Industry Insights | Ft. Erick 'Big E' Bartoldus

There are so many interesting paths to multiple careers within the moto industry. Racers, mechanics, team mangers, agents...the list goes on, and those that fill those positions get there in numerous different ways. Erik 'Big E' Bartoldus, the Marketing Manager for Yoshimura R&D, was a professional BMX racer and team manager in his early days, and eventually found his way into the moto industry. I called him up to hear his story for this episode of Industry Insight. 

For the full interview, check out the Vital MX podcast right here. If you're interested in the condensed written version, scroll down just a bit further.

Jamie Guida – Vital MX: I know you grew up in Florida and were a successful BMX racer and later team manager. Talk about getting into BMX and your success there.

Erick "Big E" Bartoldus: When I was growing up, every BMX rider wanted to emulate moto. Before I had a bicycle, my dad went to the local Honda shop, and I got an MR50, my brother got a CR125, and my dad got a CR250 all at the same time, and that was near the end of 1973 or early '74. So, I grew up on a dirt bike back out on Long Island. Back when you could ride dirt bikes on Long Island, we rode out East every Sunday. It was a fun time for me, but my mom and dad wound up getting divorced when I was around 11 years old. Anything I wanted to do with moto was out the window. So, I started racing BMX when I was 11 or 12 years old, and I just gravitated towards that. I rode my BMX bike around and raced across Florida and the country. It was a great time for me.

Vital MX: You were very successful. As I recall, you raced for GT and became a team manager with GT or Powerlite. BMX was a big part of your early life. In that era, the late 70s, and early 80s, BMX was huge for everybody.

Big E: I think BMX was exploding in the late 70s and early to mid-80s. I turned pro in 1986, and we would travel all over the country, do BMX schools and clinics, and sleep on people's couches. There was a cool, old-school way of public relations, meeting people, and appreciating it all over the country. We would be teaching these schools from the northeast out west. So, it was an awesome time. It allowed me to cut my teeth for what I'm doing now by learning how to deal with people and understand how machinery works, hard parts, and all that stuff. When you grow up on a BMX bike, you have to learn how to take the bike apart and put it back together. Sometimes you want to paint it, and sometimes you want to get it repainted again. It's just one of those things where you grow up, and you're wrenching on stuff. It translated over to moto so well. You mentioned when I was at GT. I was in the marketing department at GT and became one of the team managers in late '93 for the Powerlite brand. I ran that brand to the end. One of the cool things I did, Eric Carter was a good friend of mine, and he knew Jeremy McGrath well. The whole time Jeremy McGrath was in his pro career, I sponsored him with BMX bikes and mountain bikes through GT. He and Jimmy Button were my main guys. It's kind of funny. That whole thing cut the way for these moto guys to get into the cycling world.

Vital MX: Did you have anything to do with the signature series McGrath GT bicycle?

Big E: A little bit to do with it. Yeah, that was Todd Huffman, my boss. It was his idea and funny because of how the whole thing happened. Jeremy had been riding for us for about seven years at that point. We got a whole bunch of old Interceptor frames that they made by mistake or something. Todd's idea was, "Hey, why don't we put all these pieces together and make a Jeremy McGrath bike?" I think we made a total of 3000 of them. They sold fast, but that's how that thing came to be. It was just a bunch of miscellaneous parts, and if you look at that bike, we got it repainted at the last minute. It was blue, but we had everything yellow because he was on a Suzuki, and then he went to Chaparral Yamaha at the end of that year. If you look at that bike, it has yellow rims, and that's because the bike was supposed to be yellow.

Vital MX: When you're racing, and you're traveling around the country, there's no social media, and there's no internet to get parts or find places to stay. How are you managing this? You're a kid and just making your way across the country racing BMX.

Big E: Yeah. So, it was a good buddy of mine, Todd Corbett. He and I were joined at the hip. Before I worked for GT, we would do these clinics. Then when I worked for GT, that's one of the reasons they hired us because we had such a good map of how to do it. I would get on the phone, and we would call track operators ahead of time and say, "We'd like to come and do a clinic at your local track. This is what we're doing." A lot of times, we became friends with people, or through racing, we'd be friends with somebody in that town, and we would crash on their couch and go riding with them in their local training grounds there. It was one of those things you get on the phone, and you start calling people. 

Vital MX: Dude, what a time to be alive. Relationships were real relationships. 

