I didn’t hear the show but you can read the transcript here. According to Hillier, Cobra employs fewer than 50 people, but there are about 100 companies around the country that depend on Cobra for business (probably contractors for the manufacturing of various parts.)

Hillier also noted that when similar, game-changing legislation hit the auto industry back in the 1980s the industry had years to react and re-engineer. The CPSIA was passed in August of 2008 and put into law six months later. With catastrophic effects.

This is not the last we have heard about this law. This is another fine example of people who don’t know what their doing, passing a law on a topic they don’t know anything about, with absolutely no consideration for its consequences. This is what happens when government “works”.

This post is about helmets and what I learned at the show. The older I get the more interested I am in survival and safety technology. With the recent death of FMX star Jeremy Lusk from a head injury, helmets were high on my list this year. So I made it a point to spend time at the booths of as many major helmet manufacturers as I could — Bell, Shoei, Arai, HJC, and AGV.

These were just a few of the helmets on display. Every major vendor of apparel had at least one rack of helmets, and there were even a few new brands I never heard of before. Mike Metzger, the “godfather” of FMX, was at the show pushing his new line of Kali helmets and apparel.

Here’s a basic rule of thumb — style, color, and trendy design are not the most important consideration when looking for a helmet. Neither is ventilation or how many visor/shield configurations you offer. In my mind, neither is the margin offered to the dealer. But those seemed to be the only things anyone wanted to talk about. Except for Arai.

When I stepped into the Arai booth I was greeted with a wall covered in raw shell castings, cut-away shells, cut-away helmets showing various EPS liner configurations, and a bevy of crash-damaged helmets. I asked the first person I saw to tell me about Arai helmets and what made them different. (This was the first question I asked in every booth.) Immediately the salesman walked me over to the wall and began pointing out the raw fiberglass shell and talking about how helmet technology has evolved.

The salesman was an older gentleman, and in the course of his conversation he mentioned that his son had worked for Arai for 23 years. He took the older, single-layer fiberglass helmet casting (typical of 1980s-era helmets,) placed it on its side on the floor, and stood on it bouncing up and down. Then he explained, using photos and graphics on the wall, the 27–step process Arai uses to hand mold every modern, multi-layer Arai shell and explained the function of the various materials

He showed me the unique, dual-density, one-piece EPS liner that all Arai helmets use. He showed me the emergency cheek pad removal system. Then he began showing me the crash-tested helmets on display.

He noted that every rider had walked away without significant head injury. Some of the helmets were not just damaged, but destroyed. That the rider had survived was astonishing. But the helmet did its job.

After his demonstration I walked over to the shelf of new helmets and found a new XD3 Supermoto/Adventure helmet. I love this helmet — the look, the feel, the fit, the balance. Even though it is noticeably heavier in your hand than a Bell Moto8 or the more-comparable Shoei Hornet-DS, it doesn’t feel heavier on your head. There’s no top-heaviness at all.

As soon as I put the helmet down another salesman walked over and began asking me questions. He also started explaining the differences in Arai construction and pointing out features and considerations that the first gentleman had not gotten to.

In fact, everyone in the Arai booth appeared to be extremely knowledgeable about their product. Moreso than any other helmet vendor I visited. I had a similar, but not quite as thorough, experience last year when I talked with the marketing director at Bell. But everyone else, not so much. They pretty much wanted to show me the new graphics, the new vents, or talk about the margins I make as a dealer. I know that’s important, but it’s not what I asked about.

The AGV rep did talk briefly about the industry-wide discussion over whether Snell is the right standard, and whether Arai helmets are, in fact, too stiff. He mentioned that there was actually a Snell meeting at the show to discuss some of these issues. The AGV helmets are noticeably less stiff than an Arai.

There is a legitimate argument about how to rate and construct helmets, and there is real concern that Snell may not be the right standard. There is significant industry debate over this issue, with competing standards in the US, Europe, and the UK. I wrote about this last year.

