All the latest on the GoGo Gear line of protective apparel for female scooter and motorcycle riders

Blog entry: Jan­u­ary 28, 2010

This blog entry is a LONG time in com­ing! Sorry about that, I’ve been a lit­tle busy the past few months! Today’s blog entry is sig­nif­i­cant because I am right now fly­ing from Wash­ing­ton, DC to Los Ange­les on the same day as our first ship­ment of coats is leav­ing on a cargo ship out of China. This mon­u­men­tal effort of going from starting

Cargo ships leav­ing China

with an idea to actu­ally hav­ing that idea come to fruition in the form of pro­tec­tive rid­ing gear that peo­ple actu­ally want is beyond any­thing I could have ever dreamed possible.

Arlene on the Great Wall of China

I am com­ing to the end of a gru­el­ing six month travel sched­ule that has lit­er­ally taken me around the world 2–1/2 times in terms of miles flown. Dur­ing this time, I have spent seven weeks in all parts of China, two weeks in London, Milan, Lake Como, Bel­la­gio, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, New York, Philadel­phia, Wash­ing­ton DC, San Fran­cisco, Seat­tle and all points in between. I have been on the Great Wall of China, in Tiane­men Square, at the For­bid­den City, Yangtzhe River, Bei­jing, Shang­hai, Ningbo, Nan­tong, Hangzhou, Xia­men, Shen­zhen, Hong Kong,

Fly­ing over Siberia

Tokyo, Seoul, I have flown across Siberia, I have seen the Queen of Eng­land and Prince Phillip right in front of my face in their car, lugged hun­dreds of pounds of lug­gage across the globe, had Ital­ians ask if our designs are Ital­ian, received hun­dreds of emails from women see­ing our web­site for the first time say­ing “FINALLY!”, had plus size women con­vinced we won’t have their size and see the joy on their faces when they try them on and see that they actu­ally fit.

Win­ning at LA Fash­ion Week

We were invited to show the line on the run­way as part of LA Fash­ion Week and WON, exhib­ited at the largest motor­cy­cle show in Europe (EICMA 2009), been writ­ten up in the press all over the Euro­pean Union and the UK, selected as a final­ist for the Top 10 prod­ucts of 2010 (win­ners yet to be announced!), had major motor­cy­cle mag­a­zines pub­lish sto­ries about the line, fash­ion blog­gers writ­ing stories, had women order­ing jack­ets en masse with per­sonal notes about how they can’t wait to get their jack­ets, exhib­ited at the New York Inter­na­tional Motor­cy­cle Show and now prepar­ing for

Arlene About to Throw Her­self Down a Hill in GoGo Gear

the all impor­tant Dealer Expo in Indi­anapo­lis and let’s not for­get throw­ing myself down a hill in one of our jackets!

We started this effort after los­ing our jobs dur­ing the worst econ­omy in decades and have emerged with some­thing that peo­ple want and need, not just a jacket but a story of how it’s pos­si­ble to turn adver­sity into some­thing really pos­i­tive. We have had the priv­i­lege of meet­ing some of the most incred­i­ble peo­ple ever, peo­ple who, like us, believe that ANYTHING is pos­si­ble and they have embraced us and our efforts in a way I could have never imag­ined. And, most impor­tant, we have met peo­ple across the coun­try and all over the world who con­tin­u­ally demon­strate the best of humanity.

The Twit­ter peo­ple we met in New York at the Inter­na­tional Motor­cy­cle Show, the “early adopters”, who fiercely believed in GoGo Gear, hav­ing never seen the jack­ets and coats and yet were will­ing to go along on this jour­ney with us. It was absolutely thrilling to have them finally see the jack­ets and get their “thumbs up”! And, to have Paulette