Big E: 100% I agree. I look at the kids nowadays and wonder if those days are gone and if those types of things are happening. If you broke down on the side of the road, guess what? You broke down the side of the road. You had to fix it or call somebody to fix it or get to the next town. So yeah, it was a different time. As you said, man, I honestly wouldn't trade it for anything because it hones who you are. As you get older, you understand the important things to make things succeed. I feel comfortable in my skin and doing my job and doing it the best I could do. I feel I learned that early on, racing BMX and traveling and doing all that stuff.

Vital MX: You mentioned doing marketing when you were at GT. What was marketing like when promoting it? GT was very well known, and I assume BMX Plus and other magazines were the primary marketing source.

Big E: It was definitely magazines for sure. You were saying when you were a kid, you wanted that pink GT Pro Performer, right? (Listen to the audio version above for this part) You had been in the magazines and seen that. A lot of people knew our brand, right? So, one of the things that we had to do was get out and get into the grassroots. That's one of the things that I did when I was at GT. We would go out in the summertime, I would be gone for three or four months at a time, and we would drive around to all these different BMX tracks and visit these kids. We'd show them, "Hey, GT is real. It's just not in the magazines." We'd have these cool special parts, and all the time when we were doing that, we would have Gary Ellis or Charles Townsend or one of our top pros with us when we were teaching these clinics. It was one of those times when these kids could teach and touch these guys. They would see, "Wow, they're not just in the magazine. They are real, and they're cool people." Our goal was to make people real by getting out into these grassroots areas where people would get magazines, but they have never been able to attend a race to see these guys. We had the big marketing stuff covered. It was about the grassroots and getting down to those nooks and crannies, and it worked, man. GT was a gigantic brand before the 90s happened. As the 90s happened and the tide in BMX was going out, the owner, Richard Long, bought Robinson, purchased Powerlight and then owned Dyno. He had all these different brands he could do things with, and he had a different plan for each one of the brands. It's a bit like what Pierer Mobility Group (KTM, Husqvarna, and Gas Gas) is doing. They're acquiring these brands and doing different things with them. Overall, they're coming forth with all these different ideas with motorcycles, whether it be E-bikes or whatever they're doing. When I think back at those times, I think about who's doing that now. It feels like the Pierer Mobility Group is on that train.

Vital MX: It's such a cool story, and you got to be a part of all that. As you mentioned, marketing helps you with your future jobs when you eventually get into the moto industry. You went to Transworld first as an editor. You also worked at Answer and Pro Taper. Talk about that transition.

Big E: Donn Maeda hit me up. We had been friends because I had been riding dirt bikes, and I would see him at the local tracks. We would talk, and he was friends with my buddy Simon Cudby, and we would all ride together. At that time, GT went bankrupt, and I was trying to buy the Powerlight brand. The big corporation that bought it wanted too much money for it. So, Donn had called me and said, "I know you know the industry inside and out. I think you'd be a good guy to be an editor for us. Our magazine's going monthly now" because it was bi-monthly before that. I was like, "Oh, yeah, let's go." He took me on, and I was there for a year and a half to almost two years or something like that. During that time, I got to know all the team managers and all the people in the industry because I was going to races a lot and helping to review products. It was cool because many things in the bicycle industry translated over to moto, such as the hard part or even the soft goods side. I knew a lot about materials, stress testing materials, and all that stuff. Doing product reviews gave me an edge there. Around that time, I'd say about a year and a half later, something like that, Answer and Pro Taper were looking for somebody to revive their brand. The brand was circling the toilet, so to speak. They weren't doing anything with it. It was on the rocks. I went to an interview over at Tucker Rocky at the time, and they brought me on, and I was there for almost eight years. Those early years of being in the industry were so fundamental for me.

Vital MX: What did you learn there that contributed to your successful career and still being in the industry?

Big E: The contacts and how the industry is working. One of the things as you get older, you learn how to treat people, you know? That was one of the things I always did. I always try to take somebody's call. I always try to answer their emails. For me, in those early years, it just formed my reputation. I don't have many people in the industry who hate me. I've tried to treat people the way I want to be treated and treat them with respect. Just be a good guy, do the best you can, and keep your nose clean, and you'll go far. So, that's what happened, I guess.

Vital MX: How do you end up at Yoshimura R&D?

Big E: I was doing consulting for about a year and a half after I was at Six Six One and Valencia Sports Group, which got bought by the Triple Seven Group. There was a whole debacle there. So, I wound up without a job, and I was doing some consulting work, and I was working for Simon Cuddy on a lot of photo shoots that he was doing. Then my friend Chris Glaspell that worked at Yoshimura said, "Hey, Yosh is looking for somebody to do the marketing side of it. Our guy just left, and we could use you here." What was cool is the position that they hired me for didn't even really exist. It was a marketing/liaison position for all the distribution stuff that we were doing. I had known distribution so well and made so many contacts through my earlier years in the industry. I knew so many reps and people that it transitioned super well. That was back in 2013. I've been at it for ten years now, but that's how that happened. To this day, I'm doing all the marketing for Yoshimura R&D of America, and our new offshoot, Yoshimura Cycling.

