CCI was a great place to work and we grew the company by being innovative, creative, and fearless!!! Ty Cruze ran the show and used common and horse sense more often than not when making the decisions that propelled us to the top of the heap.

The only negative thing I can think of that he did was to take us public. Oh, yeah. There was lots of money made but, in the end, that action took the decision making out of the hands of motorcycle people and put into the hands of complete inbeciles!!!

Don’t let anyone tell you that becoming a small piece of a big company is a good thing!!!

I know that nothing lasts forever but the tailspin that those ‘smart’ big city businessmen put a hugely successful, hugely profitable company like CCI into was something we absolutely thought could not happen. CEO after CEO made bad decision after bad decision leading to the highly altered state Global is in today!!!

It was, for me, a wide-awake nightmare But my bad dreams have passed with time away from it all!!! I imagine, though, that, for the remaining few good folks who are still there, holding out hope for better days ahead, it has to feel like they will never wake up and stop the madness!!!

Life goes on but the people that nurtured CCI and the dealers and their customers that trusted and depended on us have nothing to fall back on.

I hear from a few dealers I have talked to recently that “Freddie” is acting like the second coming of Hitler with his minimum yearly order amounts to do business with him and who-knows-what-all else he might be hatching to perpetrate on his dealers.

Without the competition that CCI used to provide, keeping them honest, there is nothing to stop the monster, Parts Unlimited/Drag Specialties, from using Gestapo tactics on big dealers, too, not just the Mom and Pop shops that they presently seem to be trying to drive out of business.

I hope someone with an understanding of the motorcycle business (is there anyone left?) will take Global over and work to bring back a semblance of the magic that was once CCI.

The industry sure does need the balance CCI provided!!!

Well, one good thing still is available to us all. Go for a ride when you are feeling down and you will surely forget your troubles!!!

Ride Safe!!!

P.S. Ty, wanna do it again?????

Russell

I guess the times they have changed but hearing you guys talk man, just makes me smile. I think this winter, I might just get a new pair of chrome drag pipes, cheap as I can find ‘em and run ‘em till the chrome peals off!!!

Don’t know those other.
But do remember going to Hap Jones for tires, batteries & rims.
His mail order house had a “will-call” counter in a damned nasty South SF neighborhood (complete with Beer-os, drinking out-a paper bags, opening up 16 oz cans with 6″ knives).

I do remember JC Whittney catalog had some stuff, like a spoke threader and blank spokes.

But in the 60′s i don’t recall either of them (Hap or JC) having any real “custom” parts like forward mount controls…etc.

By 1972 small custom shops popped up where you could buy chrome spoke sets pre-cut to a particular application (Triumph hub to a 16″ rim became popular).

In the 60′s we were into the “Mod/Rocker” era Rocker style cafe racers. And basically felt sorry for anyone stuck with a hand-me-down sidevalve 45. Man i would-a sold my sister for a Norvin….:-)

So, custom stuff was like 5-gallon tanks and clipons. You got that stuff with a new sports bike (BSA Gold Star, if you could afford one). But it was a lot cheaper to make it at home.

-nicker-

Well… Go back to the Easy Rider posts.
It would probably be what it used to be.
Regular people making the sort of stuff they now buy.

-nicker-

Still I hope it works out, what would this thing be without their influences?

That should be an interesting metric on the “global scooter market”

-nicker-