Erico Motorsports reaches moto community with neighboring RevZilla and Rev’It  

Walnut Street of Denver, Colorado, has become somewhat of a “moto block” and is the home of RevZilla, Rev’It, and Erico Motorsports. “One of the things we’ve done since we’ve been here so long, we’ve purchased real estate in the area,” says John Beldock, owner of Erico Motorsports. “Since we own a bunch of real estate around the dealership, we brought in RevZilla’s first brick-and-mortar store in the U.S. right next to the dealership.”  

Rev’It is also a protective clothing brand and, based in the Netherlands, its U.S. headquarters has been in New York for the last 20 years. “They just moved their whole U.S. headquarters right across the street from us,” Beldock says. “They opened a big flagship brick-and-mortar showroom in there to show off their stuff. That will be the only one in the country.”  

He says he rents out to a restaurant that recently opened at the end of the block and another restaurant next to RevZilla. He has one more location on the street that has a courtyard, and he hopes it will become a motorcycle-themed café or bar.  

Beldock meets with leadership from RevZilla and Rev’It regularly to discuss how the businesses can work together. “We look at these three businesses as a little bit of a Venn Diagram,” he says. “We’re each starting to really work on what we bring to the table. The other businesses don’t sell units and they don’t offer service. That’s what we can really emphasize. Protective gear, we’ve now got three sales points on the block. We’re just being cognizant of that. Instead of competing, we are complimenting each other. It’s been fun to be involved with everybody.”  

Co-promoting events  

The businesses have also co-promoted a few events, which Beldock says have gone well. Since Triumph entered the dirt bike market, the dealership hosted an event to introduce the company and the dealership to the new segment. (Erico Motorsports had sold street bikes until this point).  

“Ricky Carmichael is the announcer for Supercross, so he was in Denver for the Denver Supercross, and he came by the store,” Beldock says. “We had a three-hour event and I interviewed him, and we had a great conversation in front of a big crowd of people. We did a Q and A with him and then he signed autographs. It was awesome.” Carmichael helped develop the Triumph dirt bike line.  

Erico Motorsports also hosted the DGR Denver ride. “We’ve done the ride based out of here for the last 13 years,” Beldock says. “We typically get about 300 riders. We always get a big crowd. This year, we also promoted with RevZilla and Rev’It. RevZilla hosted a big party after the ride. We had vendor tents, a food truck, and a little bike show – it was great.”  

The addition of the apparel and parts stores is bringing more attention to the block. Beldock says they contribute to a new energy that is centered around the moto lifestyle, which will combat the irregularities of 2023 and this year.  

“I think that ’24 has pretty much followed ’23, which wasn’t the best year,” he says. “We’re dealing with a world that’s changing quite a bit and I think that economy-wise, there are a lot of question marks in the air right now. I think that’s going to last probably through 2024. We’re not expecting much of a change from 2023. I’ve got high hopes – I think 2025 is going to be a change year.” 

Customer service and management  

He says the dealership is usually a top regional performer in sales and CSI. “We treat our customers really well. We have a very antique feel to our dealership and it’s a non-corporate feeling here. I think that people really respond to that.”  

Beldock makes a point to connect with and have a relationship with his employees and customers. His outlook on customer service is to treat everyone who walks into the dealership as if they are joining a party he is hosting. “Imagine you’re having a party at your house and your mom just came over,” he says. “You’re going to take her jacket and offer her a drink and invite her into your home. That’s how we treat this place. Anybody that walks through our door has been invited to our party, so we welcome them like they’re part of our party.” 

And the daily Erico Motorsports party is hosted in a 20,000 square foot facility and run by about 20 employees. While it’s a great team, adding additional dedicated and passionate employees is a difficult task.  

“I’ve got fantastic employees,” Beldock says. “We have really great staff, but adding to it is painful. The tough thing is to find people who have really great attitudes and are dedicated to working. This isn’t an easy industry. The other thing is finding people that are also interested in the product… Technicians are hard to find, and we’d like to add one or two technicians. We’ve got some great guys, but I’d love to add another guy or gal that’s good and experienced.” 

He relies on his sales manager, service manager, and PAC (parts, accessories, and clothing) manager to run daily operations. He meets with them once a week to ensure they know what their goals are and what’s expected of them. 

“They’re good at encouraging,” he says. “I think if we hire the right people and we hire good, positive attitudes, then we can do anything we want… I don’t necessarily hire experience, I hire attitude. I always say to people here, ‘The only thing that we all have 100 percent control over when we get up and go to work in the morning is our attitude. Everything else just happens to us. The one thing we can actually control is how we look at the world.’ I tell these guys all the time, ‘We hire good attitudes. Everything else we can teach.’” 

Over 30 years of business 

Beldock opened the dealership in 1993. “I got into road racing in the late 80s and built this business around that,” he says. “It started out in the salvage world and then in 1999, my wife and I moved the business and then took on the Triumph franchise. We took on Triumph, then Ducati came after us. In 2004 we purchased a Vespa dealership, they had two locations here in Denver, and added that to the dealership.”  

His wife, Tai Beldock, also worked at the dealership until about two years ago. Now, she runs her own business but works in the same office as Beldock. “We’ve shared an office for 25 years. It’s awesome,” he says. “We spend every single day together working together… My theory is that I’ve always worked for myself, and work has got to be a comfortable, fun place to go to every day.”