New Website & Growing Team

Our new website is up and running!  Check it out: www.moskomoto.com.  If you spot any typos or if something doesn’t work right, please let us know.

We’re really excited to welcome Nicole Crites to the Mosko Moto team!  She’ll be our Customer Service Representative and all-around helper going forward.  Last Friday was her first day on the job.  She’s busily getting up to speed on all our products and the many different kinds of bike/rack combos out there, as well as familiarizing herself with our business and getting caught up on web inquiries.  Nicole is an Oregon native.  She lived in Brazil for a year, speaks fluent Portuguese, and has backpacked solo through places like Qatar, Turkey, Nicaragua, and Portugal.  Nicole: welcome aboard!

Product Development

Steve from the factory was in Portland last week visiting with Nike.  We met with him to review our 2015 restock order, discuss product development projects, and get an update on the Reckless designs.  Looks like everything is on track for 2015.  We placed a “rush” order for more MOLLE pouches (the large MOLLE is currently backordered) and the Reckless should be here for the 2015 riding season.  Good news all around.

Andrew remains ensconced in metal adapter-plate development.  We got our latest version of the F800GSA adapters and they look great:

Mounted them up on the BMW racks in our shop.

A few small changes to be made but nothing too material.  We’ll order a small batch of maybe 5 sets for the next round.   Those will go to a handful of early customers who have been patiently waiting.  We’ll get their feedback, confirm that everything fits, and then place a larger production order in January.

Our prototype of the new Mosko-compatible faceplate for the Jesse Luggage Soft Plate tool box arrived last week as well.  It works!  Which is great news.  Just like the F800 adapter we’re going to place a small production order, confirm everything works, and then follow up with a production order for Spring.

R1200GSA adapter plates are still in progress.  We expect to see prototypes later this week.

Chip – the seamster who builds our cut & sew prototypes – has reserved some shop time for Mosko in the January-April timeframe.  We’ll work with him to develop our tank bag concepts — which still have a long way to go — and also create a variety of new MOLLE pouches and accessory bags for 2016 introduction.  Lately the “business” side of the business has been taking up a lot of time.  With Dusty helping on the IMS shows and Nicole handling customer service/admin, we’ll be freed up for another big soft-bag development push this Spring.  We’ll be looking for lots of input on that in the new year.

Apparel prototypes were stalled while we waited on fabric from the Schoeller mill in Switzerland.  Sample yardage is done and on its way to the factory.  We’re expecting second-round prototypes in the next few weeks.  Maybe even in time for SE Asia.

Winter Motorcycle Shows

Last weekend was the International Motorcycle Show in New York City.  Dusty flew out and setup a Mosko booth.  We sold lots of duffles, but not nearly as many panniers as we did at the west coast IMS shows, which was interesting.  Dusty said the NYC show leaned heavily toward cruisers/sport bikes as opposed to dualsport.  I noticed a lot of the orders coming in were for non-dualsport bikes.  Happy to get the orders though!

Big thanks to Dusty for working the show and also Marcus for loaning us his bike.  Dusty will be representing Mosko at the Washington DC, Dallas, and Chicago shows as well.  Here’s a pic he sent of the booth in NYC.

Here’s another pic Dusty sent of our “mailable” trade show booth being rolled through the streets of Manhattan en-route to the fedex office.  Man those husky rolling boxes we got for the Long Beach show have really been useful.

Mosko Moto World Headquarters

The Mosko shop is coming along nicely.  A big rainstorm came through the Northwest last weekend, so Amarett and I holed up in the shop, got the walls painted, and put down some new flooring.

Here’s a “Before” pic from a few weeks ago:

And an “After” pic with the walls finished and insulated and the new floor covering.

Amarett had a creative idea to use some of my old road maps as wall decorations.  We even found a map of the Mosquito Coast (source of the name “Mosko”) with my travel notes scribbled all over it.  Now it’s art.  Thanks for all the help Amarett!!  A fun way to spend a rainy winter weekend.

SE Asia Trip

Hard to believe we’re headed to Asia in two weeks.  Vietnam visas just arrived.  Things are so busy with Mosko it feels a little weird to be leaving on a moto trip but hey, someone’s got to do the bag testing