Cheap Sunglasses and the Recession

So how is the market for sunglasses like American automakers asking for a bailout?

Well, yesterday on my way out to meet some riding buddies, I stopped at a Walgreen's drug store to look for a pair of cheap sunglasses. No more than $20.00 was all I was willing to pay.

I found a pair, $19.99, that look similar to the glasses I've had before, and have polarized lenses, and they fit snug.

Just a few days earlier I had lost my pair of Panoptx sunglasses. I really liked the Panoptx for the styling, the polarized lenses, and the solid feel. Those cost me $150.00. I had them for about 2 years.

Previous to that, I had a pair of Wiley-X glasses. That lasted me less than a year. They broke at the hinge, where the frame meets the ear piece. That was also about $150.00.

And then previous to that, I had a pair of no-name brand glasses I bought at Target for $10.00. That pair also lasted me about 2 years. I ended up losing those too.

So I'm thinking that sunglasses, if you wear them frequently enough, will last you about 2 years, despite how much money you paid for them. Either they break, or you lose them, or you get tired of them and want something else.

The cheapo glasses I bought yesterday are not "riding glasses". They don't have the foam liner around the frames. That's ok, because on my Electra Glide Ultra Classic, the windshield and fairing does a pretty good job at keeping the wind off of my face. I only need the glasses to shade my eyes, and I like the clarity of polarized lenses.

But I've also been to rallies and runs and found sunglass vendors selling riding glasses for $20.00 as well.

I haven't found any kind of functional advantage of the Panoptx or Wiley-X brands, unless you need removable lenses. If you go to their websites, they'll tell you all day long why their glasses are in fact functionally better than the competition. But in reality, or at least my reality anyways, they still provide the same results as the $10.00 pairs, and last about as long.

I'm wondering, are we experiencing a "sunglasses bubble", similar to the housing bubble that created the mess we're in now? How much higher will people spend on their designer sunglasses, and how much longer will it be until they realize they're not getting that much more value for their dollar? If sunglasses are supposed to shade your eyes, and reduce glare, then what is their real value?

I don't think the sunglasses market will ever ruin our nation's economy, but on the other hand, we have companies like Panoptx and Wiley-X who seem to have invested themselves into America's thirst for "image is everything". Do they have a backup plan when riders shift over to the $10.00 cheapo glasses? And why can't Panoptx and Wiley-X make a pair of $10.00 cheapos? It seems like the Chinese companies have dominated the cheap sunglasses market. The US companies are stuck with the designer market.

I doubt that Panoptx and Wiley-X will ever lobby Congress for a bailout should they find their market dry up into dust. If you can afford to spend $100+ on a pair, then count your blessings. I for one am questioning the value of everything I buy these days.

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The Biker Or Not Psychology

Last Monday evening I took a ride to Carlsbad, a seaside town in northern San Diego County, to hang out with some guys from another riding club in that area. We sat around the firepit at this place called Cafe Elysa, and chatted the night away.

This club held their first annual poker run a few months ago, and I asked them how it went. They said the turn out wasn't as large as they had originally expected. They had counted on about 200 people, and instead about 50 participated.

They got the 200 figure after counting all the people who had committed to attending through a popular biker social site called Biker Or Not. They had publicized their poker run on that site, and attracted some 200 people RSVPing as "yes". But in the end, they only got 50 total people, and those all came from within their club plus their associated friends.

Well because this club counted on all 200 showing up, they advised this restaurant, which was providing the meals for the poker run, to expect 200-250 people. When they found out only 50 showed up, the restaurant got really pissed about it. The club had to fork over the money it earned from the poker run to pay for the extra food that the restaurant bought.

So while Biker Or Not still has a large user base of which to promote your events to, you can't rely on its users to actually show up when they say they will.

I'm not necessarily sure why that is.

I tend to believe that some people have been able to promote their event through Biker Or Not, and get a good turnout. I imagine it has more to do with how popular the event organizer is, as opposed to the event itself.

Biker Or Not is a singles site, not necessarily a social networking site, unless you want to think of dating as "social networking". At least, that's what 80% of its users use it for. It stands to reason that single bikers have different priorities than married bikers.

When it comes to taking joy rides through the countryside, it seems like the folks who put on the most miles, are the ones not looking for a date. If you're trying to find dedicated riders for your riding club, maybe that's your target demographic.

Though, I tend to think it's still good idea to advertise your poker run on Biker Ot Not; you just shouldn't use it to figure out how many meals to prepare.

But not to diss the people on Biker Or Not, I think if I was to find myself single, I'd probably spend more time there also. It just seems that there's a significant contrast in motorcycling habits between single bikers and married bikers.

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Biker Friendly Cities

If I learned anything in this past week, it's that there really isn't any such thing as a "biker friendly city".

Even when a city's Chief of Police claims to be a biker, who has aftermarket exhaust on his motorcycle, and even sings the praises of "loud pipes save lives", it doesn't mean it will trickle down to the cops on the streets.

A couple days ago I posted an article about the situation in Temecula, CA, specifically in the "Old Town" area, on my biker news blog...

http://www.bikernewsonline.com/2008/10/temecula-police-will-go-easy-on-bikers.htm

Apparently, merchants there claim to all be "biker friendly", but whatever the case may be, somehow things got out of hand over the past year, and cops were going on a feeding frenzy busting motorcyclists so frequently, that the city had begun building a reputation across the Southern California biker community that it didn't want them around.

Perhaps more correctly, there was little oversight, or maybe, little concern on behalf of the Chief of Police. I actually spoke with the guy over the phone, who assured me (after I told him that I publish a biker news blog with about 30,000 readers per month) that he gave new instructions to his officers to leave motorcyclists alone. Or that is, "use more discretion" before pulling them over.

What started out as an attempt simply to ticket those few bikers who were accelerating too hard from a stop, or revving their engines, or purposely "blipping" their throttles to set off car alarms, got out of control with officers "ganging up" to corral whole groups of bikers, pull them all over at once, and then find something to cite each. The cited bikers were actually told by these officers, that they were not welcome in Temecula.

The Chief of Police said to me that he looks at the tickets cited on a regular basis, and one time saw that there were 60 motorcycles cited over a period of three consecutive weekends, for violations of non-DOT helmet, and aftermarket exhaust. Those were two violations that he specifically didn't want riders being cited for. He actually admitted that his officers did not adhere to his orders.

But if that's the case, he could have done something right away to stop the carnage. Apparently, he didn't. It wasn't until two local businesses witnessed cops executing one of those "fishing net" style biker busts, that got them angry enough to put a stop to it. They contacted the Chief of Police, the City Council, and the City Manager and pressed their case with them. Eventualy the Chief of Police paid a visit to them both, and assured them that starting now things will change for the better.

So when I called the Chief of Police, just to verify what those two business owners told me, he in fact sounded very genuine and believable. But I still can't imagine why he didn't step in to correct the situation before hand, and instead wait for local businesses to complain. He told me, "I'm a motorcycle rider, I own a Harley. I have aftermarket exhaust too, and I believe that loud pipes save lives", he told me. "I don't want to scare away bikers from Temecula, I want to make them feel welcome. I just want to go after the ones showing themselves off as being obnoxious".

So being that I frequent those two businesses a lot, and wanted to help them succeed in putting a stop to the ticketing madness, I told the Chief of Police that I'd publish something on Biker News Online to help repair the city's damaged reputation. I'm counting on that Chief of Police to follow through on his word that he'll keep his officers under control.

The bottom line is that there really isn't any such thing as a "biker friendly city". Just because a town attracts a lot of motorcyclists, is not any kind of sign that the city goes out of its way to embrace them.

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