Arlene and Paulette Kin­caid at ACE Motor­cy­cle and Scooter, Chicago, IL

Kin­caid (hus­band Don, @donkincaid on twit­ter), one of the first peo­ple I wrote about at the begin­ning of this journey, approaching the booth with the biggest smile on her face… her hus­band told me she needed a large coat and I promised him that we would make it. I also promised I would send a coat for her to try on.  And there she was, all the way from Indi­anapo­lis, com­ing to try on her coat to check the “fit”. I told her there in New York, I wanted to make sure she knew I hadn’t for­got­ten my promise to her and she sim­ply said “Arlene, I knew you didn’t for­get…” To finally meet the Scoo­ter­Di­vas from www.scooterdiva.com who have con­sis­tently been encour­ag­ing us with their feed­back and sup­port. To meet­ing @polianarchy from Twit­ter who I was almost afraid to meet because I knew this was one woman who could slice and dice just about any­thing with a few key­strokes on her com­puter if she didn’t like it and to take her mea­sure­ments and have her tell me she was will­ing to wait for a jacket her size

Arlene and Elaine in Atlanta

because she knew we were going to get her that jacket. To Elaine (@ageekgirl) in Birm­ing­ham, Alabama who has patiently been wait­ing for her grey trench jacket since Sep­tem­ber and know­ing that in a cou­ple of weeks, she is going to receive that jacket.

Arlene has a spe­cial reunion upon return­ing home from China

I reflect back on all of the peo­ple who have been a part of this over the past six months… pro­vid­ing con­tin­ued encour­age­ment even in the dark­est moments when I was in China…  from before Thanks­giv­ing, up through Christ­mas and antic­i­pat­ing that I would not return until after the New Year, the emails and twit­ter com­ments made me know I wasn’t alone while so far away, and peo­ple rec­og­niz­ing how hard it was to con­stantly keep push­ing through this jour­ney, excit­ing yes, but so very hard… to Karen in north­ern Wis­con­sin, who struck up an email con­ver­sa­tion with me, where I could remove myself from my envi­ron­ment in China and just return to some sense of nor­malcy sim­ply through the con­ver­sa­tions we were hav­ing about what it means to ride a scooter or a motor­cy­cle and the free­dom we feel… to Stephanie Towner (@scoutfinch2271) in Chicago who has been a sol­dier through SO many things and con­tin­ues to press on, dur­ing which time she has pro­vided us with invalu­able legal coun­sel (and for rates she would never con­fess!), to the peo­ple at @wilsonsmc in Fresno, Cal­i­for­nia who seem to tune in at just the moment I have done the next stu­pid thing along the way such as los­ing my car on a street and hav­ing AAA come and break into a car that wasn’t even mine or throw­ing my arms around a com­plete stranger in a restau­rant because I think the guy is pulling my leg about the fact that he is NOT who I think he is! And @DetroitScooter in Royal Oak, Michigan, a guy who every­one should have the honor of sit­ting down with for a pint.

You have Den­nis John­son, edi­tor of the Dealer News (www.dealernews.com) who believed in the GoGo Gear long before he had ever seen it, as did Yvonne McAvoy from the All About Bikes mag­a­zine (www.allaboutbikes.com). These are but a few of the peo­ple who have taken a leap of faith in believ­ing, and writ­ing that, this is the real thing. 

You always hope that what you’re doing is con­sis­tent with what you say about it and now, at the end of this very long jour­ney, I can say with con­fi­dence, this IS the real deal!  GoGo Gear started as an idea, was engi­neered into a real­ity and will con­tinue to evolve into some­thing even bet­ter than what it is today. My excite­ment knows no bounds because I already know what we are doing for 2011 and the other prod­ucts we are work­ing on that we will be bring­ing to the mar­ket (yes guys, we ARE going to get you your GoGo Gear too!).

For those of you who have been here from the begin­ning and even late arrivals, I have said it before… what has been most thrilling about all of this is to be able to share it with you.  I have referred to you in the past and the list is grow­ing longer and longer so while I may not be able to pro­vide con­tin­ual ref­er­ences to indi­vid­u­als as we go forward, suffice it to say, my inter­ac­tions with each of you, even if it’s in email replies when you ask to be put on our mail­ing list, I am deeply touched by every com­mu­ni­ca­tion I have with any­one who expresses an inter­est in what we’ve done and what we’re doing. To be hon­est, I don’t think any of this would mat­ter as much to me if it weren’t for all of the peo­ple who’ve been part of this journey…

Ladies (and gen­tle­men!)… we are about to get our GoGo on!!!

Arlene

GoGo Gear Hangtag