilding in respect to the big
wheel bagger is done, right? Ican appreciate the art and
anything right?

Roy Merritt (44:16):
Everybody's always gonna have show bikes, right?
Everybody's everybody's alwaysgonna have the right to

Marshall Tucker (44:24):
think about all the money that we spent with our
customers ruining a motorcycle.
We've ruined that motorcycle.
We've taken a lot of money fromthe customer. He's happy, but
you're looking at it going likethat's ruined it. No. Now we
have people putting on I mean,looking at these bikes that you
guys have just sitting around onthe floor. These bikes are

(44:44):
amazing. And now we're spendingthis money doing this. And now
they're making him superfunctional and super sexy. It's
super fast. It's stillcomfortable.

Aaron Staudinger (44:53):
And they're Japanese.

Shane Langdon (44:57):
And the sexy part. That's the funny thing. is
like that's, you interpret thatin your mind and this is by
Lamborghini. Somebody five yearsago they've been like I don't
know now that is close.

Marshall Tucker (45:15):
No do I mean when I when I mean my road, my
role has changed Jamie's place.
When I put my road King togetherlike four or five years ago, I
had the idea of taking like, itwasn't even like a performance
met bagger mentality. It wasjust Hey, I want to make a I
want to make a road King into aDyna X was kind of my mentality,
right? That was my mentality.

(45:35):
And as I'm putting it togetherand they over the winter and
whatnot, somebody came up behindme like, performance baggers. I
was like, that's a dumb shit Iever heard. But it was exactly
what I was doing right. Here's

Shane Langdon (45:46):
the next big question. How do we not douche
this

Roy Merritt (45:50):
out? It's already happening. First off aren't new
shoes can't afford them. Look.
There's a big section of I mean,yeah. Yeah, yeah, right there.
These guys are your money, theability and the guys with the

(46:11):
ability can't afford that shit.
They're all right. And Dinah'sand sportsters and shit. That

Unknown (46:20):
he's getting all the shows douche now say one day
that I spike. You rise likefucking asshole. Claim he's got
the money to claims he cannotwrite anybody. And I'm like,
Yeah, I don't think you canwrite back because all you do is
blow through cars and throughred lights. Yeah, I would gladly

Roy Merritt (46:42):
I would gladly put it up gets him in turns. And
like through windy roads. Sure.
And that thing's got two inchesin the front. And they can ride
and they can ride. Yeah. I mean,I wouldn't sleep on Mondays.
There's a certain level of riderability and bucket level Yes.

Marshall Tucker (47:12):
eraser or checkers or writers dude.
Because there's two types ofracers out there. Right? There's
two types of racers you haveyour calculated sound racers
like like we were talking likeMichael Barnes. The weak points
racer. First guys who are smartenough to go Okay, yeah, I'm
sitting in second. I know I caneven go into dive into this turn
and take him. But they're goingNope. I'm gonna stick here for

(47:33):
the point. But if it was me, I'mlike, look at my twisted. Yeah,
I'm like the lick right.
checkers records maybe?

Mike VO (47:44):
That's the only way to win. You win. How am I gonna win
if you shake it? Bye. Yeah, hitthe dead key. No, I you know,

Roy Merritt (48:15):
a lot of miles a lot of time on the seat. I don't
claim to be the best rider. ButI don't my bucket level is not
as high as like a Nic, or a tie.
Or one of these guys.

Marshall Tucker (48:27):
Do I sly nation as you get older becomes more of
a priority. And I got the 42 Iwas like, Fuck, I got the 40 to
get here. I should probablystart taking care of my body.
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Ithought I was gonna be dead by
now. So yeah. I was gonna makeit the 21 was gonna make it to
25 and here comes 40 I'm like,Oh shit.

Roy Merritt (48:48):
I ride as fast as I can. But you know, breaking the
back tire loose is a bad thing.
You know what I mean? So yeah,and I know how fast I can get
into a corner. I know how fast Iget out of your corner only and
so when guys like to run theirmouths I'm like hell yeah, let's
go ride because if it comes downto like, in and out of traffic
and shit like that, I have noproblem. No rips as I can go
like hell. I did some guy on theway in. So guy pulls up behind

(49:13):
me I was kind of you know, youdrift off sometimes you ride and
there's traffic and she waslike, whatever I'm doing like 80
and I kind of you know, driftedoff. I don't know what I was
thinking about. But I look at myrear view. And there's like a
new softail behind me and I waslike, ooh, and I'm like, Okay,
this guy. Okay, and I'm like Isee it opening in traffic. So
I'm like fuck it I downshift andI dip across a few lanes and

(49:34):
right across a couple of cars.
And anymore, I do not have toget even near my rev limiter
anymore. I get 120 without evergetting close to my revolver.

