Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me !!!! Holy Moly I never thought I would see this day at 87 years old. – Especially as my mother was told I might not live to be a teen-ager as I was a really sick kid.
But if I can credit anything for this, it would have to be Motorcycles ( and perhaps my dear old Mum and Babsy) – To say that I feel very fortunate, is really an understatement, as I look back on all the ups and downs through this long journey.
Of course I have been so very lucky to meet so many great people, many famous in the Motorcycle World, but also so many friends, a lot of whom died way too young.
I’m typing this up on Wednesday night as I’ve just seen a couple of Greetings from OZ – who are a few hours ahead of us.
I’m not sure at this point, how many people click onto the daily blog – I can’t even remember when I started doing this, but it’s likely about 20 yrs now. – a few years ago it used to be in the millions but I think some of those are the bastard Russian spammers.
As some people know, my early years were spent in the Printing Industry as a Photo Engraver , then a Camera man working on a large Camera which was built into the darkroom wall. – Below is a pic of me at age 27, when I started a job working for Duffoto in Calgary. ( I was hired in London UK) This was not a happy time for me ( my first day started at 8.30am and finished at 1.30 am the next day) – and soon I moved on to different jobs ending up as Sales manager for a Printing/Graphic arts business in Calgary. – Also at this time, I joined the Calgary Motorcycle Club so many of my sales calls, were at local Calgary Dealers – looking after all their printing needs.
It was around this time that I was having coffee with Bruce the owner of Blackfoot Motorcycle – he had sponsored me on a Montesa at one point, but I did not get along with the bike, so went back to Bultaco, however it was Bruce Cameron ( who died too young) who put me it touch with Trevor Deeley and the new Yamaha Motor Canada in Vancouver, and that is how I went from 25 plus years in the Graphic arts/printing Industry – to driving all over Western Canada, setting up Yamaha Dealerships.
I’m sure that I’ve mentioned before that the 10 plus years I spent working for Yamaha, were a big highlight for me, I loved the job – yes it wasn’t easy driving about 1500 km a week and away from home all the time, especially that first 6-8 months trying to find snowmobile dealers out on farms in Saskatchewan at night in snowdrifts -!! I certainly got to see a lot of Canada, including one cross country trip doing a Sales Seminar, that had me ending up (and stranded) in Newfoundland.
But the big plus for me was the fact that Yamaha were so involved in the sport – they had hired Mick Andrews and I got to set up a demo for him in Calgary to promote the TY 250 – plus of course I managed to get free bikes and became sort of an under cover helper to the famous Bob Work !! ( That is how I met Stevie Baker – who also has a birthday today ) – I put on Trials schools around my territory and -I like to think that some of my ideas for the Cross Country bikes which were put into production, benefited a lot of riders, including our 1983 ISDE Team in the Welsh event.
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Moving ahead.
In 1981 Yamaha produced 3 million Motorcycles, because they wanted to beat Honda for the #1 position for Motorcycle Sales.
Unfortunately in 1981 we had a recession, and Yamaha had a huge headache. The Japanese staff were under tremendous pressure to move product, and I think we did our share, but also at that time I had been working on the Yamaha Canada Team for the upcoming ISDE in Wales – My home Country!! – As with anything big events need careful planning and this I did by contacting Mitsui in the UK who were the Yamaha Importers for England – we did this many many months ahead ( not knowing about the big sales crash) –
I should mention also that at this time because of our huge efforts we can honestly say that the woods were “Blue” with Yamaha IT models – no it didn’t happen by magic.
We got zippo help from Yamaha Canada at this time – our Accessories guy Keith Simmons nicked us jerseys and caps for the team, and I borrowed a TT 600 from Walt for Paddy Horan to ride on the Trophy Team. All the other riders bought their own bikes and paid their own way to Wales.
As many have likely seen in previous blogs – our Canadian Team finished 2nd in the World that year – the fact that I’m Welsh, helped us pull a few strings, but the riders did an outstanding job to finish a grueling event that saw many top teams fall by the wayside.
After that things at Yamaha were never the same – no recognition for what our riders had achieved – so I decided to leave. – But I still kept a link to Yamaha through Walt Healy and Mick Andrews. – but that’s another story.
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– In 1992 I was in Scotland at the Scottish Six Day Trial and chatting with Mick Andrews at the hotel about the new TYZ prototype that a Japanese rider was entered on – Mick and myself shared quite a few conversations about dealing with the Japanese Yamaha people – Anyway. Mick told me that he would be going to Japan later to discuss some changes to the new TYZ.!!
Suffice to say this never happened and when we got our first 1993 TYZ – it had none of the improvements that Mick had wanted. – I rode my new bike at a Kelowna Trial and lost 5’s in the first few sections because it kept stalling- – Later that night (Midnight in Canada) I phoned Mick to talk about this – “Oh yeah- I know Dave – everybody hates them over here” !!! Not the news I wanted to hear. Mick did tell me a couple of things that helped, but really it was very disappointing.
A short time later I got a late night call – it was Don Clark – he said Dave how are you getting along with that Yamaha? – I replied – Don you know bloody well, how I’m getting along with that Yamaha. – Hmm! he said, – how would you like to be a dealer for us????
-” I will be out tomorrow was my reply.”
And that is how I became a Trials dealer for Mountain Motorcycles which is now 31 years. – I think we must be doing something right..
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