Rick Mayer is in the wind....

[TexasMule]

Sent my R12RT seats to Rick in January to re-cut and re-cover. Just found out he's gone, vanished without a trace. Seems he's no longer in business and he took quite a bit of money from people, in addition to the seats. I know he was having personal problems (again) but I thought he had them under control, and he cut three of my seats in the past.

 

Just wanted to alert the collective that RM Cycles has vanished.

[Mike]

Thanks for this update. It sounded as though Rick was attempting to restart everything. I'm sorry to hear this.

[Kathy R]

Sent my R12RT seats to Rick in January to re-cut and re-cover. ..........

 

Thanks for the heads up. It doesn't sound like you got your seats back, or did you?

[elkroeger]

Yikes, that's pretty obtuse.

 

Go with Rich next time.

[Dave_in_TX]

Yikes, that's pretty obtuse.

 

Go with Rich next time.

 

Or Seth Laam: Laamseats

[Sonor]

I just got mine back from Russell and love them. Sorry to hear about the Meyer seats.

[walton66]

I got one from Bill Meyer Seats (BMS) last year and it has been great. Service was excellent and product has been top notch.

[Danny caddyshack Noonan]

Sorry to hear that.

This site might consider perhaps some connection to the never ending stories of rip-offs and problems that is on the advrider site under Vendors as well as, at least, one other sub-forum.

I did two ride ins and got good seats. The thought in the back of my head, upon seeing his shop, was "where are all of the seats awaiting work?" It didn't percolate out until much later when I started seeing complaints with mail-in service. His shop appeared more than large enough to handle the workload and work. I don't understand why he chose to lease a shop off of his property except, perhaps, to distance his sleeping quarters from mad customers.

He was looking to move to the general area of Placerville to be near his daughter......not sure what is going on with that and that was more than a year ago.

[Bud]

Long thread (331 posts) on the MOA forum started in April, 2014. Lots of chatter here as well.

 

Lots of excuses for his poor business ethics, second job, family problems etc.

 

Lots of defenders who wanted to give him another (2nd, 3rd or 4th chance). Even after all the bad PR customers continued to send him their seats and money. PT Barnum said it best.....................

 

Personally, I wish him no ill will. He was a poor businessman who suffered the consequences of not providing the service for which people paid. And you have to feel bad for someone when they experience difficulty in the personal life.

 

If the OP is correct, I feel sorry for all of those customers who have neither their seats nor their money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[barryb]

I met Bill Mayer at MOA St. Paul and paid him to build me a seat for my RT...sent seat two weeks in advance of build date (later than agreed upon)...finally, after much pestering, I got the seat 7 weeks late...called and got all kinds of excuses and outright lies...seat was built with 3 obvious flaws...called to complain and was told to text pictures...no response so I called back, Bill was on other phone, Bill was out of office, Bill was with customer, each time Bill would call back...silence was deafening...the sad thing is, other than unmissable flaws seat rides fine...I would not use him again and am going to contact MOA...hopefully they care about vendors

[Hank R1200RT]

Word to the wise: in my experience, it is ALWAYS better to ride in to a vendor than to just trust a vendor over the internet, no matter what people on forums say.

 

I really imagine you would have been pleased if you had ridden in to Ojai.

 

Best regards,

[Kathy R]

PSA, in the interest of clarity and fairness -

 

 

We should be very careful which Mayer we are talking about.

 

All of them made, or make, custom motorcycle seats.

 

This thread is about Rick.

 

His father is Bill.

 

His brother is Rocky. He is in the business and is not to be confused with brother Rick. If your intent is to talk about Rocky, please be sure you aren't confusing him with Rick.

 

 

[Selden]

Word to the wise: in my experience, it is ALWAYS better to ride in to a vendor than to just trust a vendor over the internet, no matter what people on forums say....

This is so true. Although not everybody is close enough to one of the "big name" seat makers, there are plenty of competent seat/upholstery shops around the country. With the possible exception of RDL (who has a patented technology) I'm convinced that a ride-in is the most important factor in getting a satisfactory seat.