Aaron Staudinger (49:46):
Did it anyway,

Roy Merritt (49:47):
but I dipped out I dipped out and he was behind me
for like a minute or so liketrying to keep up and his bucket
level was not as high as mine.
At that point. Might even evenwriter he Yeah. Between a few
cars and gave it hell and Inever saw him Yeah. Do you ever
saw me?

Aaron Staudinger (50:08):
Oh Roy, is you wrote that 83 lawnmower? That's
indestructible for so long.
Yeah, that now that you've gotthe big kid on there you're
still riding it like thatlawnmower at 7000 rpm.

Roy Merritt (50:21):
Anyways, this fucker fattened up everything
over 80% that we're not writingmy Hell yeah, there we go there
we go. Oh, I don't even knowwhat that Michael do it full
throttle. I

Aaron Staudinger (50:33):
can't tell you we're saving you 1000s of my
rear cylinders blocked againanyways. How Many Miles did you
get? Okay, so you you cams. Yougot Idaho? I can't hammer. So he
calls me He's like, man, I wantsome really good me patient.
Like I'll get the 560 awesome.
Hammer cameras like I wouldn'tdo that. You shouldn't be around

(50:56):
the

Marshall Tucker (51:06):
camera. Why didn't you just leave it as an
ad? tractor motors are prettyindestructible. I will tell you
right now my sporty rebel 250

Unknown (51:19):
Harley 83 That's why I left. I just left the cam alone.
I'm like this thing'sbulletproof. I just put over a
rock well,

Roy Merritt (51:31):
that ad free has almost 50,000 miles on it. Damn.
And I'm only 20 miles from home.
But I did it on the rev limiterat 107 miles an hour every
fucking day the 83 you're on thehighway you're gonna be near the
rev limiter to get on thehighway if I'm not bouncing off
the rev limiter in every gearpeople are

Unknown (51:56):
like shit. And in fifth gear 107 miles an hour. I
literally at least 10 minutessolid.

Roy Merritt (52:07):
Go in. And I used to joke about it. No, that's
totally promoted. Yeah, that'stotally that motor skill runs
close to it.

Aaron Staudinger (52:19):
And you've done 1000 on this motor with two
motors.

Roy Merritt (52:24):
The first one I didn't know. But I got it. The
second one I think the rearcylinders but it still sounds
better. Still bit sounds betterthan the first one to replace
the rear. Yeah, that's why I'mthinking this rear cylinder
because I didn't replace

Marshall Tucker (52:43):
talking about sports. Let's talk about that
sports dress. Yeah. Like the newformat and I mean, it's a beauty
right? I mean, so are we. Imean, it's almost assumed that
the Sportster is gonna go awaythe dinosaur right I mean,

Roy Merritt (53:04):
there's no way it's gonna be like Dinah's gonna go
through my sports there's gonnabe worth twice as much

Shane Langdon (53:22):
dude I saw already like a bunch of dudes
that have like the fat Bob'ssomeone that man America has
now.

Marshall Tucker (53:29):
Yeah, so pan America is really awesome. It is
pretty amazing. I hate to saynot here's the biggest thing

Roy Merritt (53:39):
The crowd is dying out the the baby boomers and all
that are kind of getting out ofour main focus now. But those
people would never have acceptedthe way that things sounds and
right No, it does not sound likea Harley. But it sounds like a
Ducati

Marshall Tucker (53:56):
I think that they're they're appealing to for
whatever reason, they're doing awriter or writers But yeah, I
mean, how many guys on Harley'steam trade their their Twin Cam
or whatever in? in America? I'veseen I've seen it a lot.

Unknown (54:09):
Really? That's not their market? No. This happens.
Great. It was the market isworking. Okay, they're the guys
who are not the adventure tour.

Marshall Tucker (54:22):
No, they're not and some of them may take them
off road and some of them mostof them probably won't.

