Rick's Motorcycles of Baden-Baden in southern Germany staged their 11th annual 'Harley Days' on October 2nd - 4th and attracted some 7,000 enthusiasts over the three days of the German National Unification holiday weekend.
Marking one of the first open-day events at an authorized Harley-Davidson dealership in Europe where the upcoming new year models can be seen and test ridden, Rick's opened as a Harley dealer in 2011, but owner Patrick (Rick) Knoerzer's custom pedigree is way deeper.
He started making his own motorcycle wheels in the early 1990s and established Rick's Motorcycles in 1994, so this year's open-house saw Rick celebrate 21 years of formally being "in the business". Riding, and indeed among those driving and leading the 'fat rear end' and single-sided swingarm European custom boom of the 1990s, he opened his palatial House of Custom showrooms, workshops and state-of-the-art manufacturing hall in 2003.
Award-winning custom bikes and an in-house design and manufactured parts and accessories program that diversified rapidly got the attention of Harley's European management, and with the invitation to become his region's authorized dealer accepted, the rest, as they say, is history.
Rick's business still keeps the "robust rear-end" flame alive and now successfully combines custom bikes and DIN ISO 9003 certified parts manufacturing alongside (actually, behind) the Harley-Davidson dealership showrooms, workshops and a modified custom Harley program (including one of the few custom bagger programs in Europe) that brings in customers from all over Europe.
The latest additions to his own-brand parts line include extensions to his "Good Guys" TUV homologated air cleaner program with new designs for 2016.
www.ricks-motorcycles.de