Industry Players: Andy Strapz

This entry is part 27 of 24 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #3

There’d be very few Australian adventure riders, on- or off-road, who weren’t familiar with Andy Strapz gear. Starting with a high-tech strap back last century, Andy, the man who loves the letter ‘Z’, has built an enviable reputation for offering high-quality product that’s been thoroughly tested and proven. A big part of Andy’s well deserved reputation stems from his insistence on personally testing every product he offers in real-life riding situations. If it doesn’t work for Andy, Andy Strapz won’t sell it. AdvRider Mag caught up with Andy himself, wringing out his merino socks, and making every rider’s adventure easier.

Everything Andy sells gets tested by Andy in the real, adventure-riding world.

The Andy Strapz story starts back when Andy was an emergency nurse and needed to strap important stuff to his bike, but found the good ol’ ocky strap was a bit sub-par.

“They were the secondleading cause of permanent eye injury after playing squash,” Andy recalled. “Think about the physics of the mass at the end of the elastic. Mass times acceleration equals force.

And you pull it towards you. If they were trying to invent ocky straps now they’d never get them through Occupational Health And Safety.”

The inspiration for something as reliable, but less dangerous, came while working in paediatric emergency in Western Australia. The hospital held patient charts together with binding of one-inch webbing and Velcro. Andy decided to put them to use attaching a pannier on his bike. They worked a treat, but there was room for improvement.

“I found 50mm-wide, flat, stretch webbing and it was just one of those ‘Eureka!’ moments,” he stretched. Andy Strapz – the device, the shop, a logo and an entire product range – was off and running.

“It took seven or eight years, slowly building Andy Strapz to where it would support my family and staff,” Andy recalled. “First I bought a sewing machine and taught myself to sew. That’s where we started.”

Interestingly, it came full circle about a year ago. “A hospital rang and ordered 200 straps to hold charts together,” Andy noted. “That’s about 17 years down the track.”

Trying times

Andy is a keen rider and now a retailer of high-quality motorcycle equipment, especially adventure-riding gear, and he knows what riders in this segment of the market want, and don’t want, when they’re on a bike facing a challenge. Once he recognises a need for something that actually works, he has the courage and conviction to make it or find it and offer it to adventure riders through his store, website, and stalls at just about every motorcycle trade show in the nation.

“I don’t know whether it was stupidity, arrogance or inventiveness that made me decide things available on the shelf didn’t really suit what I had in mind for motorcycle travel,” Andy strapped. “Everything I’d come across seemed to be designed by committee, or by people too busy to spend time on the road testing their gear.” The equipment Andy makes from scratch does the job better.

“If they were trying to invent ocky straps now they’d never get them through Occupational Health And Safety.”

Andy discovered off-road adventure riding on an old Elefant. These days he loves his Triumphs.

Like his seat bags. “I wanted a bag I could move from bike to bike, and if I sold the bike I could keep the bag,” luggaged Andy. So I developed my A and AA Bagz.”

“It’s all about paring down to key, necessary components.”

Consider his Pannierz – all Andy’z pluralz finish with a ‘z’ instead of an ‘s’ – designed for actual riding conditions.

“I wanted a set of panniers that, should I fall off and slide down the road, I could get up and not even worry about knocking the dust and mud off, and just keep going. Heavy-duty canvas was an obvious fabric choice because it’s designed to take abrasion.”

Andy’s hard-line attitude extends equally to items he doesn’t make himself. “If I haven’t tested it and don’t know exactly how it works, I don’t want to sell it to my customers,” he stitched.

The extent of testing depends on the product.

“Something obviously good, like a Sea To Summit liner bag, I’ll use once or twice to make sure it lasts. I’ll jump up and down on it. I’ll pull it and tug it. The Forma Adventure Boots I probably wore for six or eight months before I committed. Some things might take a year. Until I’m happy they work as they’re supposed to, I don’t take them on.”

It was a big break for off-road adventure riders when Andy got hold of his beloved Elefant 750. “Back then they were called ‘dualsporters’,” trumpeted Andy. From then on, specific off-road adventure products came in for the Andy Strapz treatment as well.

Warm and fuzzy

Thermals are a good example of Andy’s commitment. Most are clearly not designed with a motorcyclist in mind.

“Shirts were too short in the arm, too short in the back and had the wrong neck shape to work for a bike rider.

Pants had no flies. After a long ride on a cold day you have to do the Urinal Dance to get the wedding tackle out. Neck warmers had non-stretch string,making it difficult to move your head and do head checks.”

So the thermals Andy designed allow a rider to move around on a bike, urinate and move the head without recourse to Bikram Yoga.

Andy also stocks Back Country Cuisine tucker – freeze-dried roasts, curries, pastas and desserts – that become meals for two with the addition of boiling water. “It’s stuff I’ve used,” he said. “I have one in my kit in case I get stuck somewhere. All I need to do is boil water and I can hole up for the night.

“When we’re going into serious outback country and have to watch the load on the bike, quality food is really important. By freeze-drying it, they’ve removed all the water and the majority of the weight. It still maintains nutrition and taste, and it has a really long shelf
“Everything I’d come across seemed to be designed by committee, or by people too busy to spend time on the road testing their gear.”

life. It’s easy, convenient, tastes good and it works.”

Understandably, Andy’s always on the lookout to adapt or develop items that work from outdoor, travel and camping markets; riding is clearly the best combination of all three.

Ride-on time

Setting up and running a successful business has one fundamental flaw: it involves time. Lots of it. That can eat into your own riding time.

“Therein lies the problem,” Andy acknowledged. “You get into something you love and you create a monster that starts taking over.”

Andy does make the time to get out and about. He has no choice. “My excuse is I need to get away and get some testing done. I went to the Alpine Rally last year. I took a week off, went into the high country and through the back of Braidwood. I saw a few people and did a few things.”

Having come from a road-bike background, Andy’s spent the last decade learning how to ride dirt and adventure bikes. “Rather than changing to a bigger bike, like the trailbike guys do, it’s all about skilling up for me,” he said. “Now I’ve got the skills to get myself into trouble, it’s time to learn how to get out of trouble.”

Andy’s bikes have grown over the years, but not by much, and there haven’t been many of them – mostly because he’s never really had “a lot of cash to splash around”. He still has the bike he got when he was 21 – a 750 Sport Ducati. “It’s glorious,” he twinned. “I just love it to bits.”

Since then he’s had “a road-going Benz, one of the old model Tigers and a 1200GS”. His current – and favourite – is a Tiger XC.

“It’s pretty flash,” Andy roared. “It does everything. The road-bike part of me will never leave – I still love the corners, the winding mountain roads, and the Tiger does that beautifully. And when the road turns to dirt, it does that extremely well as well.” According to Andy, versatility is the key: “I love mountain roads and corners, and I love dirt roads and back roads as well. Much of the time the two are connected. There’s a bunch of nice corners and 20km of dirt that separate them.

I think that’s heaven.”

Andy Shopz

While the Andy Strapz shop is a factory and showroom in Frankston on Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay, Andy frequently hosts a stall at or near suitable motorcycle events, and trades online. He also has a ‘core dealership group’ of three shops in Sydney and a couple in Brisbane and Melbourne that stock his gear. “They’re a select group,” he franchised. “My gear is a bit left-field and needs to be understood. There’s no point just sticking it on a shelf and hoping people find it. I want to work with people who understand it, take an interest and follow through.”

For a full selection of Andy Strapz products and stockists, visit www.andystrapz.com

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