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Motorcycle Safety and Awareness
Welcome to Think Bike, the podcast about all things motorcycle and the voice of motorcycle safety and awareness in Alberta. Your host is Liane Langlois.
Liane:Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of think bike, and I hope you're having a great summer. If it sounds extra noisy on today's episode, there's a great reason for that. We've taped a few shows at the YG motorcycle show at the Expo Center, and today is one of
Rick:those
Liane:shows. It's been so much fun being here on location, plus great to see old friends and make new ones. It's also been fantastic to meet so many listeners of the podcast. So let's get going on this episode. And today, I have, Rick Lengletch from Argyll Motorsports with me.
Liane:We go way back. Hey?
Rick:We go back a few days.
Liane:Yeah. A a few few days on a few calendars.
Rick:Yes.
Liane:Yes. So you're at Argyle right now. And before we get into everything, let's tell the audience who Rick is, and what is it about motorcycles that you love?
Rick:Motorcycling for me is the the the total freedom of being out on the open road. No distractions, no phones, just you and the asphalt.
Liane:Yeah. Right? Yes. I get a lot of, like, weird, thoughts that I probably wouldn't think of if I was, like, nose deep in my phone.
Rick:Yeah. Absolutely.
Liane:Do you get clear thoughts when you were out riding?
Rick:It's the, I've never found anything clear in my head better than motorcycle riding.
Liane:Yeah. Absolutely. So we go like I said, we go way back. I bought my very first, Triumph Speedmaster from you way back in the day in the old Ecocycle days. I remember that.
Liane:And you had, triked out Rocket three. Correct?
Rick:I did. Yep.
Liane:So whatever happened to that?
Rick:I sold it a couple years back. Yeah. I had it for five summers and, enjoyed it immensely.
Liane:Yeah. The out to BC. And Yeah. Down to the rat race. Yeah.
Liane:Exactly. Yeah. It's all the fun support. So recently, I think it's been about a year and a half, couple years or so that we had an ownership change at Argyll. And, can you tell us a little bit about that and how that's going?
Rick:Yeah. Marco has taken over the general mannership, management at Argyle Motorsports. It brings, some young blood into the business and some excitement to help set a fire under old guys like me, and and will help set the pace for the, the future of Argyll Motorsports.
Liane:Yeah. I I had, not been into the shop for quite a while and, got an invite down to meet Marco, and I'm impressed. I am impressed with him. He's young, and he admits he's got some stuff to learn. I think that he's doing a fantastic job, though.
Rick:He is. He's got the right head for the business, the right personality, and he's definitely accumulated the right people in the store to to help him be successful.
Liane:Absolutely. And then, like, going back to changes in the last few years, I mean, we saw we said goodbye to EchoCycle. Yeah. They they decided to leave the business, and that meant new things over at Argyll. So at Argyll, we have Yamaha for sure who is also, a corporate member of ours.
Liane:So we wanna make sure Yamaha is highlighted in the list of things that we do. But what other brands are you carrying, and what did you benefit from with I guess I shouldn't say it sounds bad to say benefit from Echo closing, but it brought something back to you that you know so much about.
Rick:Yeah. I've been the Triumph specialist in Edmonton for thirty years now, so being able to stick with the brand and move over to Argyll has has been excellent for me.
Liane:Yep.
Rick:As you said, we have, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Triumph, BMW, and Ducati. So there's quite a cross section there for just about anybody. And there's a couple new brands there that I had never dealt with before being BMW and Tocade, so it brought some new, new skills to myself. We pretty much have something for everybody in that one location.
Liane:Yeah. And it's like off road, on road, racing, like, submarine.
Rick:Everything is there. Yeah. Yeah. When you have six different motorcycle brands, there's quite a bit there to look at.
Liane:Well, even on, like, the affordability level is, like, you have budget friendly motorcycles in, like, some of those brands, and then you've got, like, the high end.
Rick:We have motorcycles ranging from, $6,000 to, $200,000.
Liane:What's $200,000 there? Let wait. Let me guess. Is that Ducati or BMW?
Rick:Ducati. The Superlegero.
Liane:Really?
Rick:Which we have one coming for sure and two other guys that have applied to purchase one. So
Liane:Oh my god. What do you do with a $200,000 motorcycle?
Rick:You rope it off in the showroom.
Liane:I I would imagine nobody's gonna get to sit on that one to try it out.
Rick:Not unless you own it.
Liane:Yeah. Yeah. That's
Rick:That's one we need to respect. Yeah.
Liane:Is that like sorry. I'm just hung up on this $200,000 motorcycle. That's crazy to me. Like, is that because of the motor, or is that, like
Rick:Oh, well, that is
Liane:carbon fiber everything?
Rick:Pretty much. That's as close as you get to a a race bike Really? You can actually ride on the street.
Liane:Wow. Yeah. I'm gonna have to come down and see that when it comes in. So one of the things about Argyll that I have always appreciated over the years is, like, commitment to community. There always seems to be something going on down there.
