The sweetest ride

Alan Greene’s love of motorcycles began with a bicycle.

Greene and his brother got a bike at 12 but Greene did not get to ride it. He then saved his money and bought a bicycle frame for $5.

“After that bit by bit, I bought part after part until I built my own bike. That was the sweetest ride. That feeling of the wind in your face; that feeling of thrill and serenity all at once,” he said.

He would fix his own bicycle wheels, repairing the damaged one and bringing them back to near-mint condition.

“By the time I was 16, a family friend asked me to overhaul his motorcycle engine. This was something I had never done before. But since I was a fan of taking machines apart and putting them back together, I did it and saved him a ton of money.

“That fuelled my love of motorcycles,” he said.

That love morphed into Greene’s General Cycle Ltd and has evolved even further into the opening of the first Yamaha Retail Showroom in the Caribbean.

The showroom was opened on Sunday at at the HE Robinson compound, 57 Old Southern Main Road, South Valsayn.

Representatives from Yamaha Motor’s Overseas Market Development Operations (OMDO) were also present at the opening: Nobuhiko Nakajima, general manager, OMDO; Shigeo Uchiyama, sales manager, OMDO and Yukina Ota, manager of Central America and Caribbean Group Marketing Division, OMDO of Yamaha Japan.

Greene said, “We are here to celebrate the grand opening of our Yamaha Retail Showroom which coincides with our 30th anniversary of formally serving our customers. It has truly been a rewarding journey of serving our team.”

He began working at Laughlin and De Gannes as a sales assistant in its service department in 1981. In 1986, he and a co-worker made a pact to someday purchase the Yamaha business from Thomas Laughlin.

He and his wife Kathleen, started Greene’s General Cycle Ltd in 1990. In 2006, Greene’s was appointed the authorised dealer for Yamaha in TT after Laughlin and De Gannes cut ties with the company.

On Sunday it opened the first Yamaha showroom. The Greenes have also launched a riding academy that aims to promote the love of motorcycling.