A5

By Laura MacInnis

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Speak Up

Harley Davidson drivers are a particular breed- and every rider wants to individualize his or her ride — make it stand out from the rest of the crowd.

In honour of this common need to soup up a motorcycle, Harley Davidson Canada held its first ever contest, called Spike Your Bike.

Local dealer J.H. Stewart was proud to have one of its favourite customers take home one of the top prizes for best bike in the nation.

Evelyn Valotaire of Dalhousie bought her bike from the store in Miramichi as well as all the accessories she used that earned her top prize in the Dyna model category.

"She is one of our regular customers — she bought all the parts here. She is a really good customer of ours," said general manager Christian LaFortune.

"She comes almost every weekend in the summertime to the store."

The competition all started at the local level.

"Each dealer invited their customer to buy accessories and build their bike."

Back in May all Harley drivers were invited to bring their bike to the store. About 15 bikes from across northern New Brunswick showed up.

"We got rid of everything in our showroom and displayed their bikes," he said.

Hundreds of spectators turned out to see the one-of-a-kind motorcycles and vote on their favourite.

Next they sent pictures of the winner to Harley Davidson and J.H. Stewart engaged in a little friendly competition with the other provincial retailers.

"So we competed against Toys for Big Boy [Moncton] and Elridges [Saint John]...and a panel chose the provincial best."

Valotaire won again and then went to the national level based on online voting.

"It's great. It shows we have some good customers with good taste. It's fun to see one of our regular customers win the best looking bike in Canada," he said.

"And it's definitely good business.

" We were happy the winner was one of our customers. All the staff here takes that really seriously. We work hard. Some people from Harley Davidson asked Junior what we did, because we had such a great response because it was so well organized."

LaFortune hopes to see even more participation when the competition rolls around again next year. Until then they have some other projects underway at J.H. Stewart.

He said the staff was happy to see a woman win, particularly because many females are still intimidated about driving their own bikes.

With that in mind LaFortune said the store will be holding a garage party for women only — no sales pressure, just an opportunity to learn about how the bikes work and get a feel for them.

"There may be wine and cheese and show the women bikes for those women who like to see the Harley Davidson but they are shy, or don't want to talk to a salesman.