Shifting Gears Into the The New Year!

Shifting Gears Into The New Year!

Goodbye 2023. Hello 2024. 

Another year full of memories and a whole lot of riding is coming to an end but the ride is far from over. We want more! More memories, more adventures, and more motorcycle enthusiasts depending on Bob's to provide the services and products needed to ride even more….plus the camaraderie of a big motorcycle family. There is nothing more satisfying than being out on the bike and seeing you on the road enjoying the ride on your motorcycle, many of which came right off our showroom floor!

A teeny bite of history. 

The ride of a lifetime began in 1981 as Bob's Used Parts. BMW motorcycle owners around the world turned to Bob's for BMW parts and knowledge to keep their ride going. In 1990, Bob's Used Parts became an official BMW partner known as Bob's BMW, providing the riding community with BMW motorcycles and service as well as parts, expertise, and support for decades to come.

It was time to shift gears again in 2023 as Bob’s BMW welcomed the Ducati brand under our roof and in our hearts, and we became Bob's Motorcycles. The year was spent recruiting new team members, training, and learning everything the Ducati brand has to offer so we were ready to lean into almost a full year of officially representing Ducati.

2024 marks our forty-third year providing BMW products and services to motorcycle enthusiasts worldwide and our very first full year providing the riding community with Ducati products and services.

You have to give it away to keep it. 

Our mission is to do everything possible to exceed customer and staff expectations. And the easiest way to achieve this is by sharing our successes. Every year we do our best to give generously and we are happy to report 2023 was no different. We made donations to impactful and highly respected organizations like the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center, Feeding America, Fisher House, and to local and national riding clubs and events. We give more when special needs arise, hoping you will do the same to make the world a better place.

The best of the best.

Did you know we have transitioned over 100 Harley Davidson police bikes to BMW R1200RT-P and R1250RT-Ps in thirteen different police departments within Maryland, Delaware, and Washington DC over the past two decades? Our goal for 2024 is to add Virginia to that list so look out! We are in the progress of completing sixteen R1250RT-Ps for the Maryland State Police with another nineteen new machines on the way from Germany for the Wilmington, Delaware Police, the Annapolis Police, the Montgomery County Police, and the Prince Georges County Police.

After 25-plus years of serving the law enforcement community through education, demonstrations, training, sales, and servicing of BMW authority motorcycles, we are grateful to see the best of the best servers and protectors of our communities in a light that not every citizen or business does, thanks to our common passion. So be sure to give them a smile, a head nod, or rider’s discreet wave the next time you see them on the road because they are part of the family too!

We're here for the long haul, how about you? 

We're happy to report we all appear to be on the same page! We handed out more BMW High Mileage Awards this past year than in any year that I can recall and for more miles too! I just received four new awards submitted to BMW Motorrad over the past few months; we will make a fun presentation this spring. One is for 300,000 miles, one is for 400,000 miles, one is for 500,000 miles and another is...drum roll please... that very rare occurrence of 1,000,000 miles!

Side Note: Please let me know where you stand on cumulative miles astride one or more BMWs. I’d be pleased to set this official acknowledgement in motion. It starts with just 100,000 miles on as many BMW motorcycles as you’ve owned and ridden, even including BMWs you rented as part of a group tour.

Speaking of Group Tours…

In July 2023, eighteen adventurous customers and I headed over to Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Czech Republic for two weeks to celebrate BMW Motorrad’ s 100^th Anniversary. The celebration began in Berlin with a BMW factory tour, and then to the gigantic Motorrad Days Festival full of displays of cool products, new machines, custom machines, vintage bikes including several R32s, stunt riding by our longtime friend, Chris “Teach” McNeil, great food, and lots of music. Finally, Berlin was topped off with an amazing dinner for about 300 people hosted by Edelweiss Bike Travel (EBT). There were EBT tour participants from nearly every continent and over two dozen countries, speaking many languages!

For eight more days and roughly 1,200 miles of truly excellent roads with stunning vistas, fabulous turns, twisties, and plenty of alpine switchbacks. We ended each day at a great hotel, eating superb food, drinking good beverages, and telling wonderful stories and some very memorable jokes before calling it a night. After one more full day of riding, we ended in Munich where we were treated to a VIP Tour of the 100-Year Exhibit at the BMW Museum before our final goodbye feast.

In 2024 we will be going to...oops, sorry! You’ll have to wait until late January for that announcment!

First Ride of 2024.

So many of you stopped by to tell us, others emailed us, and some sent us photos of your riding adventures in 2023. We can't wait to hear about your adventures in 2024. So please, if you are on social media please LIKE us on Facebook and FOLLOW us on IG and tag @bobsbmwducati on all your adventures. Don't worry if you are not on social media. We can still share your adventures if you will do us the honor of sending us an old school postcard! As always, I commit to sharing each and every card received on the walls by coffee and our rider hangout for all to enjoy – some might make the website! Let's start with your first ride in 2024!

Really, what I want to say is thank you. 

Thank you for selecting Bob’s BMW, Bob’s Ducati and for embracing us as Bob’s Motorcycles, for every referral, for every positive online review, and for every purchase made here at Bob’s!

All of us at Bob’s Motorcycles wish you the very best of the Holiday Season, with peace, hope, good cheer, and more reasons to ride in the New Year.

Sincerely,

Bob@Bob’s

Bob Henig, Owner, Rider, Enthusiast