About Us

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Click Here to read about our recent move to Eureka Springs, Arkansas!

It all started with a bowl of chili...

Well, not really... but I'll get to the chili in a bit.

CycleGadgets.com is a family business, owned and operated by Sean and Laurene Franklin. Our children Graham and Hopeann are well known to those who have been to our booths at rallies; they've both traveled to many of the shows over the past several summers. As of this writing (late-2007) Graham is now an Air Traffic Controller in the United States Air Force serving at Ali Air Force Base in Iraq, and Hopeann is a sophomore in college.

CycleGadgets.com has several full-time and part-time employees now. Don is our warehouse supervisor, and he's assisted by Tim and James in shipping and receiving. Tim also attends most of our rallies. Chris is our technical support and installation specialist, and our primary installer at rallies. Amanda runs the showroom and keeps Laurene organized. Michelle is our bookkeeper and provided most of the animals in our menagerie (of the 3 dogs, 1 cat, and 3 horses on the back lot, Michelle owns all but 1 dog and the cat).

The "Back-Story"

To give a little history, CycleGadgets.com was the brainchild of Roger Smith and Sean Franklin. We were both avid motorcyclists (Roger rode a 1993 Honda Gold Wing, and Sean still has his 2000 BMW R1100RT), and we both LOVE gadgets. We also like to do our shopping on the Internet - it lets us quickly compare products, prices, and service, and it lets us shop whenever it's convenient for us.

The idea for CycleGadgets.com came together in the Spring of 2000. I (Sean) had just traded my trusty 1986 BMW R80 in on a new R1100RT, and I wanted to accessorize it. Roger had owned his Gold Wing for a couple of years, but was now ready to really personalize it to his tastes. We both wanted good, practical accessories - not just chrome for chrome's sake, for example. We were able to find a lot of great equipment, but not all of it was available on the Internet, or on a secure e-commerce enabled site.

Obviously we were not alone in wanting a good source for reliable products. CycleGadgets.com grew dramatically, and within a few months Laurene had taken over day-to-day operations and shipping from our Plymouth, IN home. Laurene and I ultimately purchased Roger's share of the company as the operation moved from the garage, to a corner of the basement, to the WHOLE basement PLUS the garage, into a 2,000 sq. ft. commercial location, and then into a 4,000 sq. ft. location.

Eureka Springs

After running the company out of Northern Indiana for about 3 years, we decided that it would be nice to get out of the "Snow Belt" and find a location with a longer riding season, and with more interesting motorcycling roads than the flat fields of Indiana. Our travels around the country with rallies had given us a good idea of the areas we liked and didn't like, and of course location of family here in the Midwest was a consideration. We had plenty of time, our daughter Hopeann was just entering high school and we didn't want to move until after she graduated.

After an extensive search and lots of planning and coordination, we moved ourselves and our business in 2007 to a brand-new facility in beautiful Eureka Springs, Arkansas - right in the middle of one of the most beautiful and fun riding area in the Midwest. Our brand-new 11,000 square foot building is stocked with all the best in motorcycle accessories, and we have installation service available. We hope that you can come and visit us, and enjoy the wonderful motorcycling roads and the charming Eureka Springs shops, restaurants, and hotels.

But what about the Chili?

I was getting to that... When CycleGadgets.com started, we needed a corporate name. We want to have the option to branch out into other areas of business in the future, so we didn't want to call ourselves "CycleGadgets.com Inc." - we wanted something fairly generic for the company name. Several months before starting this company, Roger and I (both being on low-fat diets at the time) had entered a chili contest with something we called "Pepper Brothers' Skinny Chili". Considering it was the only low-fat chili of the 18 or so entries, we were pretty pleased to have it place 3rd in overall flavor. When the attorneys asked what we wanted our company to be called, we decided on Pepper Bros. LLC. Since then, we've incorporated under the name S&LF, Inc. (Sean & Laurene Franklin) - but the chili story doesn't make sense without knowing the old corporate name :-}

By the way, if you'd like to try the chili yourself (it really is good!), you can get the recipe here.

CycleGadgets.com founders Roger Smith and Sean Franklin

CycleGadgets.com needs your help!

Thanks for visiting our site and giving us the opportunity to meet some of your Gadget needs. If you know of a gadget that is hard to find in an e-commerce environment, we'd like to know about it! Also, if you have comments or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you. Please contact us.