In that article I noted that, in an informal survey of several riders, there was general agreement that a $250 helmet was probably 2x better than a $100 helmet, but there was doubt that a $500 helmet was actually 2x better still.

I still don’t know the answer, but I do know this — the Arai folks are fanatical about helmets, and it’s very hard to argue against a company that is so committed to protecting your head. They are not making a fashion statement. They are not bowing to trends and fads if it compromises what they believe a helmet should be. They are 100% dedicated to making the very best helmet they know how to make. And this passion shows in everyone in the company.

I might still say the Bell Moto8 is my favorite off-road helmet, but I’m not sure. I know I love the Arai XD3 and will replace my current street helmet as soon as I can.

According to this Oligopoly Watch post “Getting hosed“, the EU competition commission recently issued $173 million in fines to six global corporations for conspiring to fix the price of marine hose. Included in the list:

• Bridgestone Tire and Rubber (Japan)
• Trelleborg SA(Sweden)
• Manuli Rubber Industries (Italy)
• Dunlop Oil and Marine (UK-based, but a part of Herman conglomerate Continental Tire Group)
• Parker ITR (Us/Italy)

Any of those names sound familiar? Getting credit for an also-ran position is Japan’s Yokohama, which chose to expose the cartel to avoid fines. These companies control the great majority of a world-wide commodity product — rubber — that is used for a lot of motorcycle parts besides tires.

According to the article, there is some hope as the UK appears to be moving more aggressively toward criminal investigations of complicit executives. It’s about time. After a dozen years of letting companies do whatever they want we need a serious redirection of anti-trust action.

As a side note we, as motorcyclists, need to be extremely cynical that global corporations have our best interests at heart. They do not. Not Honda. Not Suzuki. Not Yamaha. Not Kawasaki. Not BMW. Not HD. None of them. And we need to be extremely vigilant that these companies do not co-opt our rider organizations for their own goals just because they have the money.

Now this Detroit Free Press article on Cobra features Cobra as an American manufacturer who is growing sales, even overseas, despite the recession. According to the article Cobra sold 1,100 combined motorcycle/ATV units last year. That’s nothing compared to the Japanese. But since when does that matter?

1,100 units is nothing. The Big Four plus KTM sell about a quarter million dirt bikes a year in the US across their entire product lines. If you knock it down to just the 85cc and under size it’s a lot less, but still more than 1,100 each.

Yet 1,100 units is enough for Cobra to make a profit, have employees, manufacture in the US, and keep growing. What’s more, they win races.

In dirt bikes winning on the race track is what matters. And Cobra does that.

Cobra bikes already boast an impressive racing record, winning dozens of amateur motocross national championships. Chief competitors include motorcycles from Austria’s KTM Power Sports AG and Italy’s Polini Motori.

The company has 100 dealers across the United States, including Waterford, Jonesville and Ludington in Michigan. Last fall, Cobra hired its first employee in Europe, where it is signing up distributors.

Cobra bikes gained a following in the mid-’90s based on their performance. Bud Maimone, an owner of a tool and die shop near Youngstown, Ohio, created the bikes for his son to fill a niche that he didn’t think anyone was serving well.

Hilbert, Cobra’s president, and seven other investors are buying the company from Maimone, a process expected to take a few years. Half of Cobra’s investors, including Hilbert, are former auto engineers.

A small American motorcycle company owned by reformed auto engineers. Selling bikes, winning races, and pushing forward. That’s the kind of innovation we need to get the country back on track, not $1 trillion bailouts so corrupt bankers can buy new corporate jets.

One thing that caught my attention was a brief mention from Tony Wenck as the second hour began about the FIM MX1 World Championship being shortened (again) with the postponement of the planned USGP round. I usually check the MotocrossMX1.com site a couple of times a week, but had not heard this yet. This cancellation comes on the heels of the cancellation of the South African round due to financial difficulties.

