Lifestyle Cycles Meet the Guy: Holger USA Director of Operations Kodlin Motorcycles

Junior here, and today I've got a very special guest. I've got a friend from a long, long time ago, and we both started out, I think, just about 25 years ago in this. How about that? Yeah, it is. And you know the coolest part? I haven't seen you for probably 10 years, and it seems like you were here yesterday.

Yeah, and I didn't age any bit, you know, not a bit. Neither did I. I mean, we're still, look at us, we're still looking, you know, trim and like we're young studs. No kidding.

But okay, so this is cool. Now, you have managed some of the coolest companies in the whole motorcycle industry. And I'm going to go back a little bit. You started with a company called Custom Chrome, yeah?

Junior, I'm a lucky guy, man. You know, I started in this thing when I was in my early 20s. You know, I had the pleasure to create a company in Europe that ended up being called Custom Chrome Europe. Back then, Custom Chrome was like the Coca-Cola of the industry, right? And they didn't have much in Europe back then.

No, no, there wasn't much, and it was really hard to get parts, too.

Yeah, and that's when we started to meet, and I came out to the US show, and then eventually, they moved me over and ended up running the company. Never went back other for vacation and fun, but, well, yeah, it's fun to vacation, but I don't know if I'd want to live there all the time and do all this. The great thing about living in Germany is Italy is really close.

Italy's bitching.

Yeah, Italy's bitching.

So now fast forward to a company that I know everybody, you're all going to know this company, Cane. So then you came back here to the United States and you managed company Cane, now Cane. So tell me about those days, how you changed and you went to something else really, really cool that we're going to talk about in a second.

I learned a lot there, you know? I took over from Tom rat who was a founder of Kicken, and I was working at Mac and they sent me out to Wisconsin to run the company, uh-huh. And I had an amazing team but big shoes to fill, right? And a lot of changes back then, you know, Mac was going through changes, we were, but we were pumping out a lot of cool products and, uh, like I said, I learned a ton. I think I had something to offer to the team but I learned a lot, and still, you know, even looking back now, I think I went I read back smarter than I got there so it was a great time.

Now, now you're with somebody that I don't know if everybody's heard of but they're going to hear about it, and one of the I was at a show one time and some of the most brilliant motorcycle works of art that I've ever seen were made by a company called Cotlin, and he's a German designer, and his bikes were unique. It was not just window dressing, put some Chrome on it, you know, make do a few little billet pieces and call it a custom bike. He had a motor in backwards in a bike that ran. Everything he did was engineered beyond, beyond, beyond your wildest dreams. I stared at these bikes for hours and now you have teamed up, you've brought your business expertise, your marketing expertise to a brilliant designer and now we've got Cotlin.

Yeah, okay. So, tell me, tell me a little, I'm just looking at this stuff. I mean, just these risers are different. They do not look like the "me too" movement that we see all day long every day, you know? Here, I did another one, I ball milled the edge. Wow. Tell me, what is the background? How's this all coming together?

Well, you know, the brand actually goes back, as you said, you know, there was Cotlin in Europe, the brand goes back to '84, 1984. So, Fred Cin started a business over there and he was just the bike builder of Europe. He made crazy amazing pieces of art and they worked and he won everything, whenever he came here, he won everything, red sold shows left, yeah. And I've known Fred forever, so when I was done at Mag and wanted to be my own boss, I moved back to California with my family and I ran into Fred and his son Len in Daytona Bike Week probably five years ago and we're having beers, having a good time and then they were asking me, "So this is something fairly new?"

It is really new. We came up with the idea five years ago and then basically half a year later we started in my garage, so his son Len Cotlin, right, who grew up in the business, he's got design in his DNA. He built his first custom bike when he was like 15 years old, right? He can design, he can manufacture, he can paint. Kind of like Cor and Arlen Ness and Zach Ness, you know, passed from generation to generation. Brilliance in the motorcycle industry, it's in the DNA, man, it really is.

Yeah, so that's something I can do, but I got the business background in our industry, so Len and I felt it would be a great idea to bring it to the US and we said, "Let's start a company," and we started Cotlin USA just shortly.

I've got to tell you, everything I'm looking at here is fantastic. I'm looking at a seat here that you've teamed up with Mustang and designed a seat that I, I mean, I want to put one of these on my bike. It is just absolutely cool. I'm looking at your pegs here, engine guards, yeah, engine guard pegs. I'm looking at your floorboards. Okay, everything I see here is just cool.

You know, we like to do things a little different. We call it the Cotlin way, right? Everything is high-end manufacturing, cutting-edge design. Len's got that nice European twist but of course he understands the American market and we just come out with products that are a little different, you know? From simple stuff like lowering kits that work for your Softails, for your Sportsters, for your Pan America, to the beautiful machine risers. We get a lot of compliments on these.

Yeah, these are beautiful.

Yeah, they are beautiful. And just across the board, lighting is a huge category for us because our product, our lights, our turn signals, when they're on the bike and it's turned off, they kind of disappear. You don't see them, they're so small and they're bright.

Yeah, you turn them on and boom, they are.

Well, now my biggest question is, traditionally the European products, the cool stuff designed in Europe has not been available here in the United States.

Yeah, and it's because of cost, to make it there, freight, exchange rate, all that stuff. And it's a hassle. I mean, you call Germany and they order a part, they're nine hours ahead of you, right?

Yeah, and you get it a month later.

Exactly. So that's why we said, if we want to do this right, we get it headquartered here, we've got to have inventory in stock and then one of the great moves we did on top of it is we went exclusive with Direct Specialty. So they make it accessible to all the dealers of the US super easy.

So it's an American company now?

Oh yeah, products made in America, shipped in America. And you know the most best thing of all here, it's available at Lifestyle Cycles. Here you go, you can just go online to our lifestylecycles.com now and order it and have it in just a few days, not waiting a month to come from Europe.

Yeah, I feel like we haven't seen those in a while but when I got back in here, I felt it was like half a century. Man, you built this thing up like it's nothing else. I'm really impressed.

Wow, it's really cool, man. I'm excited. I want to go over all these products and this is going to be an exciting hour for me here.

But listen, thank you for being here.

Thank you for doing this.

And now you and I are just going to start drooling over this stuff, right, bud?

Man, it's good to see you here.

Same here, thank you.

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