Roy Merritt (54:28):
In the next six months, I'm really bad. Err
tricks are somebody who the hellpainted it? He just bought it.
Yeah, I just saw it the otherday, john.

Marshall Tucker (54:41):
Yeah. So I was hanging out with him at BRL and
Jeff and I were sitting therebullshitting, dude. And, I mean,
Jeff will just do the motherin law That guy tells you about
that dude, he'd be like, yeah.

(55:07):
But the bottom line, like acollective collective. He's
sitting there, just run hismouth about this bike and he's
super excited about it. He wantsto do this, he wants to do this
you want to like,

Roy Merritt (55:18):
those are the guys you want to be excited about.

Marshall Tucker (55:21):
So it's a it's a really changing dynamic to see
somebody, you know, cross thelake around and do that.

Roy Merritt (55:27):
I know. I know a lot of people you know, as as
being a technician for a while.
I know a lot of people in shops.
Almost every technician I knowthat works on Harley, once in
dual sport bike, so john G ismost of us are riders and we
know that man, there's a wholenother world or riding around to
do on the street.

Aaron Staudinger (55:49):
I want I want a scooter that I put 30 people.

Roy Merritt (55:53):
Yeah. bracing is so hard for

Unknown (56:12):
us. He's our sales manager. Yeah. is not a jonji.
It's not he's Harley guy.
Because he's an important guy.
You mean?

Aaron Staudinger (56:20):
Oh,

Unknown (56:22):
yeah, I was like, very anti Harley, because he's
important. Now, when to thetrack day? Yeah. Which is not
really a track day. It's whatthey call it. A Ducati the BMW a

(56:45):
Harley. And said the Harley wasthe best. I've heard that a lot,
dude, a lot of and that was hugefrom him, because he is not
like,

Marshall Tucker (56:54):
that's pretty much the statement that I made.
I was like, when they announcedit. I was like, dude, they got
to nail this on the first time.
They have to compete with BMW.
Because those are they're goingto be the guys that have paired
apart. Yeah, right. Soeverybody, I've talked to you
that that is an add writer, theygo do that thing that like does
everything it's supposed to doand it does it well. And the
thing that they did, right was?

Aaron Staudinger (57:15):
Well, no, they know that that market does
research. They don't Yeah. Theydon't get

Roy Merritt (57:22):
one. And I'll add it you know, pre delivery,
especially when it comes in, youknow, we have to get them over
and over everything for thepeople that you and I both did.
The last one I did talk to oneof our sales people. It's like,
man, I got a guy coming in thismorning. Look at it. It was
cool. When you get him here.
Bring them a bag. And he came Iwas like adjusting the
headlight. I was just doing likesome final stuff on it. And as

(57:42):
soon as he looked at it, I knewI was like, Oh, this guy's
buying this bike. You know,without question. And he's like,
oh, man, you know, he's like, Igot a buddy as a KTM. I got a
buddy with Ducati. He's like,you know, I've been I forget
what he said he was riding butit wasn't a dual sport. It was
like a street bike. You know?
And he's like, and I'm thinkingabout, you know, getting a dual

(58:03):
sport. I think he might havesaid he had like a 350 or
something small, you know, ridearound with them and, and he's
like, yeah, and I'm like, Wow,look at this. Look at this. I'm
like, look in the back. There'splugins for heated gear, front
and rear. You know, all of thisis here, and I'm showing him the
navigation everything and he'slike, he looks up and he's like,

(58:23):
like, How the fuck I'm gonna payfor weight. I was like, box. You
just walk them over to me, man.
I'll

Unknown (58:31):
help you out. First time I got one week ticket on
test ride route. And I was like,are this thing supposed to
handle on the street dude? Yeah.
Hell yeah, I gave it hell on it.
It just it's everywhere.

Roy Merritt (58:47):
But it will do really I think it stops
controlling. I went through a anintersection and I didn't
realize that my front tire wasoff the ground until it went
like this. Yeah, I was like,

Unknown (59:05):
like, I don't know, just these knobby tires but he
just went to that corner bucket.
Yeah, anyway, pretty hard in thecorner. I

Roy Merritt (59:12):
didn't know about those. No, I've never really
written on Nabis like that onthe street. deceptively sticky.
Yeah. And he's like going on mybucket. Like a 6040 like to get
my bike on a track. Because if Ican get out there but you know,
with somebody else that knowshow to ride like I'm not afraid
I've done it.

