and I won a national championship in that in 1985 . Then I gave up racing the TQs when Rodney was 17 or 18 and was into his motorcycle road-racing . I gave up my racing to support him . He did pretty well and he raced internationally too .” Rodney O ’ Connor , who spent most of his early career working as an engineer for both Triumph Motorcycles as well as KTM , chimed in : “ I grew up around motorcycles and it ’ s been my whole life . I never really had any expectations of myself , good or bad . “ The business is a good family business and we don ’ t have any great aspirations for it to become some big corporate thing . We ’ ve managed to make our hobby or passion also our income and earn enough money to raise a family . Jessie O ’ Connor takes up the story , “ The pandemic actually meant the business became really busy , with people not travelling overseas , but , instead , travelling around New Zealand on their bikes . The business boomed and it ’ s not slackening off , even now that the borders have opened up again .” Don O ’ Connor reckons that living in a provincial city like New Plymouth helped immensely with the business , “ It ’ s a damn good lifestyle here in Taranaki . If you can get a living and enjoy what you ’ re doing , you ’ ve got to be happy . It ’ s a very diverse business because we ’ re not relying on
Meremere in the 1970s
one single product . “ We source product from all over the world and it ’ s all top-quality material . Our biggest seller is GIVI luggage . This is an Italian company and they do helmets , luggage , panniers , sump guards , bike screens , back packs , phone holders , all sorts of accessories and it ’ s all well-priced . The products that we sell are all products that we like to use ourselves . “ As a company , Eurobike Wholesale has a good reputation too … just ask around . Our philosophy is to treat our customers the way we ’ d like to be treated ourselves .
The Eurobike team . Photo : Two Creative Photography
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