Hi!
In the next 60 seconds I’m going to give you a very quick lowdown on the ABR Festival, the bikes that caught my eye, and let you know when you can next meet us and try on Adventure Spec gear.
THANK YOU.
There are many thousands of people on this email newsletter list, but today there are 7 who I would like to say a special thank you to.
Our small team of Adventure Spec staff and volunteers who worked their absolute butts off over the ABR Festival.
The stand looked great, the gear was on point and the vibes from all of our community new and old was buzzing.
Jim, Chris, Adam, Steve, Wil, Marc, Chris... what a job 🙏.
If you were at the festival, and you took time to say hello to our team, a big fat thank you to you too.
Your feedback, questions and ideas will help shape the gear that we develop next.
How did we do?
Hit reply and let us know.
THE BIKES.
I spent a lot of time asking people what they were riding, and a lot of the answers included a ‘G’ and an ’S’. It’s no surprise that the big BMW is still the number one selling adventure bike out there.
Fortunately there were a decent amount of riders on CRFs and 690 sized machines, and our little CRF300L was getting a lot of attention out in front of the stand.
The bikes that caught my eye as I had a quick lap of the festival were the new CF Moto 450MT, the Kove 450 + 800 and the Voge Rally 300.
We had a chat with the Kove importer and the numbers they have sold in the USA alone are big. A sure contender for our Hard Parts treatment.
WOMEN’S GEAR.
I got the sense that there’s a shifting tide taking place and that the demand for well thought out women’s adventure riding gear is building momentum.
The Supershirt and Linesman Pant were the most tried on bits of Adventure Spec gear by female riders who stopped by our stand.
Introducing a women’s line won’t happen overnight, in fact it may take some time, but it’s on our radar and the more feedback we get the better it will be.
LIGHTWEIGHT KIT.
I would have liked to have a bit more time to poke around the other vendor stalls, but with the Adventure Spec tent heaving it was hard to get away.
I did notice quite a few pack down camping chairs being made by a few different manufacturers, and at least one lightweight moto tent in development.
It was good to see the lightweight multi-day TET vibe filtering through to more kit suppliers as demand for our kind of riding increases.
A wonderfully enthusiastic customer called Guy let me know that he uses this kit film as a ‘checklist’ before he packs for his TET adventures which was lovely.
It put the idea in my head of expanding this out a bit and maybe building a section on our website where we dive into kit lists a bit deeper.
Speaking of which…
In just 8 days time the Adventure Spec Team will be back at it again at The Lightweight Adventure Festival in the Peak District.
I know, we are like buses, you wait five years for us to put on a show and then we do two back to back.
The vibe at the LW ADV Fest will be quite different, much smaller, more intimate and a real gathering of like minded souls.
A celebration of our lightweight tribe.
We will have the AS tent there along with a good selection of our gear to try on for size. Our festival merch will be on sale so you can walk away with a T or hat.
Keep an eye out for the ‘What’s In The Bag?’ workshop where I invite you to empty your kit bag so we can share the best tips and tricks that go into lightweight packing.
There’s still a handful of tickets left, you can grab yours here.
😎
Greg Villalobos
This story was first published in our email Newsletter. Subscribe now for the most ADV email you will get all week!