When searching for a place to take your motorcycle or powersports vehicle, it’s no doubt that Texas will give you a wide variety of locations to ride around. The second largest state in the U.S., Texas has plenty of city streets around Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and more for a pleasure cruise. It also has rugged terrain to take an ATV or UTV in the state’s many plain regions.
For this Dealer Dialogue, we go to Odessa, Texas. In the western half of the state, Odessa is known for its cowboy culture, oil rigs and the popular book and film “Friday Night Lights” (not the television show, however, which takes place in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas).
Odessa is also where you will find the Ruhnke family and their dealership, Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles. Owned and operated by Mike Ruhnke, Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles is all about selling fun. His dealership came about from a passion for motorcycles and powersports equipment that runs in his family.
“I have two sons, and as they were growing up, we were always doing things in powersports, whether it was sand rails, side-by-sides, four-wheelers or motorcycles,” Mike Ruhnke says. “As they got older, they went to work in the powersports industry. After 20 some years and being the production manager of a credit card company, I quit that, and we bought a motorcycle shop.”
That was in 2008, and for the last 16 years, Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles has turned into a staple in the motorcycle and powersports industry, selling fun for riders around Odessa, Texas. Ruhnke’s youngest son worked at the shop for years after his dad bought it. Ruhnke’s oldest son joined the team two years ago. The dealership now has nine employees.
Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles sells lots of fun motorcycle and powersports equipment. At the beginning, Ruhnke started by selling used Harley-Davidsons, which Ruhnke claims is still the top-selling vehicle segment among his customers. Now, the dealership sells a wider range of equipment.
Betas are Ruhnke’s best-selling ride for new products. “The Beta 300 Xtrainer is our best seller,” claims Ruhnke. The dealership also sells rides from QJ Motors.
Parts for different rides are a big selling point for the dealership. Ruhnke sells some SSR products for pit bikes. There’s also a service department that does lots of top-quality repair work. You can find tons of helmets, jackets and jerseys to wear on any ride as well.
While growing his dealership, Ruhnke has noticed several obstacles that have made the industry tough to navigate. Obviously, the recent pandemic played a major role in several aspects of running a dealership, especially inventory.
“The things that went on there with people not being able to get new inventory and prices going crazy on used stuff made it very difficult to buy,” Ruhnke explains. “Dealers were afraid they were overpaying for stuff, and if things changed, they were going to be stuck with stuff they overpaid for.”
Now, Ruhnke notes a shift in the opposite direction, where manufacturers have tons of new rides that haven’t sold. This has led to a different kind of challenge for Ruhnke and other dealerships. OEMs are putting rebates on new vehicles to get rid of their inventory, some of which are making newer rides cheaper than used ones. This is making it difficult for buyers to decide between buying a new or used ride.
“OEMs have plenty of inventory as far as Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, all that,” he says. “They’ve got units like crazy, so now we’ve got tons of used stuff. Most people that trade frequently, if they financed stuff that they bought, are stuck in it because they paid too much for it two years ago, and they can’t trade out of it because they owe too much on it.”
On top of inventory, getting workers has been another obstacle. As mentioned before, Odessa is known for its oil rigs. Ruhnke says these provide lots of jobs with good pay, and the oil industry is making it difficult to keep qualified employees.
“I’m sure having qualified people is difficult everywhere in the country as you’re competing against so many other industries,” he says. “When you have good technicians, it’s important to keep them, but you have to be able to make money in a department also.”
A third challenge Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles faces is parts availability, especially for older repairs. A unique aspect of the dealership is that they work on just about every motorcycle and powersports vehicle you could imagine. However, since OEMs typically stop making parts for vehicles after a certain age, it can be a costly repair for the customer.
“Sometimes things aren’t available, people have something that they bought very inexpensively, and it costs more to fix things than what they’re really worth,” comments Ruhnke.
This brings another unique aspect of Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles to light. Ruhnke says he and his team will help educate customers on what is the best option for them moneywise.
“Maybe a customer paid $1,000-$2,000 dollars for something,” he explains. “We may suggest to just fix this and this and move on or look for something different and guide them away from putting more money down a bad hole. More than anything, and this applies across the board, treat people like you’d like to be treated and be honest. People want to hear the truth.”
Ruhnke has been able to overcome these challenges at his dealership. Inventory is back up across the industry, and Ruhnke says he’s had success selling slightly older inventory. He also has a dedicated team that’s helped keep business going.
In addition to selling rides, the service department is constantly busy at Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles. Ruhnke says there’s always tire and oil change projects for his technicians, and there’s also plenty of motor work to keep the technicians busy.
As previously mentioned, Ruhnke’s service department works on lots of different vehicles. He has a tip for other dealers when it comes to retaining customers with older rides.
“Communication on the older stuff is crucial to being able to try and make money on some of the more extensive work,” Ruhnke says. “On older stuff, one thing can lead to another much quicker than it can on newer stuff. You find other things that are worn, other things that are broken, and all of a sudden, an estimate that seemed doable becomes twice that, and then people start freaking out, especially if you’re not communicating with them.”
Looking ahead, Ruhnke wants to grow his dealership by selling Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles t-shirts. Ruhnke has noted a demand for a t-shirt that has the shop’s name on it, and sees branded t-shirts as a window of opportunity for the dealership.
At the end of the day, selling fun is what running a dealership is all about for Ruhnke’s Xtreme Cycles. “Nobody needs any of the stuff that we sell here,” he says. “These are all wants that we have here, and we have to remember that. Coming in our store should be a fun experience for people. If it’s not, we’re doing something wrong here.”
