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Well-known member
This originally appeared at www.midliferider.com. Fun interview with the guy who imports Furygan leathers, which I would heartily recommend to anyone. Great gear.
I started wearing Furygan leathers last year. I bought them for several reasons.
* A friend was wearing them and I thought they looked good.
* They fit my shape and build well.
* I had read about them in a British motorcycle magazine.
Later I discovered that the importer, a man named Keith Ellis, lived about three miles from me. We got together over coffee to talk shop and swap stories.
Kevin: How did you decide to get involved with importing motorcycle gear?
Keith: I worked a number of years in construction, excepting about four years that I took off and went back to school, got a Philosophy degree. Not a lot of job opportunities there.
Working construction, where my job had evolved into managing a general contractor, I found that there were a few things that were inherent to job that that I was uncomfortable with. So I began looking for away of making some changes. I got to where I was only working 50 or 60 hours a week doing construction.
Kevin: Only?
Keith: [Laughing]. This is apparently more free time than I can be trusted with. I actually thought at first that I wanted to open a shop: a motorcycle shop. In the process of working out a business plan for that, I realized I was horribly undercapitalized for that type of venture. But I had made contact with some different people, because I wanted to find interesting products that other people didn’t have. For example, I made contact with the folks at Furygan. I made a trip to Germany to the INTERMOT show and met with them. We pretty much just agreed that we’d give it a try and see what happened. So I made a decision to start with apparel.
Kevin: So you had no background?
Keith: No, other than as an enthusiast with friends in the industry. I had some capital and I’m seeing a change in the U.S. Market. There are more people traveling on two wheels and maybe it’s just me, but I also started seeing more people who are really interested in wearing appropriate gear . . . but maybe not as interested in wearing a really flashy piece of protective gear. I thought I saw an opportunity in the market.
So I was looking for something that was high quality and nicely styled; something that crossed the line between protective and causal gear. Furygan is a good fit for me, and I for them, I think. They’re trying to expand, to push their company into new markets. We’re hoping to grow together here.
Kevin: How did you find out about Furygan?
Keith: Actually by reading European magazines.
Kevin: So you sort of settled on Furygan and you e-mailed you cabled and you called them? You said something, “I want come over and talk to you?”
Keith: Actually, what happened is, I contacted them via e-mail and they said, “Yes, we’re interested,” and we did almost no initial e-mail negotiation. I simply went to Germany and sat down with them.
Kevin: That’s just so cool . . .
Keith: There were some other people that I was meeting with as well, but pretty quickly I settled in with Furygan. So I spent at least two days, pretty solidly, talking with them about what it would be like to work together.
About Furygan
Kevin: What’s the story with Furygan? What’s their history?
Keith: It’s actually one of those really interesting European business stories. The founder of Furygan is Jacques Segura. The Segura family was in apparel manufacturing. In 1969, they opened a division that was focused on motor sports.
Jacques’ brother was put in charge of the new division. I don’t know all of the details other than they say that Jacques took exception to that decision, and that resulted in a lot of family turmoil. So, also in 1969, Jacques started Furygan.
He started with gloves, which is G-A-N-T in French. So, the name is a contraction of Fury and glove. The ending “T” was dropped leaving “Furygan”. The logo, with the Panther . . . the Panther was the symbol of Jacques paratrooper unit in World War II. He chose it in a wounded pose to express how he felt about his dealings with the family.
He manufactured high-end gloves and actually sky diving leather helmets to start with. He went pretty quickly into suits and, actually, in the mid 70’s he sponsored a lot of world-class riders, Patrick Pons, Christian Sarron, Agostini when he was on the number 1 plate at Yamaha. In ’77, when Steve Baker became the first American to win a World Championship, he was wearing Furygan Leathers.
Kevin: That is so French.
Going to Market
Kevin: How are you going to market?
Keith: It’s my intention to add some new apparel products. I added Motto Bike Wear, a Kevlar lined jean from Poland, this spring. I do have a couple of hard part manufacturers that I’m talking with as well to diversify a little bit of what I have. And, yeah, and continue to try to offer what I think are fairly unique and high quality products that might fill a different segment of the market.
I think this has been a real change in the way the American motorcyclist looks at protective gear in the last decade, and I do think that some of the larger brand, less expensive products that are out there have a lot of the responsibility and credit for that.
