Category: News

There’s no beating around the bush:  things are weird right now.  Everywhere.  The other night I was thinking about our state of affairs:  if I entered a coma four years ago and woke up today, I wouldn’t believe my eyes.  Things are a little scary, but the good news is that we’re all going through this together and we’ll get through it together.  Besides, we always have motorcycles, even if we end up riding less this spring…

In response to this developing situation, Stoltec Moto is taking preventative measures to ensure the health and safety of our customers and our team.  As such, effective immediately and until further notice:

1. All ride-in services and installation work is postponed.
2. Mail-order services (such as fork and shock work) will continue.
3. We will only be shipping USPS.
4. You may experience delays in order fulfillment.  While we keep ample stock in many components, we rely on a complex supply chain.  We cannot predict how our suppliers will be affected, so please, bear with us.  If an order is placed that we cannot fill (or don’t know when it will be filled, we will be in touch.  Right now, none of our suppliers are shut down…but that could change at a moment’s notice.
5. Our team is healthy and will continue to employ industry-accepted best practices with respect to hand washing and hygiene.  In short, we won’t compromise the safety of what’s inside your box.

Lastly, we ultimately expect a downturn in business during Q2 and Q3 this year.  We can (and will) weather this storm.  However, we are hereby cancelling the in-house Tenere 700 project.  Between the uncertain times we’re living through and the botched roll-out on Yamaha’s part, it is simply not a prudent investment of our time and resources.  To all of those who have been in touch, we sincerely appreciate your support and interest.  Naturally, we will support the community as best we can!

In the meantime, stay safe and healthy.  Don’t fall victim to the public hysteria, but please prepare for the next several months.  In the least, we’ll all have time to spend with our loved ones as work and school closures slow our daily lives.  Provided we all remain healthy, how can more time ever be a bad thing?

Ride safe!
Nick

Some customers have noticed our sudden disappearance from Facebook.  No, we’re not going out of business!  What gives?

The move appears to be sudden because we didn’t advertise this.  But, it’s a been a process that has taken over one month to complete.  Frankly, it’s been a long time coming.

Spoiler alert:  we’re not a fan of Facebook.  For years, we avoided the social media platform for a plethora of reasons.  We only created a social media presence a few years ago in an attempt to better connect with the loads of customers who use Facebook as their primary means of communications.  We were skeptical it’d magically provide boatloads of new customers, but hey, we’re about experimentation and trying new things.

We never realized those ‘boatloads’ of new customers.  Was our skepticism warranted?  Maybe.  We are blessed to have a solid following of customers, and most continued to email, call, or contact us on various forums.  It’s worth mentioning that we didn’t go ‘all in’ on Facebook, so it’s likely a harder push would have yielded more traffic.  The marketing numbers are out there and Facebook continues to be a solid performer.

So why did we leave?  Well, at the expense of sounding like a broken record, we just simply don’t support the social media giant’s business practices.  There’s no shortage of bad press for Facebook these days, and many of us saw this coming.  As motorcyclists, we’re all sensitive to distracted driving, whatever the cause.  But we’ve encountered more and more people who are seemingly ‘plugged in’ all the time…not just behind the wheel.  Like any new technology, we’re still not sure how this will play out in the end – whenever that is.  How are our social lives being affected?  Are we more disconnected now that we’re all uber-connected?  How are our families and children being affected? How are our societies as-a-whole being affected?

Stoltec Moto doesn’t employ any psychologists or sociologists, so we’re not qualified to answer those questions.  However, we ARE motorcyclists, and one thing motorcyclists rely on (to some extent) is FEEL.  And the bottom line for us is that something just doesn’t FEEL right.  Whatever it is.  So until we figure that out, you won’t find us on Facebook.  As always, you can contact us here.