David Reece and Sheree Watson own StreetPro Motorcycles, a company through which they run the EagleRider Brisbane motorcycle rental and tour business, are dealers for the CF Moto and SWM bike brands, and build trike conversions. It is a diverse enterprise, founded on the owners’ passion for motorcycles, the lifestyle, the thrill of riding, and a desire to share that passion and make it accessible to everyone.

What products and services do you provide?

DR: StreetPro Motorcycles is essentially our operating company and while we do a range of other things, EagleRider is our main business. EagleRider is a global business – the world’s largest motorcycle rental and touring company – and we have the franchise for the Brisbane and Gold Coast areas.

We specialise in the lifestyle element of motorcycle rentals and offer customers luxury brands – Harley Davidson, BMW, Triumph, amogst others. With us, it’s all about the ride and the experience – it’s about going the long way round.

Motorcycle tours are popular in America, and it is a much more established business there. We are growing the tour business but, at the moment, we are focusing more on the rental side. However, we do organise tours. We can build custom tours for customers – both guided tours and self-ride tours – and can book accommodation, create the route, and offer advice on where to go and the great places to see.

For guided tours, we offer everything from just getting a group underway with a tour guide to a fully supported tour with a van to carry luggage and a spare motorcycle in case there’s a breakdown,  an accident, or someone gets sick.

So, EagleRider is our main business, but we do other things, including representing CF Moto and SWM, which are strong, emerging brands.

CF Moto is a great product and we have been representing them in Brisbane for about five years.

They are a Chinese brand, are very big there, and are well known in the agricultural sector for utility vehicles, quads and so on. They also do a range of road bikes and they are growing fast and are developing new models and new technology. They are in a joint venture with KTM, use Bosch electronics and really do produce state-of-the-art bikes that are competitive with anything Japanese and at a much better price point.

We believe strongly in the brand and it is definitely one to watch for the future. They are very fast moving and there are a lot of new models coming, including a new sports model, the 300SR, which will be here soon and is a full-faired sports bike that is very competitively priced.

We also sell SWM Enduro/Adventure bikes and have done so for about four years. SWM today is a re-emergence of a competition grade Italian brand that dates to the ’70s and ’80s. They have been refinanced and re-established and have a whole lot of new models.

As for doing custom trike conversions, that is something we do that grew out of a passion of mine and after I built a trike for myself. We didn’t promote that side of things really, but we did establish supplier relationships, built some trikes – including one for our rental fleet – and, through word of mouth, built a few more.

We have built them for all types of people – for riders whose legs aren’t as strong as they used to be as well as for disabled people. And it is fantastic to be able to do that.

How did you come to be involved with EagleRider?

DR: I had done some traveling in the U.S. and experienced EagleRider, the company and the brand.

Subsequently, the opportunity came up to get involved with EagleRider in Australia. I invested in the EagleRider master franchise, which is located in Sydney, and we loved the concept so much we decided to operate a franchise ourselves here in Brisbane.

We launched here on January 1, 2014 with the Sydney franchise preceding us by a month.

Now, we have franchises in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and are rolling out a couple of smaller agencies in Tasmania and elsewhere. However, things are on hold just a little now because of COVID-19.

How has COVID-19 impacted things?

DR: Bike sales are growing. While CF Moto and SWM are not mainstream brands, sales are growing and are strong. I don’t really know why – perhaps it is to do with the financial stimulus the government is providing, or because people are wanting to do things domestically – but sales across the industry are booming.

The EagleRider business has, of course, been impacted. We’re a motorcycle travel business and there is no travel business that hasn’t been affected in some way. Our international customer base, for example, is gone, as are our interstate customers. So, at the moment, the rental business is relying on local customers. But we are ticking along.

With the travel industry generally, everything is up in the air. We really don’t know from one day to the next what is going to happen. Look at Melbourne. We see borders open one day and then a week later there’s a lockdown and the borders close. If Brisbane gets an outbreak of the virus, what will happen here? When will international customers start traveling again? Will it be next year? How is all that going to work? There’s a lot of uncertainty.

For us, I think we will be OK. We are not heavily geared and we own this building, so even if we had to close the doors in a lockdown for a period, we would be OK.

What’s your background?

DR: I am a businessman and don’t come from the motorcycle industry. Before this, I was involved in many businesses including commercialising new packaging technologies and developing a global patent portfolio. We built a factory in Sydney, established that technology to disrupt the packaging industry and spent about 18 years doing that before selling quite recently after moving up here.

Although I have worked in lots of different businesses, in the background there were always motorcycles and moving into this venture was a fairly easy transition.

Technology is changing the automotive industry in a major way and being online and using digital technology is a must for any business. Is technological change affecting the motorcycle industry and your business?

DR: New technologies will definitely affect the motorcycle industry. I think that is inevitable. Harley has an electric bike – the Livewire – and there are a lot of electric motorcycles on the way. However, I don’t think they are necessarily going to quickly replace combustion engine motorcycles.

For us, and especially for the EagleRider business, we can represent any brand and can adapt very quickly to any of these developments, so they are not necessarily disruptors for us.

As for digital disruption, we have a good online presence and a sophisticated booking platform, so that is something that is only enhancing our business. The EagleRider group has an in-house IT team in the US and everything is built, managed, and tailored for our business. It is not outsourced. It’s not like a general website with add-ons. We’ve got digital signature capture now, so everything can be done online and we can even send contracts to customers to sign on their phone. It is very sophisticated.

What advice would you give to anyone looking to start up a business today?

DR: I think the advice, and this would be for any business, is that hard work and dedication is rewarded with success. As the adage goes: ‘The harder I work the luckier I get’. Work hard, be focused and while we all make mistakes, it is learning from the mistakes that makes you stronger.

Having a passion for what you are doing really helps too. If you don’t enjoy your work, try something new.

What has been the benefit of being a member of MTA Queensland?

DR: Every industry needs representation that can handle things regarding legislation, dealing with the government and any issues that come up. There are also the relationships that come with being a member. One of the key benefits for us has been that because we bank with the CBA, we received favourable rates on our merchant facilities. That is a very good thing for us.

It would, I think, be great to see more motorcycle businesses involved, and as a rental and travel business we do sit a little bit on the fringe of things, but an industry association is very important to protect and represent the interests of industry.

What do you do with your spare time, if you have any?

DR: We work hard – we are here six-and-a-half days a week – but it is what we enjoy doing. In the spare time we do have we do go riding, and we enjoy the usual things – visiting friends and family, enjoying a nice meal and so on. Of course, right now, doing those things has been severely affected, except the riding – one great way to socially isolate is to jump on a bike and go for a ride!

Source: Motor Trader E-magazine (August 2020)

18 August 2020