Who in their right mind would open up a Motorycle Rental and Touring Business?

Well, that's the question my wife asked me after our first season. Our losses were pretty impressive and we had started to 'get our ducks in a row' in order to sue our former Franchiser for commercial behaviour that was at best unethical and at worst dishonest.

We found ourselves at the first of November - with no internet site and with the support of a couple of booking agents that believed in us.

That left short under 5 months to get a working marketing proposition up to speed.

We were in pretty bad shape as a business - but I felt we could have a decent future. I took 2 weeks off doing anything but finding about the internet. I then put together a strategy about running and marketing the business. We had toyed with running our own Chambre D'Hote for Bikers but the wife wasn't into it too much. It then occurred to me that my closest allies in running a motorcycle rental business were the people running Bed and Breakfasts targeted more or less at touring motorcyclists.

At this point I started off www.MotoPyrenees.com in earnest for the 2007 season, (I registered it in 2003). As many pictures as I could of the local area and some links to local B&B's both sides of the border.

It not only immediately started getting a lot of hits - but bought me and some others a little extra business. I couldn't really push it as I was spending 6 days a week in the shop in Toulouse and it was killing me.

At the start of 2008 I seem to have collected myself an American partner, who said he was prepared to offer me some assistance on a profit sharing basis.

At that point (Feb 2008) we launched www.MotorbikeFriendly.com and started to put up the site. By mid-March his enthusiasm had waned somewhat and I was building up for the 2008 season. In April he went back to the states. We were getting link requests I could not possibly satisfy and I was falling further behind. We shut the shop in Toulouse in August 2008 (finally) and that took some relief off the staggering overheads the rental business was bearing. I moved all the stock to our new home and ran the business as best we could - it was a lot more fun and we got to ride with the customers. We closed down for the season at the end of October - and I went off to talk to our accountant. It didn't go too well. At the close of our third operating season, we were barely making a profit. Looking ahead at global recession, rapidly climbing gasoline prices and an aging fleet of bikes, I had to admit that like it or not - enough was enough and for 2009 at least we could not consider trading.

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