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7/14/2011
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Valdosta, GA
US
Edited Date/Time
2/7/2012 12:23pm
The current relationship between Fox and Shift is fairly obvious right now. What are some other gear relationships that may not be as well known?
Historically, I can think of a few... AXO/Sinisalo, MSR/HiPoint, Answer/Gearne
Historically, I can think of a few... AXO/Sinisalo, MSR/HiPoint, Answer/Gearne
Now... I'm wondering how often you see similar situations... like the old AXO/Sinisalo relationship. Jeff Ward wore Sinisalo jersey, pants, and gloves along with AXO boots, kidney belt, and chest protector.
MS Racing bought HiPoint back in the day and you always saw the MS guys wearing HiPoint boots.
What I'm asking is are there more of these that may not be as obvious? Didn't someone buy HRP and keep selling the chest protector? Stuff like that.
The Shop
Free shipping: VITALMX
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Answer Products imported Gaerne so that's why Answer clothed guys wore Gaernes. AXO and Sinisalo were out of the same office.
O'neal imported AXO boots...remember Jim Holley wore AXO boots with his O'neal clothes. Yoko made a lot of Fox gear in the 80's so you'd see the Yoko logos on Fox pants and gloves. Sinisalo logos on some JT stuff. The Finnish companies used to make about all the pants and gloves for the American companies...and then they'd go to Italy for Chest Protectors and Boots.
The John Penton Story is a very interesting book. Not just with KTM. But he stumbled upon the Alpinestars factory and had them start make High Point boots....which were distributed by Malcolm Smith...who turned into Tucker Rocky. He played a part in creating so much of the MX business.
Same for the Scott goggles and Alpinestars boots on Thor and Moose riders. Parts Unlimited is the distributor and want to make sure the riders they pay wear the products they sell. Nothing romantic or cool about it, just plain simple business bro.
Early JT gear was all by Sinisalo and their boots were made by Gaerne, Hannah's HRP line was made by Koho, the gear companies when they were first starting out went with an existing manufacturer to make their product and continued the relationship. A bit like how HJC manufacturers most the gear companies helmets.
I have a "real" job now.....no plans to fly back and freeze my ass off in Indy. It would be good to visit sometime though. Thanks for the encyclopedia comment...I'm just a fan....full of normally useless knowledge!
Pit Row
You know the pants with the Finnish flags on the cuffs would last forever. Those old SCD pants would easily outlast any of the new stuff.
When I was in Italy at UFO in the early '00's we were making chest protectors for Fox, Thor, O'neal, and a ton of other companies. A lot of brands got the same protector with different stickers and elastic. We packed containers every week with chest protectors going all over the world.
It used to be neat that brands were really specific....they had a certain specialty and they did that well. You wanted to buy Finnish pants....or Air Filters from Holland. Now just about everybody sells everything because they just go to Asia and have their logo put on it. It was so weird to me when Factory Effex came out with rims. I was like..."What? They are a graphic company?"
Fox was another one who was actually a distributor of AXO boots in the early 80's for the US....and AXO later blew up with a full line and took a huge chunk of their market. Look through an old Malcolm Smith catalog and they were a distributor for Alpinestars, Hi- Point, and Answer.
I used to do some consulting for Taggares out at King Fuji ranch a lot of years ago too.
You probably get up to Toe's place in Royal now and then? Tell Steve that big Kev from Orondo says hi. I haven't seen him in 4 or 5 years but remind him about a big bachelor party on Lake Roosevelt and he'll get the connection.
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