You know, it wasn’t that long ago that you had a choice between wearing just casual gear or really high-end, designated race sort of gear. Manufacturers have become really good at introducing products to the market that fulfill some basic requirements for riding gear that are more affordable and offer people some choices.
The flip side of that is that as we rolled out this gear that offered some protections but was much more affordable, we’ve seen the market go more and more in that direction. But now I think there’s an opening for some more high quality gear. Maybe it’s a consequence of my age. I’ve reached the point where I can afford a fairly nice and relatively quick motorcycle, and also realized that I had that opportunity because my ability to work was my best asset. And so, I also needed to protect myself as a rider.
There are parts of this country that when it gets hot you’ll see a guy with either no helmet, or a novelty helmet, and no shirt, and shorts and flip-flops.
Kevin: Yup. I remember riding like that when I was young and dumb.
Keith: I don’t know. I’ve just kinda reached a point where the first thing I think is “skin graft.” And I think that we have a lot of people now that are taking that attitude about riding and they want to be able to ride and they want to be able to be calculated about their risks. I may not always be the smartest rider but I understand the risks and I’m prepared for it.
Kevin: You go to shows? You’re calling on dealers? What are you doing?
Keith: I’m doing a lot of calling dealers. I don’t do a lot of shows. I have a website that’s badly in need of updating that I get some hits off it. The unfortunate thing is that I have yet to figure out what I feel is a really clean way to handle sizing and fit. Each of the jackets has a slightly different cut. The size is pretty consistent in the shoulders. But I need to get a good chart and a good way to find measurements for people so that they can consistently fit. It’s really my goal to have Furygan available to fit in person for each major metro area.
Kevin: Do you do any direct business at all?
Keith: If I don’t have a retailer close to somebody, I’m happy to sell retail.
Kevin: What kind of dealers are you looking for?
Keith: My initial thought was that the people who would be familiar with the brand would be more likely to be in a Euro dealer. In Europe, obviously Euro bikes are all over the place, and it’s not just the guys riding the expensive bikes that are buying Furygan, in part because they have a different attitude towards gear in the first place. As a British friend of mine says, it’s common to see a guy on a thousand pound ($2,000) motorcycle with 1500 pounds ($3,000) in gear. That’s because he knows it’s really easier to replace that $2000 bike, but, you know, it’s not easy to keep…
Kevin: Yeah. I’m the most expensive part of this thing.
Keith: Yeah. I’m the hardest part to replace.
Waxing Philosophical
Kevin: How old are you?
Keith: 39.
Kevin: So you’re sort of, at the beginning of the middle.
Keith: Yeah. Right about the time I got to be 33, 34, 35, I started to accumulate some assets. I had worked a lot and I had, you know, a grown up sort of life. One of the things that I realized is that regardless of the passion that I still have for some aspects of what I’ve done in construction, that the things that aren’t well suited for me create enough discomfort that it outweighs the things I’m passionate about.
One of the life changing things for me was my son being born. I have a 5-year-old son, which is, you know, usually the time when people cast off their motorcycles. I mean, everybody knows how many bikers you see that are getting married, having a child, buying a house, and selling their bikes. Well, I’d already done the whole marriage and divorce thing, then a committed relationship, and bought a house, and when my son came along, I really started to think about how it was that I was going about my life and recognized some things that had happened in my parents’ lives.
My stepfather, who I pretty much grew up with, had actually been a Motocross and Enduro racer from ’61 ‘till about 1976. He had a fairly bad crash that broke a leg. He told me that every time he started after that he thought about it, and that was why he quit racing.
But the year that he turned 50, he put together one of the old motorcycles and got involved with racing again. That would’ve been after I started to grow up and had moved out of the house. But I was able to watch the change in the entire family dynamic when my stepfather started to resume doing something that he really enjoyed. And I realized that I didn’t want my son to grow up watching me do all of the things that I felt like I was obligated to do without any passion.
Kevin: That’s a pretty big insight.
Keith: That’s actually one of the reasons for doing business with Furygan, a family owned company. I joke that I selected this product that was founded on resentment, but it was also founded on emotional passion. I think that they still carry a lot of that passion for riding into their apparel. And I want to continue to carry products that work to innovate and that work to bring that passion. I mean let’s face it, we can all take public transportation or ride bicycles, and that’s great, economically and ecologically. That’s a great decision to make, but, you know, I’m just not really passionate about it.
