Motorcycle Man After a Short Break, Retiree Rides Again - The Times Leader
By Ron Bartizek
Times Leader Correspondent
Early retirement isn't for everyone. Just ask Dennis McCartney, who has found new opportunities to combine business and pleasure while filling up an empty warehouse at 378 Main St. six years after selling his former business.
McCartney's father started Apex Building Products in 1961. The wholesale business once had a second warehouse near Binghamton, N.Y., 40 employees and 650 accounts, mostly independent lumber and hardware stores. Dennis McCartney was not concerned when business friends in the Philadelphia area first warned him about the effect new big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowe's were having on smaller retailers.
"I thought, `We're OK, we don't have any of those up here,' " and most of his customers were far from larger cities where the chains had opened. But shoppers willing to drive 20 miles or more to shop at the megastores soon abandoned the smaller stores Apex supplied.
"All these guys were customers of ours," McCartney said, ticking off local names like Forty Fort Lumber and Back Mountain Hardware, which closed a few years after the big boxes arrived in the Wyoming Valley.
Soon, Apex was gone, too, sold to Morgan Wholesale, a Connecticut firm that specialized in nails and screws and saw in Apex a chance to expand its product line.
"It had just become unprofitable," he said.
McCartney stayed on for three years, managing the warehouses and setting up a data communications network linking the company's locations. He retired in October 2002.
Then McCartney, 53, had to decide what to do next.
"I retired for one weekend," he said, before an old bug bit him.
Two-wheeled business
McCartney had raced motorcycles in the 1970s, before business and family commitments took priority on his time. In 1990 he had bought a Honda CBX, a unique six-cylinder model that was available new for only four years. One thing led to another and he became immersed in the world of CBX lovers, eventually becoming the head judge at national owners' rallies.
It seemed natural to build a new business around his hobby and CBXMAN was born, selling products McCartney used on his own motorcycles. He worked from his Harveys Lake home for a few months, then moved the business to the Edwardsville warehouse in April 2003, when Morgan moved out.
The CBX business took off quickly, driven by an Internet presence built on another of McCartney's interests.
"Apex had a Web site in 1995," he said, and he had been in on the founding of Kingston-based Lightspeed Technologies, a telecommunications and computer networking business, in 1998. With the help of designer Matt Martell, McCartney built a Web site that attracts customers from every corner of the globe.
An e-mail inquiry from France one day last week asked about availability of a rear left-turn signal.
"Well, we have that," McCartney said.
Another customer used to call from an oil drilling platform in the North Sea off Norway.
CBXMAN sells a full range of parts and accessories for the motorcycle Honda produced fewer than 40,000 of, as well as buying and restoring complete machines. Finished bikes can sell for $12,000 or more, McCartney said, depending on mileage.
"We build to order," he said. Customers pay in three installments; a down payment, another when work has progressed and finally before the bike is shipped.
"We send them pictures along the way," he said.
Many of the parts in the CBXMAN inventory also come from around the world.
"In the beginning we had to go and find stuff," McCartney said. Now sellers contact him, generally through e-mail.
McCartney recently bought a large batch from a former Honda employee in South Africa.
"Somehow he had accumulated these parts," McCartney said, which are considered "new-old" because they are still in their factory packaging. He negotiated a price, then took a risk the parts would actually show up in Edwardsville.
Service work, from rebuilding alternators to restoring paint, is another thriving component of the business.
"The bikes are older than the guys who are working on them," in most shops, McCartney said, so services like a $775 carburetor rebuild are in demand.
Extending the brand
McCartney's enthusiasm - for the motorcycles, for the business and for his employees - is palpable as he gives a tour of a showroom built in 2005 to accommodate a new arm of the enterprise.
The CBX business has been good, McCartney said, but it is limited.
"I think we filled a niche," he said, but he saw the growth rate flattening. "That's what caused me to open the showroom."
That and recognizing the capacity three key employees have to grow with the business.
"These are the right people," he said of general manager Donna Davis, business manager Kathleen Hollock and service manager Bob Kardish.
At first the showroom was devoted to scooters, which local cycle dealers weren't selling at the time. Now it's filled with motorcycles of all sizes and descriptions as well as all-terrain vehicles.
"We have a full range of bikes that are from manufacturers no one's heard of yet, but they're going to. These are the bikes of the future," because they are easy to ride, inexpensive and reliable, McCartney believes.
One line, motorcycles with automatic transmissions, has attracted attention from both customers and QLink, the Taiwanese company that markets it.
"We did so well with this they had dealers from other areas call me."
Now McCartney is a sales agent, establishing new QLink dealers, and part of the warehouse holds motorcycles destined for showrooms throughout the Northeast.
"We're partnered with them," he said, and he sees the possibility of becoming the company's sales manager.
Most of the new products McCartney sells are made in mainland China under supervision by the parent company. He says the quality is high and the price is low, an unbeatable combination.
He's found new customers in unlikely places, such as established dealers of the "big four" motorcycle brands.
"They don't have anything in that price range," he said. A 650cc Hyosung motorcycle retails for $5,599, well below comparable big-name bikes, and comes with a two-year warranty.
The newest addition is a line of factory-built chopper style motorcycles, also made in China to specifications of a recognized customizer in Boston. A Johnny Pag 250 Spyder sells for $3,899. While it might not have the cachet of a one-off custom from Orange County Choppers, McCartney says owners of exotic bikes are buying the Johnny Pags to use as daily drivers.
The Internet plays a key role in the new venture's success. McCartney extended his brand to cbxmanmotorcycles.com, which provides reach beyond the local area. Last year CBX sold more than 100 vehicles as far away as Nevada.
At times McCartney seems almost puzzled by his burgeoning business.
"This has gone way out of control," he said with mock amazement.
But the growth - and employees he trusts - also has allowed him to focus on the side of the business he loves most.
"I'm having a lot of fun," setting up dealers and working the wholesale side, as he did in the business he grew up in. "It's re-energized me."
The showroom is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Appointments are also available by calling (570) 718.1844