By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOTWhat could be more fun than riding an off road motorcycle over mountainous terrain. And what could be more advantageous for the importer of such motorcycles than to provide customers with more off road motorcycles to choose from at a much more competitive price point than its larger competitors. Enter Gas Gas, a small, high end off road motorcycle brand that is produced in Spain. Gas Gas might not be well known in the United States yet, but this could soon change. That’s because in the last 20 years the brand has had six different distributors and the distribution network has been spotty and inconsistent. But Clay Stuckey, national sales manager for Gas Gas Offroad U.S., along with Airgroup, a brand of Radiant Logistics, hopes to change that. In August 2010, Gas Gas Motos, the motorcycle’s manufacturer in Spain, announced that Gas Gas Offroad U.S. would handle their distribution within the United States. Stuckey employed Airgroup Omaha to help, and turned 100 percent of all logistics aspects over to them, including handling the entire supply chain from overseas importing to distribution onto a dealer’s floor. Although Stuckey has 30 years of experience in the motorcycle business, he admits he knew nothing about the importation process. He found Airgroup on the internet, and was impressed at how fast they responded to his request for help. Airgroup provides a full range of domestic and international transportation and logistics services, and is a fully-owned brand of Radiant Logistics. Increase Those Shipments Today the motorcycles, which are manufactured in Girona, Spain, a city in the northeast of Catalonia, are shipped through the Port of Barcelona across the Atlantic to the Port of Savannah. This is convenient since Stuckey runs his warehouse in Peachtree City outside of Atlanta. From this location the motorcycles are distributed to the various dealers. “This year we’ve handled some 500 motorcycles,” Stuckey says. The Gas Gas motorcycles are shipped in containers, with 46 bikes per container. He told this AJOT reporter in a telephone interview that he is most happy with his service from Airgroup. Jack Morrison, who is general manager of Airgroup Omaha, explains that when Stuckey approached Airgroup, he had a unique issue. “He needed to ramp up the volume of the motorcycles, and the game plan was to increase the volume substantially,” he recalls.” Upon being employed, Airgroup quickly stepped in to manage the process. But having spare parts available to dealers was also very important, and key to making the venture successful. Containers at Same Price Given the traffic lanes steamship lines offered to ship the motorcycles from Spain to the United States, it so happened that 40 foot and 40 foot cube high containers were the same price. This is significant because, together, Airgroup was able to work out a plan to assist the company in the United States that was coordinating all the parts and their warranties in transporting the motorcycles and the parts in 40 foot high cube containers rather than standard 40 foot containers. This way Gas Gas Offroad U.S. could maximize the excess space for the replacement parts, and include the parts so that they didn’t need to be backordered. “If you can imagine, a smaller volume motor manufacturer is not going to have the volume to fill containers,” Morrison states. “Previously, they were required to air freight those parts. But now we can utilize the free space.” Consequently, Gas Gas Offroad U.S. is able to subsidize the transport of the spare parts. Virtual Warehouse Additionally, Airgroup was able to help Gas Gas implement a virtual warehousing system, which Gas Gas coordinates, where dealers would receive flooring discounts for larger purchases but must allow dealer-to-dealer transfers so that their entire dealer network works like a virtual warehouse. “This makes it possible for Gas Gas to compete with much