Baron's Custom Accessories, based in Fallbrook, CA, manufacturers motorcycle accessories for a wide variety of American and metric cruisers. They've built a solid foundation particularly with the metric cruiser market.

I paid a visit to their headquarters on Wednesday to take a tour and meet some of the people. I live only about 30 miles away, and figured it would make for a great article idea.

Baron's facility looks as if it was converted from a storage facility, with several units strung together. I parked my bike, and met Scott Salvi, their R&D guy, who designs new parts, builds some of their custom show bikes.

Scott first showed me their shipping department. The shipping department apparently has gone through a lot of changes the past year. Where it once took Baron's several weeks, and sometimes several months to ship an order, it now takes just a day or two. "We've completely reorganized everything", says Scott. "Every part now has its own place, and everything is tagged and can be seen without touching it, whereas before stuff just got thrown around everywhere".

I then met John Vaughn-Chaldy, the owner of Baron's. He mentioned that most people don't know that his company also runs "HarleyTachometers.com". In fact, tachometers appears to be one of Baron's best selling items. He went on to demonstrate their newest tach, built on a more solid mount, with improved cables, and 7-color LED backlighting.

Scott took me into the room where they do their custom bike building. Currently he's working on an interesting project for a Marine serving in Iraq. As the story goes, the Marine bought a brand new Yamaha Roadliner in February of 2007, just a month before he was scheduled to deploy to Iraq. But after a couple weeks of riding it, he crashed it. He came out with just some scratches, but nothing broken. But his bike was a big mess.

Baron's heard about his story and offered to help him out. Baron's had been wanting a Roadliner to use as a model for designing new parts and accessories. Now they had one. They offered the Marine to rebuild his bike, with all new Baron's parts, custom paint, custom wheels, and all they would charge him is for the parts. Yamaha actually got into the deal as well, offering to supply new parts for free. Basically, he's getting a customized Roadliner for a fraction of what others would have to pay.

Scott said they should have his bike ready by the end of this month.

I also got see some new parts they're working on. I can't disclose all the details, but suffice to say I saw some things that should become very hot items. One is a new set of slipon tailpipes with adjustable baffles that'll look great on blacked-out Harley touring bikes.

Below are some photos I took of their facility...

This is "Baron's", the building on left is where all the shipping and inventory is, and the building on the right is the R&D, customizing, dyno room, and offices are.

A closer shot of their shipping and inventory area.

John Vaughn-Chaldy, owner of Baron's.

The Dyno Room at Baron's.

Here is Baron's new and improved Tachometer, now shipping through J&P Cycles.

Here's the Yamaha Roadliner that Baron's is customizing for the Marine in Iraq.

This is a Yamaha Road Star with carbon fiber fenders. Also carbon fiber are the side covers, and the air-filter cover. The gas tank is still metal, but with a carbon-fiber overlay. Scott said that the carbon fiber fenders are so expensive they decided it would be impractical to sell to the public.

Do you REALLY want a set of carbon fiber fenders? Contact Baron's (760) 731-1200, through their website, and maybe they can work something out.

Labels: Baron's Custom Accessories