Unknown (59:31):
sporty. sporty, is 504 pounds. So it's like 6070 pounds
lighter than the currentSportster and then adding
another one 129 horsepower.
Yeah. That's what Harley issaying. It's 121 rear 92 or 92
or 120. Yeah, but their lastfour shows what so many

(59:54):
perspective so Shawn and it's 80pounds heavier. Yeah, so you're
taking a lot of weight off andthen adding plus a variable
valve time plus the three modesplus the ABS Yeah,

Roy Merritt (01:00:11):
and so it's gonna be a rocket ship the speedometer
is like a little round geometeryeah it's the same as like the
pan America does everything outin America is just like
everything but so a stock 1200Sports shirt probably has seven
horsepower seats. Yeah, so ifyou were gonna take that and do

(01:00:34):
what I did to my motor at $500range here 100 110 Hold on. I
was gonna say maybe one personsomewhere between 85 and what
that is out of the box for 49 ifI break down and buy the 1250
kit instead of the rear cylinderthis winter I do one thing in

(01:00:57):
minds about is is it is twomotors in my sports to do with
me that much my freaking likeokay, so these

Marshall Tucker (01:01:09):
were pretty hard listening. I had a 570 lift
zippers cam in mine I had someserious work done and zippers
actually makes like a pin thatwill set your that hold your
tablets in place because I knowguys that that that keeper snap

(01:01:30):
on originally and Dude, whatyear was it earlier on? 98 Yeah,
they were notorious for ithappened to me and dude, it went
up and I chose skilledtechnician but that is not right
so I

Roy Merritt (01:01:46):
found a rubber mount 1200 stage for screaming
Eagle heads high compressionpistons 58 millimeter throttle
body for $600 on Craigslist holyshit wrote it for about a month
before you buy a motorcycleabout the motors are blowing up

(01:02:08):
that's the motor I blew I made83 I put that in blew up and
then I rebuilt it but I shouldreplace the rear spoiler sensor.
Yeah, and it's noisy. It's notlike it doesn't run I still make
good numbers on the dyno butit's just noisy pisses me off.

Unknown (01:02:25):
Oh Harley has are noisy. Yeah slap I

Roy Merritt (01:02:30):
guarantee you yellow sloppy is only it's only
when it's really hot. So when Igot to Kentucky It was so
fucking hot out there all night.
It was just so I'm walkingaround I'm drinking beer All I
hear is fucking assholes justand I knew the whole way there
at 75 miles an hour. I wrote inat idle I never hit the rev

(01:03:02):
limiter I never burned the tireI never did anything wrong in
that motor was just like Ididn't want to ride the second
day like I let it sit. And thenSunday I fire it up. She sounds
good. She's like hey let's gohome to Kentucky nap that's all
I needed. was like you'resupposed to write when you write

(01:03:30):
they don't run just morningtraffic I'm sitting in traffic
and it's like coming back Istart revving up a little bit we
get back going and I fuckingballs down the hallway here no
motor sounding so like to beloved man. They don't they don't

(01:03:52):
at all. No, not at all. But thewhole time I was watching guys
in sport he's go by bouncing offa resume or stuff irritated me
to a level that I cannotexplain. Because I had been so
gentle to mine on the way out.

(01:04:13):
Now until my motor blew, I wouldhave been happy wouldn't piss me
off at all. But the fact that Ilimped it out there the whole
way trying to stick with the carbehind me. And I get there and
it's making all this noise andfucking PC shit. Oh.

Unknown (01:04:30):
I even shut down your red limiter. I don't know my
bike that Well, the first time Ihit it. I was like, dude, I'm
not even writing about you whenyour dyno technician has to back

(01:04:53):
off your throttle and he backsup and we're like he's like

Roy Merritt (01:04:59):
probably I know that day so it was the middle
range you're getting

Unknown (01:05:05):
on full throttle and I highlighted and I'm like
quickly, like like backing up onthe rev limiter. I'm like 60 100
that's down, didn't you? Turn itdown. Should be seven grand is

(01:05:28):
that I'm staying out of sevengrand. Yeah,

Marshall Tucker (01:05:39):
I find that a generous man. I mean, I think
that speaks for the majority ofeveryone who's paid to the
industry. I mean, you're somekind of degenerate.

