Bike Show Day One

Press and Preview Day - a ridiculously early start (7.30a.m.!) and a very slow build up - the press being mainly interested in scantily clad young women and bikes (in that order) and we having neither of these on our stand! However we were cheered to see a friendly face quite early on - our first ever UK based biker guest from 2008 - who called in to say 'hi' and tell us about his plans to increase the touring side of his business (peakridertraining.com) and to include stays at our place in his plans. Nice start to the day!

Once the wider public were allowed in at 12.00, things got a bit busier and we had quite a few interested visitors to the stand - including a couple sent over to us from the Goldwing Owners Club who John and Matt had visited earlier in the day with greetings from our German Goldwing Rider friends Schmidti & Co. Several people have already entered our free draw, which is nice and we gave away quite a few info packs.

Because it was reasonably quiet John was able to do quite a bit of meeting and greeting with other exhibitors while Matt and I watched the Stand - with some potentially super results. A Honda dealer who is looking for an Austrian based partner to set up a Honda Hire base with and a tour company looking for a hotel to send groups of up to 50 bikers to! Early days yet but all fingers crossed! And to finish the day, a free glass of champagne and a chocolate from our neighbours with the wonderful trikes

We have been told press day is usually very quiet (ONLY 4500 visitors!) and to expect things to hot up tomorrow and especially Saturday. We will keep you posted!

Just a quick one

Just a very few minutes to say 'hi' to all our readers! We are currently in the UK on the run up to our 12 day stint at the NEC Bike Show. We have been 'squatting' in our house near Redditch with furniture on loan from friends and family and enjoying catching up with all the goings on here. It's been great being able to spend a decent amount of time with our kids and grandkids and have been very touched by the numbers of friends who have wanted to see us and have offered us meals and overnight accommodation.

Not that we have left the hotel behind completely. Thanks to modern technology we continue to access our E Mails and booking system daily and have been excited to have a number of Xmas and New Year bookings as well as the first summer bookings for 2010. We are also VERY pleased to have secured Chris Eichberger from Vienna as our musician for New Year's Eve - he is a great guitarist/singer and also a really nice guy - and as he is bringing his girlfriend with him, we are looking forward to meeting her for the first time too.

Our plans for the Bike Show Stand have been taking form - John has been busy making stand furniture and we have been able to borrow some as well, so should have more than enough space to show off the piles of photos and brochures we have brought with us. The printing company have delivered 5000 brochures and as many business cards and the posters we designed have also arrived and look really immpressive (even tho' we say so ourselves!). Today we got the sign up sheets for the free draw organised (5 nights B & B this summer for 2 people with a guided bike tour and a daY's walking) and look forward to seeing how many people sign up for that. Our nephew Matt is once again joining the Hochalmspitze team for the show and we are also getting help for John's daughter Becky and her partner Sam and my friend Jo uring the fortnight (nothing like a bit of young glamour on the stand to attract the punters!). For the second week we will be joined by colleague Michael Ganley from motorcycletours.ie who hopes to drum up some business for the 3 tours he plans to bring to us next summer. All in all we should have abusy and interesting stand. Hope to see some of you there!