What Tony talked about, and what I want to discuss, is the overall trend of downsizing in industry, what it means, and what we should expect. There were 40,000 layoffs in the US this week as US companies cut back. That sounds devastating, and it is if you’re one of the 40,000.

What we have to remember is that business is cyclical. Companies that are flush with cash, booming with business, and running as fast as they can — which is what many US companies were doing between 2004 and 2007 — wake up one day and realize they’ve made a mistake (or several.)

They’ve hired too many people, taken on too many new product lines, acquired too many companies, or expanded too fast. Often the easiest way to solve a problem when you’re growing is to throw more people at it. Unfortunately, this is not the most efficient way, and often far from the best way, to solve a problem. As long as things are great everyone ignores it. But when things get tight it’s time for everyone to readjust to reality.

This readjustment process is what politicians call a recession. It’s when everybody backs up, re-evaluates what’s important, what works, and what doesn’t. Ultimately, the smart companies come out better than they were. They focus on where the money comes from, and they dump, at least for a time, the arrogance that makes them think they are infallible. The market speaks very loudly in a recession. That’s good. It hurts for a while. That’s bad.

The motorcycle industry has a lot of smart, resourceful, entrepreneurial people. These people will find new markets, lean out their business, improve customer service, and find ways to grow. They won’t be swayed by scare stories on the news every night. They’ll keep working and learning and adapting.

In a year or two we’ll look back and see the industry stronger as a result of the current problems. The motorcycle is a great way to forget your problems for a while. It’s a great way to save on gas. And it’s a great hobby for families and friends. Just hang in there. It will get better.

Jim Palau-Ribes and partner Roger Gubert have been working on the project for seven years and hope to build a prototype 450cc bike this year. They have formed a company named Pursang Motors for the venture. Whether the two can actually pull this off or not is open to question, but it would certainly be nice to see them succeed. Found via Motocross Action Magazine.

The revolution that Better Place is betting on isn’t in what they’re doing — electric cars — but in how they’re doing it. The company is taking the business model Apple Computer used to revolutionize the music business and applying it to green transportation.

The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy — such as wind and solar — as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets — the first pilots were opened in Israel this week — plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.

Under the Better Place model, consumers can either buy or lease an electric car from the French automaker Renault or Japanese companies like Nissan (General Motors snubbed Agassi) and then buy miles on their electric car batteries from Better Place the way you now buy an Apple cellphone and the minutes from AT&T. That way Better Place, or any car company that partners with it, benefits from each mile you drive. G.M. sells cars. Better Place is selling mobility miles.

So what’s the motorcycle connection? Maybe it’s KTM and their Zero Emissions Bike or their patented hybrid, two-wheel-drive technology. It doesn’t appear to be the existing behemoths of the industry, including Honda, Harley-Davidson, or BMW.

But Friedman’s point is that, wherever it comes from, it will come. And probably sooner rather than later. As motorcyclists we should be prepared for what entirely new business models could mean to our pass-time, and to the political environment in which we exist. Greater access to quiet, green transportation will make our loud, smoking bikes even more of an outlier, and subject to even greater regulation.

We need to get our act together now, and figure out how to create a united effort to protect the rights we still have, while we still have them.

KTM is smart to be getting a head start on this. Ever since Algore (the guy who invented the internets) published his book labeling the internal combustion engine as the primary cause of all Mankind’s troubles, the EcoNazis have been chomping at the bit to rid the planet of this scourge. I hope they don’t succeed, but there’s little doubt that there is a lot of money to be made for the companies that can effectively harness the power of the electron to provide motive force.

I just hope future generations are still able to feel the thrill and hear the roar created by capturing the power of fire in the internal combustion motor. Found via Motocross Action.

I have long wondered just how effective the AMA Congress really is at effecting change in the organization. Here’s what I wrote in August of last year:

1. Can ~5% of the financial power of the motorcycle industry exert any meaningful economic influence over the other 95%?
2. Can ~5% of the financial power in the motorcycle industry exert any significant bargaining power politically, economically, or socially?
3. When the AMA must decide whether or not to take an action that will benefit rider-members but will significantly anger the 6-member motorcycle oligopoly – who control $150 billion of capital and 80%-90% of the market – will the rider-members prevail?

