• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Sherco news from Clay Stuckey

water racer said:
Blaming the president and the bike company at the same time does not sound very professional. I have kept close eye on the exchange rate for years, and it really has not varied that much for the last 5-6 years. The bikes seem to be very good but they were priced a little high, Stuckey had slashed prices and cut dealer margins to try and get a market share, which I think is risky on both counts. He also was offering to sell direct which hurts the dealers, although supposedly the proffit went back to the dealer.
I think someone else will import them, unless this is just a bluff to try and get Sherco to lower prices, and once again, does not seem to professional to do it publicly.
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Exactly. Lots of very good responses here. Rates have not changed a ton, Shercos are exotic, everyone knows this and will pay a premium for one if they want one. They are great bikes no one knows about. Here is what you are going to have to do to sell them. Promote the hell out of them at a grass roots level. Get 10-15 bikes around the US in the hands of people who ride a lot and will do demos. I myself contacted Clay telling him based on what i have read about these bikes (softer suspension and mellow tractable motors) these would be perfect bikes for the NW gnar. On the east coast you cant ride thousands of miles of public land. When I asked if there was a demo or if he wanted me to demo bikes out here for him that was not going to happen. So almost zero ability to get bikes in front of thousands of potential customers. Get the bikes out in the field and people talking about them. If they are good as i think they are people will start to take notice.

How did I find husqvarna? Was at a local race, rode by a truck with 2 shinny new 99 WR250's and spun around and started asking questions. Ended up being Bill from Bills and he asked me to take a test ride, handed me a hat and brochure and told me he would make me a nice deal and support me with parts off his own bike if he needed to. Sold. Bought one brand new from him. Bought piles of huskies since. IMHO the importer is going to need to bite the bullet and buy some bikes and get them out there all over for people to actually ride and understand. That, IMHO is what it takes to get these types of bikes sold.
 
Motosportz said:
IMHO the importer is going to need to bite the bullet and buy some bikes and get them out there all over for people to actually ride and understand. That, IMHO is what it takes to get these types of bikes sold.
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And if that doesn't work, then the importer goes out of business for taking a risk that his/her company really couldn't afford to take. It's never that simple. Hopefully things change and the new bikes start showing up again, but it wouldn't be the first time a good product disappears due to a failure to turn a profit.

Unless they can talk their government into propping up sales with subsidies to keep them from going out of business. But those subsidies would come from taxes, which would need to be increased to provide the funds, which will reduce the disposable income of the bike buying public who now can no longer afford the bikes that have finally arrived on showroom floors.
 
Thumperama said:
And if that doesn't work, then the importer goes out of business for taking a risk that his/her company really couldn't afford to take. It's never that simple. Hopefully things change and the new bikes start showing up again, but it wouldn't be the first time a good product disappears due to a failure to turn a profit.

Unless they can talk their government into propping up sales with subsidies to keep them from going out of business. But those subsidies would come from taxes, which would need to be increased to provide the funds, which will reduce the disposable income of the bike buying public who now can no longer afford the bikes that have finally arrived on showroom floors.
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No matter how good your product is if you don't get it out in the hands of the customers your not going to sell anything. They need visibility and hype around the product and most done even know they exist. It seems to be a great product and they need to get it out there and people talking. IMHO. As to your other point many European countries heavily subsidized these manufacturers. Not saying it is right or works but it is happening. They also have some really crazy anti trust and anti sell laws you just saw KTM work around with the buyout of husky. I agree it is messy but calling out the manufacture and pointing everything in a bad light is not going to help. Getting bikes out in front of people will. Some good posts and rides posted out there are what peaked my interest or i would not even put it on my maybe list.
 
And BTW i am not bashing Clay, I think he kinda said to much here but think he is a good guy and means well. Most everyone I have spoke to speaks highly of him and my conversations with him have been very nice for sure.
 
Wow, you guys are brutal. Clay came here to tell went public telling (corrected following MS reply) folks what issues he is running into trying to import Shercos and pay his bills. Sherco (like TM) is a small company and cannot buffer currency fluctuations like the bigger guys. Folks claim a few hundred $$$ doesn't make a difference, but sales don't lie. Sales of TM 4T models was weak, so even though TM is bringing in 2015 models, the 4T's will not be imported (the price is just too high). I want a TM 250F, but find the MSRP to be staggeringly high. Note that Clay has held firm on importing only the higher suspension spec WP suspension, similar to TM only importing the Higher spec KYB SSS fork and TM shock (both of which are amazing!).
 
tm_enduro said:
Wow, you guys are brutal. Clay came here to tell folks what issues he is running into trying to import Shercos and pay his bills. Sherco (like TM) is a small company and cannot buffer currency fluctuations like the bigger guys. Folks claim a few hundred $$$ doesn't make a difference, but sales don't lie. Sales of TM 4T models was weak, so even though TM is bringing in 2015 models, the 4T's will not be imported (the price is just too high).
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Clay came here?

