Good mileage in the era of $3-a-gallon gas might seem a selling point at a motorcycle store.
Not so, said Jason Cefola, grandson of bike legend Reggie Pink and a salesman at Reggie Pink Harley-Davidson at 300 Central Park Ave. in White Plains.
“People who come here are coming for Harley-Davidson,” Cefola said. About 99 percent of Reggie Pink”™s business is associated directly with the Harley name. But gas mileage? “No, it”™s not really an issue.”
Leslie Pink-Dessauer doesn’t ride anymore, but her old Harley Sportster with the 883-CC V-twin got about 55 miles to the gallon. She still has the bike; she just doesn’t ride it. (That’s Harley loyalty.) “It”™s not really something that comes up,” Pink-Dessauer concurred about gas mileage.
Cefola pointed out most riders in our four-season world do not use their bikes as their primary transportation, making their Pink purchases luxuries, or passions, or hobbies ”¦ but not bread-and-butter transportation to work and, therefore, less subject to mileage considerations.
Pink-Dressauer ”“ “She runs the place,” said Cefola ”“ was married to Don Pink, Reggie”™s son, who died in 1984. Other family members on-site include Janie Pink, Don and Leslie”™s daughter, and Mike, Janie”™s son and Reggie”™s great-grandson.
Yet the family has a mileage superstar in its ranks: Reggie himself (1899-1962), who in 1925 rode a British BSA motorcycle 172.8 miles around a course in Central Park on a single gallon of gas. The new Cross Bones gets 35 city and 54 highway with considerably more bells and whistle”™s than Pink”™s 1925 two-wheeler and with a 1584-CC engine nearly double the size of Pink-Dessauer”™s 883.
As for business, “It”™s good,” Cefola said. “We”™re seeing a little slowdown with the economy and the winter, but business has been good.”
Reggie Pink”™s new headquarters is across the street from Pink”™s previous incarnation and is the seventh Pink headquarters in a list dating to the importation of British motorcycles at a Bronx Reggie Pink store in 1927. The first Reggie Pink in White Plains opened in 1948. “This is the seventh dealership and it”™s the grandest,” Cefola said of the 45,000-square-foot facility that opened last summer.
Reggie Pink employs 17 full time in sales, administration, clothes, accessories, parts and repairs.