Liane:What are some of the things that you guys are supporting?
Rick:Well, the the big thing we support is, Ride for Cure, Ride for Cure, which is here at the show.
Liane:What is that support again?
Rick:It it's for sick children. Yeah. They take them on. There's there's a lot of Porsches and Lamborghinis and a couple helicopters over there. Is that
Liane:tied into kids with cancer? Is that different? It
Rick:is. Yeah.
Liane:Yeah. Yeah.
Rick:Yeah. They take kids for you jump into a $500,000 sports car if that's your thing, and you get to go for a ride.
Liane:That sounds like fun.
Rick:Or you get to go for a ride in a helicopter or one of our side by sides or, just to give these kids a thrill. Yeah. And to make their day.
Liane:That that, I think, our friend Terry Evans over at k ninety seven did something with kids with cancer and motorcycle rides at one point.
Rick:He did. Yep.
Liane:Independent of Argyll's community stuff. Yeah. What other what other types of things are you guys supporting? Because there seems to be something outside all summer long.
Rick:Well, we've got a bunch of demo rides planned. Oh, when? May, June, July. I don't know all the dates because some of the manufacturers haven't told us yet. Right.
Rick:But the first one is BMW starting in May. Triumph is in June. If you wanna get involved, call the store. Yep. Talk to Michelle.
Rick:Get signed up. We're doing a vintage event this year for the the local vintage guys. There there's something going on pretty much every Saturday throughout the summer
Liane:Yeah. There's the parking lot. And there's always a barbecue going.
Rick:The barbecue's always going or a food truck, sometimes both.
Liane:That sounds amazing. I think that we're gonna try and get out sometime this summer if we haven't already to just kinda hang out with with AMSS.
Rick:Absolutely.
Liane:And speaking of that, so Argyle under the new direction has jumped on as a corporate member with AMSS. Yep. You and I, we've talked about this for many, many, many years. Oh. But having Marco make that decision to, you know, get on our roster as a corporate member, What does that mean to you, and why is that important?
Rick:Well, to me, it means safer riders on safer motorcycles. A lot of people that especially first timers that get into this sport don't realize what they're getting into. I have lots of customers that come in and say, hey. My buddy's riding a 1,000 sport bike. What do you got that's faster than him?
Rick:But there's no ride experience involved. That is absolutely the wrong motorcycle. We need the awareness. We need the training, so people can get into the sport safely and work their way up to that thousand cc motorcycle if that's where they wanna be. Yeah.
Liane:So I'm gonna jump into that for a second. You have some young guy come in and wants, like, a high powered bike. Like, do you guys I mean, they're the customer and and a sale is a sale, but do you do you try and navigate them to a different type of motorcycle?
Rick:Absolutely. We do. Gently because you don't wanna tell a person what they need to do. Mhmm. But we go when we show them a 600 cc sport bike and casually mention while we're going through the features of the bike, why it'd be smarter to start on that bike and work your way up.
Rick:Let's have a let's have a safe experience, and let's have some repeat customers, and let's all have fun.
Liane:Yeah. Absolutely. I know there's other dealerships out there that just kinda sell to sell, and that ethical selling means a lot to us as safety advocates.
Rick:There's lots of ethical selling at Argyll Motorsports.
Liane:Yeah. Yeah.
Rick:We've we've most of our sales staff has been around twenty five, thirty years each. We've seen it before, and we want everybody to have a safe safe and good time.
Liane:Absolutely. And then other things that you can find in Argyll is a giant selection of good gear.
Rick:Absolutely. We actually expanded, they over doubled our apparel department this year.
Liane:Is it is a lot bigger. It looks a little, like, different when I walked in last time.
Rick:They just remodeled it here over the, the winter and the early spring. We keep running out of stock, so, we had to make some more space.
Liane:Yeah. Exactly. And you've got everything from just, like, I I'll call it normal riding gear to, like, race suits for anybody who's interest because you guys are big with track as well. Correct?
Rick:Yeah. Yeah. We're a big race store. We carry the the one piece race suits. We carry the egg bay air airbag systems, right down to the little kids that are getting into their p w 50.
Rick:We have all the gear there, all the men's gear, all the ladies gear. Big selection.
Liane:Yeah. And so that's very important for our personal safety. And then we've got the other side of the mechanical safety, and you've got a big service department.
Rick:Absolutely.
Liane:And do you only service the brands that you sell, or how does that work?
Rick:No. We service some off brands. We we try to stick with what we know best, which is our brands, and we have the proper tooling for. There's some stuff that we can work on because we don't have the proper tools, but our shop is excellent. They'll keep that bike running and keep that bike safe.
Liane:That's good. And and then, of course, we've got Aaron at the parts counter. Well, I mean, one of the people at the parts counter, but Aaron's pretty knows Aaron. Everybody knows Aaron. Oh, I mean yeah.
Liane:So what's it like to deal with the parts counter there?
