Eagle Leather Takes the Store on the Road Come Check Out our Tent and Our Cool Gear!
The Oyster Run at Anacortes is the only rally Eagle Leather attends. It’s a high point of the motorcycling year for the thousands of riders who attend this, the largest motorcycle rally in the Pacific Northwest. This year the free event is on Sunday, September 25.
Here at Eagle Leather, we look forward to the Oyster Run. It’s a chance to strut our stuff, showing fellow motorcycle enthusiasts part of our huge selection of gear. More than that, it’s a chance to meet up and chat with our customers—some of them we know from our stores in Lakewood and Auburn and others who come to see us at the Oyster run year after year.
Preparation begins weeks ahead as we identify what merchandise we want to take to Anacortes. We never order gear just for the Oyster Run. Everything we sell there is also stocked at Eagle Leather stores. (Maybe some folks offer cheap goods ordered specially for rallies, but Eagle Leather does not.) We do, however, try to bring a good selection of gear that’s on sale, so buyers can often save 25%--or even more.
We want to bring gear that’s popular and easy to buy. We leave boots behind, for example, because they’re hard to fit on a street corner. We bring lots of gloves, jackets, chaps, even some Gerbing® heated gear. Look for our new line of Outlaw shirts, T-shirts, and hoodies, too. Deciding exactly what to bring can be stressful, because we want to have just the gear that people want to buy.
We put out a sign-out sheet so that staff from both stores who want to come to Anacortes can do so. This way, the sales experts are excited to be there. We need about half of our total sales staff at the Oyster Run. On September 25, we close one store so people are either working at the one store that’s open or are at the Oyster Run.
We get everything packed and ready to go ahead of time. About four in the morning, we gather and all leave together. We stop for breakfast on the way and arrive at Anacortes about 6:30 a.m. Mike has a lot of experience setting up tents and arranging the merchandise, so he supervises our setup on Main Street.
By nine o’clock we’re ready to open. The rest of the day often seems like a blur of handshakes, hellos, and hugs as we greet old friends and make new ones. Mike works right alongside the rest of the staff and we all thoroughly enjoy the day and the festive atmosphere of the rally and, above all, the people.
Five o’clock is closing time and we get everything that’s left packed up and the tent taken down. When all the cleanup is complete, we head home. On the way, we stop for an oyster buffet and some well-deserved high-fives for a long, exhausting, but exhilarating day.
Right now, we’re all looking forward to the Oyster Run. See you there!
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