 

Jacksonville, FL is close enough that I felt it was worth riding down to Sargent for a fitting about a year ago, and it was one of the best expenditures of time and money since I acquired my 1999 RT in 2008. It's not truly a "custom" seat unless you can work with the maker, and doing so in person is so much easier than going back and forth over the phone or via e-mail.

[JR356]

I had a RM(Rick)saddle,bought slightly used on this forum for my former K1200RS.

 

Now have BMS(Bill)saddles for my new GS Adventure,also bought slightly used on ADV Rider forum.

 

Pleased with the quality and comfort of both,but glad I have not had to deal with the order hassles.I'm less than half day ride from either,so thats no issue for me,but obviously is for those more distant.

 

See on the net that BMS saddles,while still very actively in business,is up for sale for $250K

So it appears the Mayer family long run in the custom seat business is soon to end.

Sad for many.

 

Anyone want to go into the custom seat business?

http://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/25-Year-Old-Custom-Motorcycle-Seat-Company-For-Sale-Relocatable/1135919/

 

JR356

[mneblett]

With the possible exception of RDL (who has a patented technology)

I'd be interested in what patent(s) cover what features of the Russell seat today.

 

Bill Mayer's original U.S. Patent No. 4,673,212 (assigned to Don and Donna Russell) was filed in July 1986 and issued as a patent in June 1987. Assuming the patent maintenance fees were paid as they became due and therefore the patent was in force as of June 8, 1995 (the effective date of a change in the patent law), the patent term was the longer of 17 years from issue or 20 years from filing -- in other words, the patent expired no later than July 28, 2006.

 

After the patent expired (assuming it remained in force with the required patent maintenance fees being paid), anyone could be using the invention disclosed in the '212 patent.

 

If the Russells own additional patents (and good for them if they do -- they should be able to reap the benefits of their innovations) it would be interesting to see what they cover.

 

If they do not have any applicable patents (either utility patents or design patents), they need to be careful about how they describe their product, lest they are accused of false marking or other business offense (tort) by stating their product is covered by a patent when that is no longer the case.

[Daryl W]

With the possible exception of RDL (who has a patented technology)

I'd be interested in what patent(s) cover what features of the Russell seat today.

 

Bill Mayer's original U.S. Patent No. 4,673,212 (assigned to Don and Donna Russell) was filed in July 1986 and issued as a patent in June 1987. Assuming the patent maintenance fees were paid as they became due and therefore the patent was in force as of June 8, 1995 (the effective date of a change in the patent law), the patent term was the longer of 17 years from issue or 20 years from filing -- in other words, the patent expired no later than July 28, 2006.

 

After the patent expired (assuming it remained in force with the required patent maintenance fees being paid), anyone could be using the invention disclosed in the '212 patent.

 

If the Russells own additional patents (and good for them if they do -- they should be able to reap the benefits of their innovations) it would be interesting to see what they cover.

 

If they do not have any applicable patents (either utility patents or design patents), they need to be careful about how they describe their product, lest they are accused of false marking or other business offense (tort) by stating their product is covered by a patent when that is no longer the case.

 

I'm not a lawyer, nor well-versed in marketing laws, but can't they still state that their product is "patented technology," even if the patent has expired?

[mneblett]

Well, the law recently changed, so its an open question. It used to be that false marking (including marking of a product with a patent no. of an expired patent) was subject to a fine of $500 for each instance. A couple years ago there was a rash of extortion-like lawsuits by people that would actively hunt for products marked with expired patents and claim at each item was falsely marked. The law was changed to expressly state that having an expired patent marking was not a violation of the Federal false marking law (so businesses didn't have to be constantly taking products off the shelf or changing the product or its packaging to remove expired patent numbers -- a logistics nightmare). This killed that bs extortion scheme.

 

That does not mean that one is free to continue to advertise a product as "patented" when there is no longer a valid patent covering the product -- it is a representation to the public that can be the basis for various non-patent law claims, e.g., unfair competition, antitrust (an attempt to improperly extend the technology monopoly beyond that granted with the patent) -- i.e., issues underlain by the idea that the person is falsely using "patented" to scare off others and/or control the market for the product.

 

If I were advising a client whose sole patent had expired, I'd suggest they stop advertising the product as a "patented" product. Other more aggressive people might suggest otherwise, but I wouldn't want my client to leave him/her self open to such a claim.