04-16-2024, 04:30 AM
In a thread a while back, I mentioned a local gear shop that I found while ducking in out of a rain storm on a long walk. https://discountmotogear.com/
Along with a great selection of new gear and very nice people, they have a back room with racks of final clearance stuff, which as you can imagine, would be right up my alley.
Poking through some of the jackets in the back room, I ran across a few interesting items, which gave me some insight into the moto riding gear market.
I posted a thread about the Tourmaster Navigator jacket, which is a great clearance bargain on most online gear sites. I love mine, and it's become my go-to jacket for comfort and utility. It comes in a neat tweedy-looking grey which I got, but I didn't dig the other available colors, black or Smurf blue.
One of the clearance jackets on the rack is clearly the same model, but in an olive color. Grabbing it, fit the same, but the labeling inside was slightly different, and the tags didn't say "Tourmaster". The brand was not a retail name, and there were notes on the tag with what looked like a grade for the jacket.
Asking the shop owner about it, he gave a puzzled look for a moment, then said "Ah... this jacket never existed." He explained that it was probably a sample that Tourmaster had made before the model was launched, and that they typically make the same jacket in different colors and material textures and show them to the major dealers for evaluation. The dealers give their input on what colors they think will sell the most easily. So this olive example would have been a rejected color, but otherwise identical. Tourmaster off-loads excess inventory to these guys, so this one was in the mix.
I love the color, so I grabbed it. There was also a bright red version of another Tourmaster model called "Tarmac", that I can only find offered in black, so that's another non-existent reject that I snapped up. Now I have a red jacket to match my CB1100.
Kinda interesting.
Along with a great selection of new gear and very nice people, they have a back room with racks of final clearance stuff, which as you can imagine, would be right up my alley.
Poking through some of the jackets in the back room, I ran across a few interesting items, which gave me some insight into the moto riding gear market.
I posted a thread about the Tourmaster Navigator jacket, which is a great clearance bargain on most online gear sites. I love mine, and it's become my go-to jacket for comfort and utility. It comes in a neat tweedy-looking grey which I got, but I didn't dig the other available colors, black or Smurf blue.
One of the clearance jackets on the rack is clearly the same model, but in an olive color. Grabbing it, fit the same, but the labeling inside was slightly different, and the tags didn't say "Tourmaster". The brand was not a retail name, and there were notes on the tag with what looked like a grade for the jacket.
Asking the shop owner about it, he gave a puzzled look for a moment, then said "Ah... this jacket never existed." He explained that it was probably a sample that Tourmaster had made before the model was launched, and that they typically make the same jacket in different colors and material textures and show them to the major dealers for evaluation. The dealers give their input on what colors they think will sell the most easily. So this olive example would have been a rejected color, but otherwise identical. Tourmaster off-loads excess inventory to these guys, so this one was in the mix.
I love the color, so I grabbed it. There was also a bright red version of another Tourmaster model called "Tarmac", that I can only find offered in black, so that's another non-existent reject that I snapped up. Now I have a red jacket to match my CB1100.
Kinda interesting.