Well if there are no sales thats the issue. So you need to do something to drum up sales or decide there is not enough market to support it. Seems like this is the situation. Seems hard to believe a few hundred buck for someone looking at a very off the mainstream bike would not be an issue but maybe we are wrong. For me if I was buying a $7900 Sherco and found out it would be $8200 because the dealer told me their price went up I would be fine with that. Sorry if i came off rude, was just reacting to some comments and did not mean to take it there.
 
DG Harv Serv said:
Exactly !

Premium products are always more expensive, a Ferrari cost more than a Ford ;).
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The Ford Ferrari comment is way off base lol. I don't see Sherco as I do TM Racing. Sherco has a great product that is on par with the the competition in quality and performance. It isn't some handcrafted special bike. I love it being on the market and competitive but going to much over KTM's inflated prices (higher then Beta) wouldn't help. The people that really want them would find the means to get them without a US distributor and they would be even more limited here then they already are.
 
DG Harv Serv said:
Exactly !

Premium products are always more expensive, a Ferrari cost more than a Ford ;).
Click to expand...
The Ford Ferrari comment is way off base lol. I don't see Sherco as I do TM Racing. Sherco has a great product that is on par with the the competition in quality and performance. It isn't some handcrafted special bike. I love it being on the market and competitive but going to much over KTM's inflated prices (higher then Beta) wouldn't help. The people that really want them would find the means to get them without a US distributor and they would be even more limited here then they already are.
 
Sherco will have a US distributer, I feel sure on that !
The point I was trying to make is that the bike has to be sold at a profit, regardless of what KTM or anyone else does .
Any business not making a profit, is not a business very long !
TM ? Not sure . See very few here in UK.
I see Sherco and Beta filling the gap left by the demise of Husqvarna .
 
went riding yesterday with a fella who just bought a new sherco 250 2T. looked nice, sounded nice(sounded like a wr250/300-more tinny/bit louder, more old school 2T sounding than the ktms), bloke riding it was having a ball! motor & cases look big/durable(like husky wr) compared to ktms. leccy PV looks interesting. I didn't even think to ask for a ride as I was enjoying the trails too much. it was very very wet, lots of puddles/creeks & no probs with the estart all day, cranked over nice. the rmx450z that went swimming(full rebuild by the sound/running of it afterwards, bloke only just got it:() not so much! BTW there was 2x450s & 8x250/300 2Ts(mainly ktms) then me on the 165 yesterday(only husky). 165 got a lot of attention & funny looks, they loved the sound of it, clear bowl lectron & wondering why a bloke my size was riding one. performed awesomely-bottom end is so sweet now, 3rd gear most the day. saw a bloke on a te450 broken down(broken chain) on way back, the husky jokes rolled out & I had no ammo to fire back with:D . good day
 
I have only talked to Clay Stuckey once and he seemed like a really good guy to me. Hopefully we will get enough Shercos in the US that I might get a chance to ride one. David Knight didn't do Sherco any favors but hopefully Clay can overcome the snags and have some success with Sherco.
 
shawbagga said:
went riding yesterday with a fella who just bought a new sherco 250 2T. looked nice, sounded nice(sounded like a wr250/300-more tinny/bit louder, more old school 2T sounding than the ktms), bloke riding it was having a ball! motor & cases look big/durable(like husky wr) compared to ktms. leccy PV looks interesting. I didn't even think to ask for a ride as I was enjoying the trails too much. it was very very wet, lots of puddles/creeks & no probs with the estart all day, cranked over nice. the rmx450z that went swimming(full rebuild by the sound/running of it afterwards, bloke only just got it:() not so much! BTW there was 2x450s & 8x250/300 2Ts(mainly ktms) then me on the 165 yesterday(only husky). 165 got a lot of attention & funny looks, they loved the sound of it, clear bowl lectron & wondering why a bloke my size was riding one. performed awesomely-bottom end is so sweet now, 3rd gear most the day. saw a bloke on a te450 broken down(broken chain) on way back, the husky jokes rolled out & I had no ammo to fire back with:D . good day
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I'm very keen to try them for myself. Never owned a modern 2-dinger, but may be able to be swayed.
The KTM (Keep To Mowing) 2Ts vibrate like a broken lawn-mower, if the Shercos are smooth I may be keen.
Either that or the new 450s when they lob here next year.
 
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