Roy Merritt (01:06:02):
I love that guy.
out there. So I had a guy whoworked with me his name was Rex
and he was a service writer. Andhe was a hugger. He loved
hugging people, so he likes tocome up try to give you a hug.
He says one day he walked it waslike when his first days there
and he walks up the mastertechthere was there yo me and Jamie
and it would touch me. Yeah.

(01:06:32):
Amen. If you want to give her ahug she go work in Honda's shop

Aaron Staudinger (01:06:49):
identify an American male oh my god I write
a heart well

Unknown (01:07:00):
creeps back together in your mind dude so I mean that's
that's a sore subject just likeeverybody talk to me about just
like God so I was sayingno took his apart and just

(01:07:22):
haven't put it back together. Soso it's been it's been a year
it's been a year since I leftour hospitals today. Yeah, today

Aaron Staudinger (01:07:39):
you guys know me so we need to get is like to
have Aaron put Aaron on theschedule for two days. We'll be
like, lift my tab you have a wayto make money it's been a year

(01:08:07):
yeah.

Marshall Tucker (01:08:08):
damn near rip my rip my damn right foot off.
That was fun. I got I got abunch of hardware and whatnot my
leg so try anybody trying tobuild a bike in 2021 is just
bone. You know, we were kind ofjoking about all the back orders
and everybody assumes again,like well Hey, dude, I mean, I'm
waiting on bars just likeeverybody else. You know? Yeah,
like Dude, you work in theindustry you could just you

(01:08:29):
could call the company we allget that.

Roy Merritt (01:08:32):
I mean you can give me this right like

Marshall Tucker (01:08:36):
that's what I was telling him like, Look Dude,
I go just because I work in theindustry. Yes, I have people I
could call up be like, Yo, dude,I got I need some help here. But
I know full well that those guysare struggling to meet their
customers expectation. And atthat point, I have to just wait
in line just like everybody elsein that right now. Yeah, you
know and so finally getting someheadway on it gonna be
definitely coming back. Youknow, I everybody always broke

(01:08:56):
they got confused for a Dinah.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna takethat a little bit further on the
next build. Yeah, and I got somereally cool stuff coming for
that. But yeah, what's up? Yeah,I got some new wheels from
NASCAR. I want

Roy Merritt (01:09:08):
Yeah, go I want one like a 96 inch routing.

Marshall Tucker (01:09:12):
Dude. 96 inch protein. That high compression
motor. I just feel highcompression 103 and the things
are Ripper. I mean, I'm tryingpulley 127

Roy Merritt (01:09:22):
looking river man.

Marshall Tucker (01:09:23):
Absolutely. And I mean everybody can enjoy their
big inch motors dude, I'vealways just found that that high
compression motor super reliableand has all the power I need.

Roy Merritt (01:09:32):
107 bill he's going Facebook. Oh, yeah, he's no he's
looking at startup part. No, no,he just seven Didn't you chain?

Unknown (01:09:44):
No. 107 Yeah, no. One of those did pretty good. No.
Car come watch on the oneTenzin. Oh, no, she can Twin Cam
and you're doing one 117 17Please welcome to patients with
depression with

Shane Langdon (01:10:08):
it's gonna be fast run easier to push pusher
rock swing arm don't drive

Marshall Tucker (01:10:28):
dude so that was funny you know my buddy Mike
on his his king probably liketwo or three years ago while
building a performance baggerand I looked at him I go running
an open primary

Shane Langdon (01:10:42):
I just have my whole bike like on and be
competitive hell yeah man and besuper good everybody and now
it's been three years almost inthe past

Marshall Tucker (01:10:53):
like I said like I built my room when I put
my robe together like four orfive years ago there wasn't
swing arm baggers, but I mean Ithought I was hot chick because
I had an EXO legend and they arelegit legit. Yeah, but I mean

(01:11:15):
back then they didn't have theswing arms they didn't have any
of that so I just did it. I didwhat I could with what I had and
I kind of kept it that wayeverybody's like why don't you
do this one dude I kind of likeit being a sleeper because like
you know what, it may not havethe Brock swing arm I go but
depending on the level of riderlike we keep talking we keep
going like that you can have allthat power but if you don't know
how to put the ground and youdon't know how to ride

