Tuesday, October 28, 2003

GirlonaGuzzi

Yup. I was girlonaguzzi today and it looks like I will be moving forward.
No. I didn't get rid of Thor, my beloved.

Here's the skinny.

For the last couple of months, I've been frequenting bike club meetings of the ABVMC (Atlantic Beach Vintage M/C) and have been enjoying the social time of the gatherings. The club has a diverse group of members and not all (yours truly) members are vintage bike owners although that is the primary focus of the club.

One of the members, Kurt, is the owner of the local Moto Guzzi dealership and at last night's meeting, he was having discussion about his shop and the direction it needs to take. One such direction is the inclusion of women as potential customers since the female rider is the quickest growing demographic of today's motorcycling community. He said he needed to add a female to his staff but he didn't know any women riders who were passionate about riding and had an interest in the motorcycling industry. Then he started looking around the restaurant and asked someone "who's the chick in the yellow shirt?" (Yours truly) Pirate John, the interim President of the club, told him who I was and so Kurt said he wanted to meet me to discuss a job opportunity.

Shortly after that, Kurt and I talked and agreed to meet today to discuss his plans and how I might be included.

Next week, I'll become girlonaguzzi on a part time basis since I've accepted his offer to work with/for him on the continuing development of his business. :) My short term and long term responsibilities will include bike sales (after I get lots and lots of exposure to the bikes); merchandising; on-the-road vendor sales/demos; earning my certification for safety instruction and then conducting safety training; conducting mini-workshops on oil changes, tire changes, etc.; and writing/publicizing.

Today, I got my first taste of the Guzzi and thoroughly enjoyed it. Kurt wanted to introduce me to the bikes right away so my first outting was on a Breva 750, a surprisingly powerful and nimble bike. This is a great bike for the entry-level rider or for the less-than-leggy rider. The second ride was on the California Stone 1100, a beefy and surprisingly agile cruiser. I intentionally set out to find open road as well as road with less than satisfactory surfacing and was amazed at how smooth these bikes ran. Buttah, I tell you. Braking and suspension were incredible on both bikes. Moto Guzzi is a little secret waiting to be discovered... and I say that as a rider, not as an employee. :)

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home