to leave when the outside was visible through a inch wide hole in the roof we had to get out before it came down!

Fate again?  I happened to mention our predicament to the Accountants Ashton Hughes, he in passing mentioned about some elderly clients of his whom were retiring that owned a small buildings material company in Abergele.  I used to walk past the place everyday on the way to school, it used to be a truck maintenance place then.  Once again the building was in a bit of a state, but quite fixable, and although in 1988, £40,000 was a vast sum it was a better bet than some of the ridiculous rents we had been asked for in the rest of Abergele, or being killed by four tonnes of m/cycle parts.  I had thought about going in to Rhyl but the new dual carriage way which passed Abergele had fed us with plenty of new clients and although the population of the town was low, people did find it easy to get here.  £40,000 lighter keys in hand I realised that we had a lot of work to do, that was September '88, by Nov '89 we got plans passed and started building an extension and laid new floors.  I will never forget a cold night in December laying some blocks with "Benny" our builder working by lamp light when up popped Santa with a collection tin, a timely reminder from our local Round Table Club!  A donation was greeted with "have a prosperous New Year".  Flat roof on, electric's finished, carpet laid, decorated and finally able to move in April 1^st.  We had a showroom but no bikes for sale as we had no franchises and no used bikes, so I asked my mates to leave their bikes in the shop that week so that it looked like we had some stock!

The next step:-
I started applying for various franchises, Japanese, BMW and Harley but no one was interested in a having dealers in North Wales.  Until, MotoGuzzi came along.  Not our first choice at that time but needless to say we got stuck in and they sold well for us!

Fate strikes again!  12 miles away in Llandudno a one man band was trying to sell Ducati bikes from a converted garage in a back street, although successful in sales it wasn't what Ducati wanted and the owner, Andy Gale decided enough was enough and was going to emigrate to Canada.  We were in the right time and the right place to take Ducati on, the rest is History.  We were one of the first original twenty dealers, the network has changed since then in many ways as it has in numbers about sixty dealers now.  Another franchise we were after was Triumph, the new models took us and the whole world by surprise.   The original dealers were handpicked and numbered twenty-five.  I decided we wanted to be on the next wave of dealers that were to be taken on in 1992.  This was not going to be easy as we were unknown outside North Wales, but I put together a portfolio boarded a plane to Koln Germany and went to see Bruno Tagliafari on the Triumph stand at the German Koln Show.  After queuing behind lots of other potential Triumph dealers I stood in front of John Bloor's number one, handed my portfolio and requested he return it when they got back to Britain.  As a back up, I wrote a letter each week, stating a reason why we should be appointed.  By the fourth week they relented and invited my partner Steve and myself over to the factory. They entertained us and basically showed us how serious they were.  Next Bruno from Triumph visited us.  A good clean up was initiated, the dogs were brushed, the secretary had a new hairdo and a deal was struck and off we went.  Three different types of machine and three different types of sales appeal, so three different types of customer, we were really heading somewhere.

Sales went very well, they peaked in '95/'96 giving the headache of being so successful that we virtually burst the building.  I had to put a garage at the bottom of our garden to cope with the overflow, I even had bikes in friends garages, anywhere I could put them.  We had hit crisis point, even after a two hundred sq ft temporary extension upstairs.  Another mini crisis happened in August '95, Steve my partner decided he wanted to have his own shop and Dave "Judas" Ellender our salesman left to be appointed sales manager of A&D in Denbigh.  Two key personnel disappearing in about six weeks!  We really had to rally the troops for this one.  The biggest problem was still room, this was made worse by the grateful appointment of Yamaha motorcycles to our range in September '96 another twenty bikes to put somewhere!  I had asked at this time all the commercial estate agents to send details of any vacant property preferably to purchase.  December '96 saw me looking around at various sites, from places in Chester to building land in Bodelwyddan but I really wanted to stay in Abergele or surrounding area.  Gareth Williams one of the major commercial estate agents in North Wales sent a flyer describing a empty workshop in Peel St. I was given the key and had a look round, it had previously been used by  the AA and was next to an old Coca Cola storage depot.  The workshop and now sales area used to be separate buildings and one was for lease and the other for sale to add to the confusion.  I went and contacted the Budge brothers who owned the site, and after serious hard negotiating (which I didn't do too well at!) a deal was struck to purchase the whole block of A1-A4 Peel St in November '97 and a commitment to another twenty years of loans, overdrafts, poverty and worry!


IN November 1997, Dave Watson from the Council gave us a green light to change it over to a motorcycle workshop/sales centre.  It's winter, quite slack in the Rhuddlan Road shop, so the troops are rallied and started to paint, brick, plumb, extend and wire the 10000sq ft warehouse that has been empty for six years.  I set a date for 7^th February 1998, but we had to extend on that and we eventually moved in on February 14^th 1998.  We had a party and invited as many people as possible.

Nearly two years on, the units working well, sales are up but we've still got a long way to go as the banks got my bits in its hands for another eighteen years.  This is my last move, I have no aspirations of a chain of shops, nor sudden wealth (I should be so lucky!) so here I'll be for the future to try and look after you and your bike in our new building.  If you've not been before, take a look at the map below and try to come out for a ride, anytime, we are open seven days a week!  (Except for Winter).

An insight into our rallied, beleaguered and battle worn troops:

Stuart - Newly appointed parts man, into his music and we suspect lots of beer drinking

Martin - Ducati spares supremo!!  Shacked up with Clare.  Pretty practical for someone of 21!!  Rides a VFR750 but still threatens to tour the world on his pushbike, doesn't say much for the VFR!

Heather - A truly magnificent person (guess who wrote this!)  Currently riding Thundercat.  (You can hardly say riding, can't remember when we last saw it! She may have the soft exterior of a woman but by gum if you cross her she's got the heart of a sadistic maniac!).

Anton - Another Triumph rider (someone has to employ them) luckily a bit more reliable than his bike!  Likes the big, butch, bad boy image, silver hair lets it down a bit.