I had also reached a point in my life where I had some assets that I was willing to risk . . . that I was more willing to risk in order to build something than I was to, you know, go work as a lot boy in a dealership just to spend my time around motorcycles.
A lot of the market, particularly in apparel here, is very price conscious. But the fact is price has no passion. Price is about counting what’s left over, and so I really wanted to deal with products with passion. And thought there was an opportunity for a small distributor that was more “boutique” oriented.
Kevin: I’ve done a lot of interviews in this project that I’ve been working on, and there are two themes that come screaming out. There’s actually many, but two come to mind. One is, and you’ve mentioned both of them, there are a lot of stories like the one that you told about your step-dad. Connections between men and their fathers over riding. Another story that comes up in a really big way is the story of the first bicycle, often with a powerful connection to the dad, often who brought home some piece of crap, and in the process of transforming this thing…
Keith: Yeah, my first motorcycle was one that my stepfather assembled for me from the bikes that he’d never gotten rid of. I was 13, and it was a ‘69 Maico 125 Motocross bike, in a 250 frame because it was heavier…
Kevin: Yeah.
Keith: … and it was orange. And, to this day, I have a thing for orange.
Kevin: Of course you do. And so, he transmogrified this right in front of your eyes.
Keith: Yeah. I didn’t have the smoothest childhood in general, and my adolescent years were particularly problematic for anybody in very close proximity. In my early 20’s, I realized that I’d had some fairly big life changing experiences. I realized that I had an opportunity to redefine and rediscover my relationships, particularly and specifically with my family, and that as a young adult, I had the opportunity to make the decision to let everything be passed and to start fresh and to meet my entire family on equal terms as adults and to not worry about anything else that had happened.
Part of that ended up being my stepfather, and he and I obviously communicate regularly about motorcycles. That was the beginning. That was the little common thread that we had and that was the point to build a relationship from. And it’s been just a great deal of fun for me. I go ride in the dirt with him periodically.
You know, my son wants to ride. He said that this summer he wants to have his own motorcycle, which of course thrills me. I’ve tried not to put everything on it but he, you know, he watches and he knows.
I started wearing Furygan leathers last year. I bought them for several reasons.
* A friend was wearing them and I thought they looked good.
* They fit my shape and build well.
* I had read about them in a British motorcycle magazine.
Later I discovered that the importer, a man named Keith Ellis, lived about three miles from me. We got together over coffee to talk shop and swap stories.
Kevin: How did you decide to get involved with importing motorcycle gear?
Keith: I worked a number of years in construction, excepting about four years that I took off and went back to school, got a Philosophy degree. Not a lot of job opportunities there.
Working construction, where my job had evolved into managing a general contractor, I found that there were a few things that were inherent to job that that I was uncomfortable with. So I began looking for away of making some changes. I got to where I was only working 50 or 60 hours a week doing construction.
Kevin: Only?
Keith: [Laughing]. This is apparently more free time than I can be trusted with. I actually thought at first that I wanted to open a shop: a motorcycle shop. In the process of working out a business plan for that, I realized I was horribly undercapitalized for that type of venture. But I had made contact with some different people, because I wanted to find interesting products that other people didn’t have. For example, I made contact with the folks at Furygan. I made a trip to Germany to the INTERMOT show and met with them. We pretty much just agreed that we’d give it a try and see what happened. So I made a decision to start with apparel.
Kevin: So you had no background?
Keith: No, other than as an enthusiast with friends in the industry. I had some capital and I’m seeing a change in the U.S. Market. There are more people traveling on two wheels and maybe it’s just me, but I also started seeing more people who are really interested in wearing appropriate gear . . . but maybe not as interested in wearing a really flashy piece of protective gear. I thought I saw an opportunity in the market.
So I was looking for something that was high quality and nicely styled; something that crossed the line between protective and causal gear. Furygan is a good fit for me, and I for them, I think. They’re trying to expand, to push their company into new markets. We’re hoping to grow together here.
Kevin: How did you find out about Furygan?
Keith: Actually by reading European magazines.
Kevin: So you sort of settled on Furygan and you e-mailed you cabled and you called them? You said something, “I want come over and talk to you?”