If you answer yes to any of those questions you live in a very different, and vastly more naive, world than I do. Like it or not it’s all about the money. The AMA cannot represent the riders and the motorcycle industry at the same time because we, the riders, are not equal to the industry. Our interests and needs are not going to align perfectly with the industry. And we are stupid if we think our paltry membership (250,000 members is about $10 million in dues) is going to get us equal footing in a conflict.

Fouts’ letter specifically addresses the sale (or transfer) of western region AMA Hare Scrambles racing to WORCS, and the summary dismissal of the many hard-working Districts that have put on events for years (in some cases for decades.) His issue is more the secretive, unilateral way the transfer was handled than with the transfer itself, although he has some fairly strong criticism of the transfer’s consequences.

As Fouts states, AMA President Dingman is intent on taking the AMA from a club-based entity to a big-time corporation. This is a natural consequence of the AMA’s nature as a servant of the motorcycle industry.

You see, it takes the big to serve the big. This is an unalterable rule of oligopolies. Fouts notes that the Districts have historically delivered the majority of AMA members. This is probably true, but they have not delivered enough. The Districts have delivered the enthusiast member, the member who joins AMA to race, specifically offroad racing.

In 2006 off-road motorcycle sales accounted for only 25% of total motorcycle unit sales. As dirt bikes usually sell for less than street bikes, we can assume they account for even less than 25% of total revenues. Add to that the sale of offroad bikes continues to decline and we can see that there are not a lot of net new members to be brought into the AMA fold through this channel.

This makes the offroad market quite a bit less important in a long-term growth strategy for the AMA. This view is consistent with the AMA’s past history. Fouts notes that, while the AMA joins in on land use issues, it is the Districts that carry the banner forward and do all the hard work. Other organizations, such as the Blue Ribbon Coalition, actually do most of the heavy lifting on offroad issues at the national level.

Dingman has made it clear that he wants the AMA to become like AAA — a national corporation that serves millions of drivers, not racers. He’s also made it clear that professional racing in any form is not a part of the AMA’s future. Fouts’ interpretation of the AMA’s most recent action is that Dingman also has little regard for the current Districts’ role.

Taken at face value, this means that we, as offroad riders, will be left with little if any meaningful representation in the AMA. Over time the organization will grow more and more to suit the greater majority of street riders. We will be fed the company line from the motorcycle oligopoly regarding what is and is not important to dirt riders. Whatever they want us to know, we will know. What they don’t, we’ll have to find out on our own.

Professional racing has been handed to NASCAR, with all the consequences (both good and bad) that entails. Professional racing is a business endeavor. There is little we can do to affect that. But offroad riding is a passion, and one that deserves protection.

The AMA has long ignored this subset of the motorcycle community. It seems that now this stance is being codified into the corporate structure of the organization. So where does that leave us?

There is no real equivalent to the SCCA for offroad riders. What organizations exist are fractionalized and often work poorly together. Our political representation is weak, and likely to grow weaker as the AMA de-emphasizes offroad riding.

This is a problem we will have to solve ourselves, and doing that will not be easy. We are not a cooperative group. We are highly individualistic and prone to going off to do it our own way rather than sacrifice some of our personal desires in order to further the greater good of a group. But we will have to get past this if we are to survive.

We will have to find it in ourselves to quiet our more outspoken tendencies and learn to work with offroad riders of all persuasions. We need a new organization that can effectively represent all offroad riders, without the industry baggage and politics that have always plagued the AMA.

I don’t know if this is possible. The motorcycle oligopoly rules the market with an iron fist, and too many riders are all too happy to do whatever the oligopoly wants as long as they get a little eye candy every year with bold new graphics. But it’s imperative for our survival. Will someone step up with a compelling vision of what a new, national, offroad riders group should look like?