Roy Merritt (01:11:36):
the sporty that I've looked at it and I'm like
20 $400 sporty No, yeah,absolutely that that $2,000
swingarm does not raise theprice

Unknown (01:11:58):
swing arm is the same for my by being in those brain
earlier is the same as a six BYep. Oh yeah. So I run through
the six feet all day long butthe open Bell primary is forcers
but I'm saying for his bike theopen belt does tell oh yeah with

(01:12:18):
a fucking clutch

Roy Merritt (01:12:24):
yeah I mean oh it's true. I love I love it was 15 or
something and when they they'resomewhere you can get the ad
that they started putting inlike magazines about they're
compensating sprocket

Aaron Staudinger (01:12:42):
technology Indian did it 46 and then Harley
wanted a copy of 653 years

Roy Merritt (01:12:47):
because because they need copies everything
holiday and it took you know twocompensating sprocket and you're
like Dude, why are we stillusing his transmit everybody
who's I mean think abouttransmission,

Marshall Tucker (01:13:05):
everybody that comes in and looks at these twin
cams and they're like oh man,Harley Davidson. I mean, let's
just be honest, it's anantiquated tractor motor

Mike VO (01:13:26):
$1,000 but the bottom line is it's antiquated
customers

Unknown (01:13:37):
I made 25 grand into Twin Cam will give you less than
10 grand into an MA yeah man heactually taught me actually same
because

Aaron Staudinger (01:13:53):
it's gonna cost 10 grand more bucks let's
go

Roy Merritt (01:14:04):
the motor became more problematic than it was
worth at about the one of thethree state drive once you start
getting bigger than a one athree on a twin cat one or the
problem is why they went to theme and it's why they went to
more valves is the fuckingspring pressure on anything over

(01:14:25):
a 103 is like 180 pounds timesomewhere around 180 and then
you get into the 170 it's moreYeah, but like on a 110 it's
like 180 pounds and re fuckingtime it hits the seat. There's

(01:14:45):
gonna be noise there's gonna bewhere it happens is a 10,000
mile a spring seat like pressurethat hits at is somewhere
between 60 and 80 pounds. Wow.
enough where the piston comingup we'll knock the valve back
out of the way. Oh yeah, we'llsee no knocking valve springs

(01:15:05):
break and they still run out ofthe ways
to spring we just outgrew springwhat we needed out of the motor
for the motorcycles that we wereriding we wanted we outgrew what

(01:15:26):
that Twin Cam could do and 117one point yard motor yacht a
very cool motor don't No, no, Imean every 5000 miles you're
gonna be in

Aaron Staudinger (01:15:38):
socket is when somebody says man, my motors
look like really? Yeah. Oh,yeah. They're like, Oh, yeah,

Roy Merritt (01:15:48):
no, yeah, you're you're you're fine. And you had
it you we don't have those. Idon't think we have those
explanations like we used towith the Twin Cam, which was
alright man. You understand?
This is not going to be quiet.
Yeah, well, we get this done.
This is gonna be noise back.
Yeah. I

Aaron Staudinger (01:16:04):
never ran the first generation without me.
Yeah. Put him in. Like better.
Are you sure there's no other Itold you it's gonna be noise.
Yeah. Like,

Roy Merritt (01:16:16):
yep, you pay for him, but it was scattered.
That's what got me on the motorI bought was the stage for
Harley kit with the 585 cams arenotoriously noisy. They're like,
you fire them up and clap like Ihad video after video after
video. Chi Chi Chi Chi Chi Chi.
So when I fired mine up and whenChi Chi Chi Chi Chi Chi. I was
like, Well, I guess it's our 800horsepower on the dyno, and I

(01:16:37):
wrote it. Most of the liftersfrom Harley unfortunately are
not. We don't touch them. Yeah.
I mean, dueling or s&s you know?
If you want to build somethingthat's fun to ride around on and
you don't want to brag aboutyour your horse and tour. Yep.
And you want something that youknow is dependable. And you can

(01:16:59):
have a lot of fun on the roadwith a Twin Cam. But if you're
shooting for numbers, yeah,right and all that shit they
were struggling with anymore. Imean, they're really not the
guys

Marshall Tucker (01:17:09):
out of BRL that were just kind of coasting along
on their bill eights and theirIndians, the guys at the twin
cams really like. I mean, it wasa two mile track, dude. I was
like, dude, we're gonna see sometwin Campillo. I was

Roy Merritt (01:17:20):
surprised to know that they were running twin cams
and baggers and that liat all Iwas like, Oh my god, they're
actually running twin cams. Shutup the whole battery. Yeah. You
could put 10 grand into a TwinCam motor and I could take a
stock ma with like a 465 and anintake and I'm saying like,

Unknown (01:17:43):
three with our 4949 to 30 foreclose? Yeah, 130
horsepower. 150 just a cam butnow our our three 492 34 close
the last one I did 154 135horsepower. That's awesome.