Keith: Actually, what happened is, I contacted them via e-mail and they said, “Yes, we’re interested,” and we did almost no initial e-mail negotiation. I simply went to Germany and sat down with them.
Kevin: That’s just so cool . . .
Keith: There were some other people that I was meeting with as well, but pretty quickly I settled in with Furygan. So I spent at least two days, pretty solidly, talking with them about what it would be like to work together.
About Furygan
Kevin: What’s the story with Furygan? What’s their history?
Keith: It’s actually one of those really interesting European business stories. The founder of Furygan is Jacques Segura. The Segura family was in apparel manufacturing. In 1969, they opened a division that was focused on motor sports.
Jacques’ brother was put in charge of the new division. I don’t know all of the details other than they say that Jacques took exception to that decision, and that resulted in a lot of family turmoil. So, also in 1969, Jacques started Furygan.
He started with gloves, which is G-A-N-T in French. So, the name is a contraction of Fury and glove. The ending “T” was dropped leaving “Furygan”. The logo, with the Panther . . . the Panther was the symbol of Jacques paratrooper unit in World War II. He chose it in a wounded pose to express how he felt about his dealings with the family.
He manufactured high-end gloves and actually sky diving leather helmets to start with. He went pretty quickly into suits and, actually, in the mid 70’s he sponsored a lot of world-class riders, Patrick Pons, Christian Sarron, Agostini when he was on the number 1 plate at Yamaha. In ’77, when Steve Baker became the first American to win a World Championship, he was wearing Furygan Leathers.
Kevin: That is so French.
Going to Market
Kevin: How are you going to market?
Keith: It’s my intention to add some new apparel products. I added Motto Bike Wear, a Kevlar lined jean from Poland, this spring. I do have a couple of hard part manufacturers that I’m talking with as well to diversify a little bit of what I have. And, yeah, and continue to try to offer what I think are fairly unique and high quality products that might fill a different segment of the market.
I think this has been a real change in the way the American motorcyclist looks at protective gear in the last decade, and I do think that some of the larger brand, less expensive products that are out there have a lot of the responsibility and credit for that.
You know, it wasn’t that long ago that you had a choice between wearing just casual gear or really high-end, designated race sort of gear. Manufacturers have become really good at introducing products to the market that fulfill some basic requirements for riding gear that are more affordable and offer people some choices.
The flip side of that is that as we rolled out this gear that offered some protections but was much more affordable, we’ve seen the market go more and more in that direction. But now I think there’s an opening for some more high quality gear. Maybe it’s a consequence of my age. I’ve reached the point where I can afford a fairly nice and relatively quick motorcycle, and also realized that I had that opportunity because my ability to work was my best asset. And so, I also needed to protect myself as a rider.
There are parts of this country that when it gets hot you’ll see a guy with either no helmet, or a novelty helmet, and no shirt, and shorts and flip-flops.
Kevin: Yup. I remember riding like that when I was young and dumb.
Keith: I don’t know. I’ve just kinda reached a point where the first thing I think is “skin graft.” And I think that we have a lot of people now that are taking that attitude about riding and they want to be able to ride and they want to be able to be calculated about their risks. I may not always be the smartest rider but I understand the risks and I’m prepared for it.
Kevin: You go to shows? You’re calling on dealers? What are you doing?
Keith: I’m doing a lot of calling dealers. I don’t do a lot of shows. I have a website that’s badly in need of updating that I get some hits off it. The unfortunate thing is that I have yet to figure out what I feel is a really clean way to handle sizing and fit. Each of the jackets has a slightly different cut. The size is pretty consistent in the shoulders. But I need to get a good chart and a good way to find measurements for people so that they can consistently fit. It’s really my goal to have Furygan available to fit in person for each major metro area.
Kevin: Do you do any direct business at all?
Keith: If I don’t have a retailer close to somebody, I’m happy to sell retail.
Kevin: What kind of dealers are you looking for?
Keith: My initial thought was that the people who would be familiar with the brand would be more likely to be in a Euro dealer. In Europe, obviously Euro bikes are all over the place, and it’s not just the guys riding the expensive bikes that are buying Furygan, in part because they have a different attitude towards gear in the first place. As a British friend of mine says, it’s common to see a guy on a thousand pound ($2,000) motorcycle with 1500 pounds ($3,000) in gear. That’s because he knows it’s really easier to replace that $2000 bike, but, you know, it’s not easy to keep…
Kevin: Yeah. I’m the most expensive part of this thing.
