Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Yen Falls Most Since 1979 as BOJ’s Kuroda Seeks to End Deflation

Rising Sun Cycles has been supplying road racing supplies, GP bikes and replacement parts since 1998. Steve has been in the motorcycle business and involved in racing and teaching since the early seventies, (yes the older I get the faster I was and Google does not go back that far. - no internet or cell phones, how did we survive?).

For those of us who have been racing these special, limited production 2-stroke Grand Prix machines we have seen the cost of replacement parts float from acceptable to “I think I will sit this one out”.  Most of this was due to the currency exchange. Since 2008 when a US dollar would buy you almost 120 YEN we have seen it get as bad as a US dollar only being worth 74 YEN in 2012. That is close to a 50% markup in cost to us in purchasing these items. Now in 2014 the Bank of Japan is trying to end deflation and the US dollar is finally worth back over 100 YEN. Let’s hope it continues to strengthen.

As I have said in the past, parts supplies from Honda and Yamaha will be winding down for our 2-stroke GP Machines.
As you may know, Honda planed to produce parts for the RS125 though the end of 2012, which has pasted and for the most part we can still purchase what we need to keep these machines on the track. The more we order they seem to continue to deliver so what this means is that "if we order it, they may still make it".
Primarily RSC have been handling parts and accessories for the Honda and Yamaha hand-made, l ow volume, and purpose built GP machines. Due to the nature of these machines there have been many changes over the years and in most cases after 5 or 6 years some parts could become hard or impossible to purchase. Or in many cases prices have gone up from the manufactures a lot more than any of us would like to see. The problem is that due to the AMA and world racing changing the nature of their entertainment business the makers of these machines can no longer subsidize these parts.  Many racing supplies were sold by the manufactures at or below cost to help maintain the particular sport for their advertising purposes. Therefore companies Like Honda and Yamaha who have been big supporters of racing for many years have to decide whether to continue supplying these parts or not. If they are going to supply them then they must at least break even if not try to make a small profit.  I would much rather the parts were available even at a higher cost then not available at all. Unfortunately, if Rising Sun runs out of an item that we have been stocking for some time and has to reorder, the price may have been adjusted at the YEN level in Japan and sometimes to a surprising increase. In spite of the fact that we say “Prices are subject to change without notice” we as well as our customers are many times caught off guard with a staggering increase. We have artificially kept some highly needed parts as inexpensive as we can afford to help you keep your bikes on the track (i.e. Honda pistons which have doubled then double again in the last 12 years and RS125 crankshafts both of which mathematically should be much more in line with some of the kit part pricing). We have seen 50-100% increases on some items especially in Yamaha parts. This means that we have to correct our current prices with every incoming stock order. Then roll in the fact that the US economy, which pretty much caused this world financial crisis, has caused our US dollar to be worth as much as 50% less against the Japanese YEN in the last 6 years. This has caused prices to rise quite a bit on many of these short run items. Also due to the lesser demand, production of these needed items is down so we run into periods between production runs when we are backordered on many items. Some of these can be show stoppers as when the RS125 Honda cranks were unavailable or almost 4 months back in 2009. To help counteract this shortage we purchased all the VHM rod kits we could get our hands on so that cranks could be rebuilt. Besides direct costs of parts there are the shipping costs which sometimes can be surprising for our export customers even though each order confirmation includes a link to our explanation of these costs. (No one seems to read it so please CLICK HERE and read it now).
So if you have plans to keep your bike running and fresh and be ready for next year without shortages of parts, you need to plan ahead. So think forward and plan your future needs, Place your orders for future shipment and we can plan our inventory needs and give Honda and Yamaha a reason to produce more of these needed parts. For many years, we at Rising Sun Cycles have been sourcing these parts from third party manufacturers as well as the OEMs to keep these machines on the track. We have had a few customers be proactive and place stock orders but there are many of these bikes in the field. We can no longer stock enough parts to supply projected needs here in the US, so we are just reminding you that it will get harder to purchase what we need to keep these short run, purpose built GP machines running. We do not what to have to tell you that the part you need to ride next weekend is no longer available or is not on our shelves, so we are doing our best to stock the most important items..Honda is already running on inventory only for the RS250 and has shut down their RS250 support department many years back. I would assume that this is the case for Yamaha as well.
Also, if any of you are planning to sell your GP machines, we have buyers looking. So email us a few pictures, a good description of the bike and spares available, sales price and your contact info. We will post it to our "Bikes for Sale" section of the site for a small listing fee and percentage of the sale.
We at Rising Sun Cycles work hard to continue to make these OEM and aftermarket replacement parts as available as possible for all of us enthusiasts.
We have been supporting the sport as best we can from product certificates all the way to having given away a New Honda RS125 for many  years in conjunction with the USGPRU.
Also, if you are no longer racing the 2-stroke GP bikes that we have been supporting, please think of us if you are looking for parts and accessories for your current race bike or street machine. We have new site which makes all things motorcycle available to you from us. www.rscycles.com

Thank you all for your continued support.

Steve Aspland
Rising Sun Cycles LLC

US Importer for
Battle Factory Products
GPS Lap Timer/Recorder




Bonded Importer # 460448483


A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing’s important to men who do it well. When you’re racing, it... it’s life. Anything that happens before or after... is just waiting. - Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in the 1971 film "Gran Prix"

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