Rick:It's busy, and it can be hectic at times. But, again, we have, Aaron who's been in the industry pushing thirty years. I think Cliff on the parts counter has been twenty five. Doug's been with Argyll Motorsports. I think it's forty two years now.
Liane:Mhmm.
Rick:So there's lots of experience there.
Liane:Yeah. And I know that there's been one of my friends had a a little bit of a oopsie at Argyle. So Argyle also sponsors the Kootenai rat race now as well. And, you know, as I call it, we're all friends on. And so one of the guys from the raid had ordered some parts, and something got messed up somewhere, and Aaron immediately took care of that.
Rick:Yeah. Aaron's Aaron's good at making making, things that went wrong right.
Liane:Yeah.
Rick:We're not we're not perfect. We're gonna make mistakes, but I think it's how you deal with those mistakes when they happen.
Liane:Absolutely. You you own it. You're accountable, and, you know, you make it right. Yeah. Yeah.
Liane:Exactly. Especially when you're dealing with $200,000 motorcycles.
Rick:Yeah. Especially.
Liane:I mean, oh, I don't wanna be the mechanic on that one. No. Me either. Well, neither of us will be it, that's okay.
Rick:They won't let me within 10 feet of that, Blake.
Liane:They probably shouldn't let me within 10 feet of it either. It's like it's like the $1,500,000 car over on the other side.
Rick:I was looking at that this morning. Yep.
Liane:Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy down here at the YG Show. Any any kind of, like, tips for riding that you wanna share with people? Like, you've you've seen a lot.
Liane:You you've heard a lot. You've been out there yourself. You know, as and just for for if anybody who doesn't know Rick, Rick is a paraplegic and was and rode his motorcycle.
Rick:Absolutely.
Liane:They fashioned it up with a way for you to put your chair on the back.
Rick:Yeah. Yeah. I could, climb on the bike, take my chair apart, put it on the back, and off I would go. Totally independent.
Liane:Yeah. You it was it was great to see you roll into the raid.
Rick:And, you remember that first raid when I rolled in. You were there to greet me.
Liane:Yeah.
Rick:Yep.
Liane:It was it was great because it's it's just exciting to see everybody have the ability to enjoy what we
Rick:love. Absolutely.
Liane:And and yeah. So what are some tips that you would give to people, like who are out there riding, and then maybe some tips to people who feel there's barriers because of potential disabilities?
Rick:Don't worry about those barriers. Come down and see us. There's there's always a way around things. If you wanna do something, you'll get it done, and we'll help you get it done.
Liane:Yeah.
Rick:I've had to modify stuff my whole life to make things work for me. So it's, and and the crew that's there, I they're not afraid to to get things done. Right? It's outside of the box.
Liane:Yeah. And that's the important part.
Rick:Come down and see us. Come talk to us. Tell us what you think the barrier is, and let's put our heads together and see what we do to get around
Liane:that. Exactly. And then tips for riders on the road.
Rick:Riders on the road, wear the gear, look after the maintenance on your bike, and, if you got questions or concerns, come and see us. Let us help you out.
Liane:Yeah. Between the apparel, the service, and then a great sales staff.
Rick:Yeah. But, yeah, there you go.
Liane:Like, a bazillion different brands. Yeah. It's like a one stop shop for everything, really.
Rick:Yeah. And if you wanna just come down and hang out, it's a it's a destination ride for a lot of people. Come on in.
Liane:Then chances are you'll meet Marco.
Rick:Chances are you'll meet Marco.
Liane:He's been on the barbecue, has he not?
Rick:Oh, yeah. Marco's not afraid to be, involved in everything. And if you wanna be the first guy there and the last guy, oh, that's that's Marco. He's always there.
Liane:I mean, that's that new leadership sounds like it's leading by example.
Rick:Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.
Liane:And easy to work with. Rick, I wanna say I gotta let you get back into your booth to get some sales done, but I wanna thank you for your time today and, taking out from, from your busy afternoon to talk with us. And to everybody else oh, wait. One last thing. Website.
Rick:Wwwargylemotorsports.com.
Liane:Perfect. Because then you can find all the information there about everything, including demo rides, which we get asked about a lot.
Rick:Yep.
Liane:So that'll be super helpful. Alright. Everybody hang tight for the mixed bag.
Leeroy:Short trips and big risks. It's easy to get complacent on a quick run to the store, but remember, dress for the slide every single time you go for a ride. Statistics show that most motorcycle incidents happen within fifteen minutes of your home. Familiar roads can lead to a false sense of security. Whether you're going across the province or just around the block, full gear is your best insurance policy.
Leeroy:Gear up every time. This is Leeroy with Moto Instincts.
Liane:And that's it for another episode of Think Bike hosted by me, Lianne Lenglet, produced by Bryn Griffiths at Mighty Mouth Communications. If you have an idea or a question for the show, reach out to info@ab-amss.org or find us on all the socials. Always remember to ride smart, ride safe, and think bike. We'll see you out on the road.