(01:18:04):
That's awesome. Kids with with

Marshall Tucker (01:18:08):
just I mean.
Yeah, exactly. Cuz back in withthe Twin Cam, it doesn't matter
who you went to is 1500 bucks.
You get your heads deck. 1700bucks. Yeah. Yeah, correct. Now,
we're doing all this big edgemotor stuff. And everybody's
like, what do you do with yourhead? Like, yeah, they flow just
fine.

Unknown (01:18:26):
Yeah. sprains keep pressure,

Mike VO (01:18:29):
you know, and I just, you know, everybody benefit of
two valves. You know,

Marshall Tucker (01:18:34):
kind of like a big deal about that. I'm like,
when fuelling actually had theywere, they had a if you recall
back in the late 80s, early 90sthey had no I have for about
fueling had

Roy Merritt (01:18:47):
just made a few more didn't know, to show about
that. They just made a couplemore. And they were like,

Marshall Tucker (01:18:53):
the originals.
He they ever go through shit. Hefound the original. He's like,
we're gonna we're gonna Yeah,we're gonna put a couple years
out. But I mean, fuelling wasknown for that like back in like
the late 80s. They did that. AndI mean, it was proof. So I mean,
basically that's what they'vedone here. You've got your four
valve head but single cam now.

Roy Merritt (01:19:12):
On the Harley side, I'd always heard that they ran
with it, but they had too muchproblem with angles, Valve
angles and shit like that. Butyou know, computers probably
fixed all of that.

Marshall Tucker (01:19:25):
Yeah. I mean, I I worked with Harley Davidson
industry for over 17 years inthe dealer network with twin
camps you know, see theMilwaukee eight come around was
really rad. He the softail comearound, and I mean, were you
guys at dealer show when theyreleased the softail No, no,
that was a that was a weird day.
But, but everybody got allbutthurt about the diamonds but

(01:19:46):
like getting rid of the diner. Iwas like, dude, you are not
sitting in a dealership watchingthe Dinah's die on the vine
right on

Roy Merritt (01:19:56):
video.

Unknown (01:20:00):
Like socks and everything that was that was my
favorite of all the way handlesit's better

Roy Merritt (01:20:21):
they're like oh we did a moto shock I'm like hey
you might have been doing it fortwo decades the original day
they did softail off of was asingle above not to underneath
and Harley changed it after theylearned

Unknown (01:20:36):
it they learn they oh my god unfortunately so well
with this design yeah yeah, weassociate we really handling the
handling nicer Yeah, yeah thenicer with the pegs Yep. That
was the only softail as a packand a person that I've ever

(01:20:58):
loved. Which one the nice thenicer like oh 60709 Yeah, like
drink only thing is like oh mygod man. It's

Aaron Staudinger (01:21:13):
only good goals correct.

Roy Merritt (01:21:16):
I wrote with a buddy of mine scraped off buck
out of his primary andeverything like that.

Unknown (01:21:28):
Behind the group was off hills. And these guys would
go really fast to corner andthen slow down and drag and
you're like well I want to kindof sit outside you're dragging
you know, setting yourself onthe frame. Yeah, it's gonna push
you outside. Yeah, so I'm notgonna pass on the outside so as

(01:21:49):
slowly down and try to take theminside when they come up from
the inside. Yeah, as I wasgetting there they were
hammering the next corner whichis now right here like okay,
well slow down behind you canundersell yeah hey man quit

(01:22:11):
trying to try so hard Yeah, heyjust slow down and let me buy
because you're not on a

Aaron Staudinger (01:22:18):
fucking racing when the new software came out
and everybody said oh the priceis gonna skyrocket like the new
sports are coming out

Roy Merritt (01:22:31):
less less on the rise man they're all the guys to
spend their time on Instagramand want to be a Dinah bro. And
they have programmers orwhatever the fuck they are. They

(01:22:52):
go out and they see theseclapped out fucking oath
readynas and they give peopleeight grand for him there. And
then the next grande

Aaron Staudinger (01:23:05):
xR crowd Oh yeah.

