The road crew is literally at sea, visiting the 10th Annual High Seas Rally. We got some photos back from their travels to the Blues, Bikes and Barbeque Rally and Thunder Beach. Here are some shots of the RIVCO booth at those rallies, and sights seen. Also included is a pic of the 1 1/2 lb. sandwich Jordan ate at one of our local restaurants.Thanks to John for providing all the photos. (1 is BBB, 2 & 3 are Thunder Beach, and 4 is clearly the sandwich, but missing the 1 1/2 lb. pile of french fries!)

It's pretty hectic at the RIVCO factory. Bodies are flying around the shop floor, assembling products and packing things up for customers, and machining aluminum like crazy. And a big dose of the High Seas Cruise Rally just adds to the excitement.

The High Seas rally is an annual event (this is the 10th) and comes together for a great cause, kidney dialysis research. The rally takes place on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, with up to 3000 bikers, and is truly a great way to socialize, party and meet the biker community at the end of the rally and riding season. A few select vendors get to make the trip too, and RIVCO has been making the trip for several years now. New products are shown, there are lots of free prizes and events, and some amazing parties, not to mention traveling in complete luxury to western Caribbean destinations like Grand Cayman and Cozumel. It's casual dress, so no pressure and the bikers can ride directly to Port Canaveral, Florida where the ship is docked. This year the rally takes place from October 28 to November 4.

Locally, since the weather has been warmer during the days, we are still getting riders at the factory, checking out the latest products. It's very gratifying that we get so many people from Wisconsin, Illinois and even Michigan taking the time to enjoy the ride to Burlington. If we could entice some of the hardy souls from Indiana and Iowa, that would be great too. The factory and outlet is open from 7:00am to 4:00.

Last week, our traveling outlet store/semi made the trip to the Thunder Beach Rally in Panama Beach, Florida. There are quite a few Florida rallies during the course of the hard core riding season here in the States, and one of the interesting things about them is how many people attend who aren't Florida residents. Bikers come from the surrounding states, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas but many come down from the east coast, and a surprising number of Canadian riders make the journey. Thunder Beach, which is a spring and fall event, has always been good to us, but the comment that came back about last week from John, our purchasing manager who attended the rally was "Maybe a bigger crowd than the spring show." Late season rallies just seem to be getting more and more popular, which makes a lot of sense. If you've got ten or twenty thousand or more invested in your bike and you love riding, then stretching the season and the roads just is too good to pass up.

So this week, starting today, the RIVCO semi-trailer is parked at the amazing Biketoberfest in sunny Daytona, Florida. The Fest goes from 10/18-10/21, and our people and accessories have a nice spot at Riverfront Park on Beach Street. If you want to see some innovative billet products, hang out with our road crew and visit the hot spots in Daytona with a bunch of free-spirited fellow bikers, well come on down.

This week the big blue semi is at the Thunder Beach Rally in Panama City Florida. This has always been a great time and show for RIVCO, and so even though the biking season may be winding down a bit here in Wisconsin (though today a well-bundled guy on a Honda Valkyrie passed me like I was glued in place) it is still really going at this time of year in our southern and southwestern states. Our owner decided to bring a big crew if you visit the Rally, you'll see the truck parked in front of the Shoppes at Edgewater, and be able to visit with Rich, John, Justin and Chick. There will be some new products for hard baggers and Harley baggers specifically, and everyone at the booth is friendly, so check them out!

In the shop, the assembly group is preparing additional displays for the Biker Budz, and the smell and heat of welded steel is warming the back end of the building. A potential additional stove wood source has been located courtesy of Alice and new signs for the front of building are ready at Signs & Lines in Waukesha. It's a fine tuned machine here, and we have more rallies coming up quickly.

The RIVCO semi-trailer is at the Blues, Bikes and Barbeque Rally in Fayetteville, and many of our Arkansas customers are attending the event. The road crew brought a couple of new products, including Biker Budz, and are watching what the customer reactions are like to making sure Harley hard bags are well protected. We get updates from the rally on our friend Facebook site, and there have been some great photos of bikers and music from down South.

Currently, Stephanie, Debbie and Chick are contacting folks about our Safety Special, and the assembly team is scrambling to get a large number of the Highway Mounts and Pegs packaged up and out the door. The manufacturing group is pounding out a record number of our famous Hitch Tongues, and generally updating all of our machining programs.

We haven't started carting in wood for the trusty cast iron stove, but there's a nip in the air every morning now, and the Wisconsin bikers that drop in are beginning to bundle up.

The Fall Scramble

September is just flying by and the shop is noisy. Finishing up a new product, designed to help protect the hard-working and beautiful hard bags so many of our customers and friends have on their motorcycles. Assembly is also packaging up some new electrical components for trailering. Also, a new video is being shot for the High Seas Cruise Rally in November - more about that later.

The semi-trailer showroom is getting inventoried and spruced up for the Blues, Bikes and Barbeque Rally in Fayetteville, Arkansas, September 26 through 29. Only ten years old, this rally is said to be the largest that benefits local charities. Along with great food, music and events for ever larger biker crowds, this rally is family friendly and welcomes children.

Also, here are some photos of fellow Wisconsinite Gary, who won a set of our Harley air horns from the local Love Run raffle, Matti from Finland who installed our risers on his Rocket III, and a recent shot of the shop's mascot, a vintage Ural. Enjoy!

Production started just the other day on a new series of videos for the website. Specifically, installation videos and product description videos, to answer rider questions about our many accessories. Especially at at rallies, many times bike owners want detailed information, and right away, because they care passionately about their bikes, so Rich is taking time right now to make videos about commonly asked about products.

The first two worked on this week were the installation process of the Chrome Handlebar Clamp Mount and Cup Holder, and the dynamic features of our new Cowl Driving Light Set for 2012 and newer Honda GL1800 models.These videos should be appearing on our website and on YouTube in the very near future. Have a safe Labor day weekend, and don't forget  to check out the Blue Moon!