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Mainstream headlines right now are talking about how the United States is surviving on home delivery purchasing services – like Amazon, Instacart, and UberEats – in order to get the goods we need while maintaining stay-at-home orders. For many, it has become a way of life.

Now, the motorcycle industry is starting to catch onto the same idea, as Indian Motorcycle announces its Click.Deliver.Ride program, which the company says lets you shop, configure, and purchase your new Indian motorcycle online and over the phone – all without changing out of your COVID-19 sweatpants attire.

In reality, the program is just a basic online lead-generation platform for local dealerships, which have always been able to handle the bulk of a motorcycle purchasing transaction over the phone (or via an online form). Though perhaps the ability to home-deliver has not always been so prevalent at the dealership level.

Don’t look now, but RevZilla has quietly launched its own motorcycle apparel line, under the name REAX.

The news has yet to hit the PR wires, but the new brand is featured on the RevZilla homepage, with 12 items (5 jackets, 4 gloves, and 3 pants) debuting for the product launch.

Almost two years in the making, RevZilla says that the REAX brand comes from the company’s experience selling and reviewing motorcycle apparel for the past decade. 

Drawing from the experience, and the bounty of customer feedback that they have access to, the REAX brand aims to bring quality motorcycle gear, at an affordable price point.

From the early indications so far, the REAX team has seemingly achieved that very goal. From the product photos, the pieces look well-designed, and come with minimal branding.

The motorcycle media landscape is rapidly changing, and those changes have hit another publication: Motorcycle.com.

The original gangster of online motorcycle news, Motorcycle.com has seen its two raking newsmakers make their exits from the publication, Sean Alexander and Kevin Duke.

For those who don’t know, Duke was the Editor-and-Chief of MO since 2007, before losing the position in late-2017, while Alexander served as the Director of Powersports Editorial since November 2013, until about one week ago.

Both men now find themselves no longer part of the company, as Vertical Scope – Motorcycle.com‘s owner – re-organizes the brand.

This news has been a bit of a shock to the moto-journalist ranks, though perhaps not ultimately that surprising.

The print media landscape continues to change for the motorcycle industry, as Bonnier has just announced that Cycle World will be moving to a quarterly format, starting in 2018.

The move is similar to the changes made at sister publication Motorcyclist, where fewer print editions and a larger focus online are the name of the game.

Bonnier hopes that more “artistic” coffee table issues, will help buoy its print brands’ downward spiral, while the publishing house looks to aggregate news feeds and social media to boost its online sites.

As we reported, Sport Rider will no longer continue as a print publication, and DIRT RIDER will cease its publishing as well. Both titles will continue online it seems, however, though it is not clear how much original content they will run, and how frequently they will post stories.

Bonnier also announced that Hot Bike magazine will be combining with Baggers, to make one giant American v-twin publication, with a six-issue per year format.

There is more movement in the online retail space for motorcycles, as the Motorsport Aftermarket Group (MAG) is reported to be merging its two online stores: Motorcycle-Superstore and J&P Cycles.

According to Powersports Business, the Motorcycle-Superstore will be merged into J&P Cycles some time in 2017, consolidating its two online stores into one. It is expected that many of the staff at Motorcycle-Superstore will be let go during the merger.

Changes are afoot at Motorcyclist magazine, as the monthly publication is set to move to a six-issue per year format starting in Spring 2017. That transition will come from the direction of a new leader too, as Editor-in-Chief Marc Cook will be leaving Motorcyclist as well.

Cook outlined his departure, and announced the new format for Motorcyclist, in a short post to his “Cook’s Corner” column online, citing the many contributions his team of writers have made over the course of his tenure at the magazine.

As the opening paragraph to Cook’s goodbye letter coyly suggests, the media landscape in the motorcycle industry is shifting, pushing Motorcyclist magazine in a new direction, which also seems to be pushing hardcore journalists out of the medium.

According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Danny Eslick (shown above in his mug shot) has resolved his issues from Daytona Bike Week, as the local newspaper reports that Eslick has plead “no contest” to charges that he struck a police officer last week, ahead of the Daytona 200.

In exchange for his plea, Eslick’s charges for battery on a law enforcement officer have been dropped from a felony of the third degree, down to a misdemeanor battery.

This means that Eslick should get a 12-month probation from the court, with early termination set at the six-month mark, which includes provisions for sobriety and counseling. However, that sentence could not be made by Circuit Court Judge Frank Marriott because of a technical matter, as it is not clear how Eslick will serve probation while out-of-state.

This leaves Eslick suspension with the AMA in a bit of limbo, until the terms and process of the probation are figured out by the Florida Department of Corrections.

Danny Eslick will not be racing in the 2016 Daytona 200, as he has been charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, a felony of the third degree in Volusia County.

The events leading to Eslick’s arrest transpired around 11:46pm on Monday, March 7th, in Daytona Beach, Florida and during the Daytona Bike Week festivities.

In response to Eslick’s arrest, the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) and the American Sportbike Racing Association (ASRA) have suspended Eslick from this weekend’s race, after consulting with the Daytona International Speedway.

The AMA has levied an additional penalty against Eslick, saying that he will continue to be suspended from all AMA-sanctioned events until the case with the Volusia County Clerk of Circuit Court is resolved. Once resolved, the AMA may release the suspension, or take further punitive actions against Eslick.

Now with the blessing of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) the 2016 Daytona 200 is set to kick-off on Saturday, March 12th at 1pm EST, during Bike Week in Daytona, Florida.

Racing for 57 laps on the high banks of Daytona International Speedway, Daytona 200 contenders will be on supersport class machines, where tire management and careful drafting will be the most important aspects for the racers.

At one point in time, the Daytona 200 garnered the attention of motorcycle racing fans around the world, and its owners DMG hope to return the iconic race to that stature.

To that end, the AMA’s sanction now makes it is easier for FIM-licensed riders to participate in the Daytona 200, and vie for its impressive $175,000 purse ($25,000 goes to the winner).

And for fans, the race is easy to watch, as DMG will be live streaming the Daytona 200 on its FansChoice.TV web property. The pre-race action starts at 12:30 EST; so if you’re on the West Coast, you will want to rise and shine a little earlier than normal, perhaps.

It is Friday, and I am still not sure why there is dearth of publications covering the movements between RevZilla and Cycle Gear. The largest brick-and-mortar motorcycle retail chain, and the most influential online retailer in our industry have just come together under one roof. Boom goes the dynamite.

Intonations of this deal have been in the news space for almost a week now, and by my last count, outside of our coverage here on Asphalt & Rubber, there has only been Motorcyclist’s rehashing of RevZilla’s press release, this 64-word story by PowerSports Business, and RevZilla’s self-published letter on the topic, by CEO Anthony Bucci.

If that doesn’t say something about the current state of moto-journalism, then I don’t know what does. It is a topic worthy of its own story, but that will have to wait for another day. Instead, I am here to talk to you about business, millennials, and future of consumerism.

The speculation about RevZilla and Cycle Gear can stop now, as the brands are finally talking about their plans together for the future.

In a letter posted to RevZilla’s in-house publication, Common Tread, RevZilla CEO Anthony Bucci announces that RevZilla will be acquired by a new holding company, which will also own Cycle Gear.

The holding company’s board of directors will include Bucci, and his fellow RevZilla founders Nick Auger and Matthew Kull, as well as the private equity firm J.W. Childs, which bought Cycle Gear back in 2015.

While Bucci’s letter to RevZilla customers states that the two brands will only be “sister companies” that will operate independently of each other, his FAQ on the subject leaves the door open for collaborations between the two brands, which would be the obvious benefit of their new ownership structure.