Unknown (01:23:12):
All right. Listen, this is xR for under a grand or nine
grand trailer to California.
They will do it because it isthe best. His hoses may have

(01:23:35):
taught trailering FX RS from

Marshall Tucker (01:23:41):
the country back in the south in the Midwest
is the best place to find himbecause a somewhere where you
can see like the nation and howthey do their FX RS is on the
east coast. ape hangers tribalslook at RC wheels the Midwest
they don't touch you know 80,000miles on and then of course go

(01:24:04):
the West Coast and it's allfreakin FX RT bearings

Unknown (01:24:09):
are talky and a quarter fairing on it? Dr. Kelly? You'll
make six eight grand Absolutely.
That's so

Roy Merritt (01:24:20):
crazy. Yeah, you're so shit out of it. Yeah.

Unknown (01:24:23):
And take him over spend three grand in pain.

Roy Merritt (01:24:25):
Yep. So we had one of my buddies de Lille on and we
had a call. But, you know, wejoked about you know, these guys
I'll get on Dinah's know dowheelies and all the shit on my
I'll get it. You guys can buy aSportster. You don't have to do
oil mods you don't know sportiesare fucking damn near set up

(01:24:46):
from the factory to do videos onit, you know? And these guys are
buying diapers and yeah, I getit. It looks cool. And people
like the way it looks but likenobody really doesn't. Each one
of them are like, yeah, I'mbuying

Marshall Tucker (01:25:00):
Right now, yeah, Harley Davidson sporting
see stunting steep scene. It israd. It is cool. But you can
only see with so many freakindiamond wheelies, the new
Sportster.

Roy Merritt (01:25:13):
If Harley does not have a plan to put that bike on
a fucking flat track already, itwill fail. What I'm saying is,
hey, it does not compete withthe FTR and they are not

Mike VO (01:25:26):
ready to put that thing on a flat, better. Fucking. And
they won't.

Roy Merritt (01:25:35):
I mean, seriously, what is the other competition?
Besides the India same Harley?
Unfortunately, there was nocompetition with India and they
were clearly there as well.
Yeah, so they brought out their1250 It better be able to
compete. Yeah, for sure. We owndrag the drag strip. Harley. Oh,
yeah. Harley. Yeah. We'd neverhad a problem with that. It's

(01:25:57):
just that mean, it's a differentavenue of race. If that's horses
does not compete with the IndianFTR there's a fucking problem.
Oh, God.

Aaron Staudinger (01:26:09):
I don't know.
You're building it. They aren'tbuilding it to compete with
Indians on the platter. But whywould Yeah, that's how Indians
that's how that bike gotpopular. Davidson can't fucking
figure it out. Well, maybe I'mnot gonna argue with that. Hey,
I've been missing this shit.
Hey, Jason. Jason what's upevery single motorcycle they put

(01:26:37):
out every single one Oh yeah. Ohyeah three came out the street
was gonna come out with a hop upkid oh yeah never never happened
if they would have done anythingto where people would buy raw

Marshall Tucker (01:26:59):
that's great motor I lied. I ran quarter mile
on on RB ronit dogs and I boughtthat bike as far as a straight
line when I worked it currently

Roy Merritt (01:27:15):
on the street rod Street was rad to we're gonna
have to wrap this up soon herefillers.

Aaron Staudinger (01:27:23):
They should have the rest come out and a
pewter race. Well,

Roy Merritt (01:27:26):
yeah, I 100% agree.
Yeah, they should have showed upsomewhere Indian was racing
without anybody you know, andwith a bike trailer.

Aaron Staudinger (01:27:36):
Absolutely.
Absolutely. In a webinar, andthen maybe and yeah, when the
beggars are gonna show up ontime really shows up so fucking
leaders that already knew aboutOh, he said oh my god, we got to
be in this area. You know, rightmotorcycles. God damn. Your

(01:28:01):
first couple of races come up.

Roy Merritt (01:28:12):
You're laying 10 we need five. He comes out. He
comes up with s&s behind allkinds of fucking factories.