Italianiron & Britiron Classics, Dealer-Marvic Wheels and Avon Race Tires, & Why Things Cost What They Cost

There is a great deal going on at the shop currently and most of it comes down to one thing and that is keeping quality race bits available for racers when the rest of the industry keeps making it harder. As an aside, we continue to hear that many UK and EU companies are refusing to ship to the US. As this is not a political post, we only wish to share that our partners in the UK and EU will continue to support our efforts and to ship to us in the US. My Ducati 900 ss MHR as shown above features numerous enhancements such as our carbon fiber (fiberglass is also available to include windscreens to fit) Ducati TT F1 bodywork, our SmartCarb flat-slides, and our Hand Held Dyno digital ignition systems. However, the two major items also on my Ducati 900 ss MHR (above) and Ducati TT2 (below) are topics that this blog post will try to address in our role as dealers for the Italian Marvic factory in offering their different magnesium wheels and where things stand with our Avon race tires. We can assist in the design and the specifications for different builders and racers who have specific requirements whether to fit their team's "recipe" for performance or meeting the technical requirements of their race series technical guidelines. 

We are not just selling Marvic magnesium wheels as a dealer, per se. We consider our efforts to be as an extension of the factory. As we use Marvic magnesium wheels on almost all of our vintage racers, I would consider us a specialty extension of the Marvic factory itself. As I previously raced on original "Campagnolo" magnesium wheels on my Ducati 750 bevel drive racer and also used magnesium wheels on my Ducati 748 rs, I understand the advantage of unsprung weight and weight reduction when at the track. However, it is transformative to race a vintage Ducati 750 bevel drive racer with modern "Campy" magnesium wheels that contributes significantly to greater confidence at the track when believing in the structural integrity of these newly manufactured wheels and with the advantages of modern metallurgy. What the Marvic factory has done so brilliantly is to take these vintage wheel designs that were made legendary and build them using these modern manufacturing techniques and modern metallurgy as these alloys and processes weren't available when the originals were spec'd. We can also work with a fairly wide range of technical blueprints that the Marvic factory has made available to us in an effort to customize the application for that particular racer or builder in addition to offering our entire portfolio of race quality spares. 

The result of a "team effort" with the engineers at Marvic is a wheel that looks period-correct for vintage racing but performs at a level the original castings never could, whether it's headed for the street or the track. That combination — vintage look, modern engineering — is exactly why so much of our work is "custom". Our focus is to supply builders working across a wide range of models and marques of vintage machines, not just the two we're known for, Ducati and Norton. Marvic magnesium "Campys" and  "Streamlines" are our most commonly ordered wheel sets based upon the two key marques that we serve. However, if you are working on a one-off project and need a wheel that fits a spec no catalog page covers, that's the kind of work where we excell. This isn't off-the-shelf stuff. It's a collaboration with the people actually building and/or racing these machines. Shown below, for exmple is a elegant photo of the Marvic "Morris" magnesium wheel where we worked with a builder who was building a very custom Yamaha 350 two stroke racer for a customer. We were excited to have the bodywork for this racer and to work closely with the builder and the Marvic factory to guarantee a successful "custom" result. 

There has been a great deal of confusion as it relates to our Avon race tires and the story behind why these special race tires are still around at all. Here's what a lot of racers don't know. In our opinion, Avon made the finest race tires for vintage motorcycles in the world, full stop. Then Cooper Tire & Rubber bought the Avon factory in 1997 and then Cooper was swallowed up by Goodyear who decided to decommission the operation. The UK factory has since been bulldozed. Gone. There are no more Avon race tires being produced. Before that happened, we made a call to have the factory manufacture a final run of several thousand AM22, AM23 and AM26 race tires as we contend that these are three of the best race tires ever manufactured and historically brought out the best performance of vintage racing motorcycles. We do not make this comment flippantly. Ask anyone who's raced on them!! Due to the fact that our supply is finite, we keep them in cold storage and dark storage in the UK. We receive our shipments regularly from the UK into the US and it is averaging once a week during race season. We are actively working with shipping partners to get the best possible shipping rates but international shipping from the UK is no longer cost efficient, and our pricing for each tire here reflects it. Currently we are getting cost effective shipping rates only with air freight. Please note that we usually sell out the day of receipt as the majority of our Avon race tires are prepaid orders going to teams and dealers that we support. Therefore, order early. 

Racers and race teams that know the value of our Avon race tires continue to be keen to purchase while available. This is why we don't discount these tires as the investment made to secure this production run, plus the storage and shipping required to get them to you in the condition that they need to be in, doesn't leave room for it. In addition, I need to discuss a couple of points on process: 1) first-time buyers need to complete purchases by wire transfer as amazingly we have experienced too much credit card fraud early on, and 2) larger orders are possible but require prepayment. We know that's more friction than a credit card swipe. It's what it takes to keep this program running sustainably. Our goal in all of this hasn't changed, we want to continue to support the sport of vintage motorcycle racing domestically and internationally. This will allow us to keep racers on the track with tires that they genuinely prefer. The constraints we've put in place aren't about margin. They're about Goodyear's decision, international shipping economics, and the reality of a finite, irreplaceable supply. We're doing what it takes to keep these tires in racers' hands for as long as they last. Questions about Marvic magnesium wheels or Avon availability? Reach out — we're happy to talk through your project. New additional email is: Italianiron14@icloud.com.