Keith: Yeah. I’m the hardest part to replace.
Waxing Philosophical
Kevin: How old are you?
Keith: 39.
Kevin: So you’re sort of, at the beginning of the middle.
Keith: Yeah. Right about the time I got to be 33, 34, 35, I started to accumulate some assets. I had worked a lot and I had, you know, a grown up sort of life. One of the things that I realized is that regardless of the passion that I still have for some aspects of what I’ve done in construction, that the things that aren’t well suited for me create enough discomfort that it outweighs the things I’m passionate about.
One of the life changing things for me was my son being born. I have a 5-year-old son, which is, you know, usually the time when people cast off their motorcycles. I mean, everybody knows how many bikers you see that are getting married, having a child, buying a house, and selling their bikes. Well, I’d already done the whole marriage and divorce thing, then a committed relationship, and bought a house, and when my son came along, I really started to think about how it was that I was going about my life and recognized some things that had happened in my parents’ lives.
My stepfather, who I pretty much grew up with, had actually been a Motocross and Enduro racer from ’61 ‘till about 1976. He had a fairly bad crash that broke a leg. He told me that every time he started after that he thought about it, and that was why he quit racing.
But the year that he turned 50, he put together one of the old motorcycles and got involved with racing again. That would’ve been after I started to grow up and had moved out of the house. But I was able to watch the change in the entire family dynamic when my stepfather started to resume doing something that he really enjoyed. And I realized that I didn’t want my son to grow up watching me do all of the things that I felt like I was obligated to do without any passion.
Kevin: That’s a pretty big insight.
Keith: That’s actually one of the reasons for doing business with Furygan, a family owned company. I joke that I selected this product that was founded on resentment, but it was also founded on emotional passion. I think that they still carry a lot of that passion for riding into their apparel. And I want to continue to carry products that work to innovate and that work to bring that passion. I mean let’s face it, we can all take public transportation or ride bicycles, and that’s great, economically and ecologically. That’s a great decision to make, but, you know, I’m just not really passionate about it.
I had also reached a point in my life where I had some assets that I was willing to risk . . . that I was more willing to risk in order to build something than I was to, you know, go work as a lot boy in a dealership just to spend my time around motorcycles.
A lot of the market, particularly in apparel here, is very price conscious. But the fact is price has no passion. Price is about counting what’s left over, and so I really wanted to deal with products with passion. And thought there was an opportunity for a small distributor that was more “boutique” oriented.
Kevin: I’ve done a lot of interviews in this project that I’ve been working on, and there are two themes that come screaming out. There’s actually many, but two come to mind. One is, and you’ve mentioned both of them, there are a lot of stories like the one that you told about your step-dad. Connections between men and their fathers over riding. Another story that comes up in a really big way is the story of the first bicycle, often with a powerful connection to the dad, often who brought home some piece of crap, and in the process of transforming this thing…
Keith: Yeah, my first motorcycle was one that my stepfather assembled for me from the bikes that he’d never gotten rid of. I was 13, and it was a ‘69 Maico 125 Motocross bike, in a 250 frame because it was heavier…
Kevin: Yeah.
Keith: … and it was orange. And, to this day, I have a thing for orange.
Kevin: Of course you do. And so, he transmogrified this right in front of your eyes.
Keith: Yeah. I didn’t have the smoothest childhood in general, and my adolescent years were particularly problematic for anybody in very close proximity. In my early 20’s, I realized that I’d had some fairly big life changing experiences. I realized that I had an opportunity to redefine and rediscover my relationships, particularly and specifically with my family, and that as a young adult, I had the opportunity to make the decision to let everything be passed and to start fresh and to meet my entire family on equal terms as adults and to not worry about anything else that had happened.
Part of that ended up being my stepfather, and he and I obviously communicate regularly about motorcycles. That was the beginning. That was the little common thread that we had and that was the point to build a relationship from. And it’s been just a great deal of fun for me. I go ride in the dirt with him periodically.
You know, my son wants to ride. He said that this summer he wants to have his own motorcycle, which of course thrills me. I’ve tried not to put everything on it but he, you know, he watches and he knows.