Vial MX: What is a marketing manager's day-to-day role in 2023?

Big E: Yoshimura's a bit of a different company. I'm involved on the marketing side but also on the sales side. We're always collaborating and looking at different motorcycles we should make products for. We consider, "Why should we do this bike? Does it translate?" Here at Yosh, if we can't improve the power of something, then we're not going to do it. We all collaborate on stuff like that but also deal with anybody in the media, like yourself and make sure banner ads and those types of things are going out. Especially now with the Lawrence brothers rolling over everything and Chase Sexton winning that championship. We have been waiting for that for such a long time. I remember when Honda switched from White Brothers to Yoshimura in 2006 with Davi Millsaps and Ernesto Fonseca, one of my guys at Answer. They were using Yoshimura that year. That was the first year Honda started to use Yoshimura. All through those years, all that talk about the Carmichael Curse. They tried to hire Ivan Tedesco, Andrew Short, and Trey Canard. "This is going to be the guy that does it." Finally, Chase Sexton makes it happen through the circumstances of what happened this year. That's one of the things that I juggle, too. We made some cool t-shirts, and in fact, I think it's still going on. You can get a free Lawrence Brothers championship t-shirt if you buy any Honda off-road exhaust. Those are the kind of things I work on daily. There's a lot of little stuff, nooks, and crannies just piling on. Emails and those types of things that come in. It's an unbelievable job, and the brand I work for is unique. It's a family-owned company that's been family owned since 1954, when it started. The people that run the company, Yusaku Yoshimura, is the president here of Yoshimura. He's my boss, and I feel like it's just a second home for me now.

Vital MX: On the racing side, you mentioned Honda HRC, the Lawrence Brothers, Chase Sexton's championship, and of course, there are the MXGPs. Ruben Fernandez is doing well right now. Do you feel Yoshimura has pulled back in their involvement in racing?

Big E: With the Suzuki thing going away in 2019, we saw the writing on the wall, but it happened very, very fast. We had a gigantic race shop next door to our shop here, and that's gone now. We sold that building. Internally, not on the moto side, but internally for Yoshimura, we have not been as focused on the asphalt racing side. On the other side, I would say we're as deep as we ever were. I mean, we're not doing the Suzuki side of things anymore, but we are very, very focused on the Honda brand in Europe and the US. One of the other teams we support in Europe is the Standing Construct Honda team, and it's the same thing with those guys. They just had a bunch of bad luck with injuries this year with (Pauls) Jonas and (Brian) Boger. I feel bad for those guys. It's just one of those unlucky times, you know. The marketing machine that is American Honda is hitting on all cylinders right now. I never take stuff for granted, and if you come to our shop out here one time, you'll see these gigantic win posters all over. So, we need to celebrate what's happening right now. Every win these guys get is so special to us. I'd say we're focused on racing quite a bit. We're also doing a lot of Works Edition products for Honda nowadays. It's evolving into a different thing now.

Vital MX: You mentioned Yoshimura being family owned and how everybody loves being there. Besides that, what do you feel sets Yosh apart from its competition?

Big E: Two things. The commitment to make a quality product and our customer service. I think those two things go hand in hand. After the pandemic, there's a demand for our product because the average rider/consumer knows, "Hey, Yosh makes a quality product," and if something ever goes bad, we can repair it. There's somebody on the other end of the phone to make stuff right for that customer. We strive to make a very good product. I will tell this story. We had a new product that came out. This was probably about three years ago, and we had made a bracket wrong. A lot of our stuff is made with very close and tight tolerances, and we got a bike in early, and that bike was a little off from the production version. So, we made all these production exhausts, and there were probably about 75 or 100 exhausts on the dock. That bracket was actually wrong. Instead of letting it go and saying, "If anybody calls, we'll send them a new bracket," we opened up all those boxes, put a new bracket in, and sealed them back up. That's the way to do it, you know? Are we perfect? I don't think so. There's not a perfect company, but when we come in in the morning, there's a bull's eye on the door to try to make things right, treat people right, and do things as best we can. Sometimes we stray off of that, and that's what customer service is for, but that's our goal. Those two things set us apart from other people in the industry. We've been making four-stroke exhaust since forever ago. I like to think that Yoshimura stays in its lane. We had many opportunities to make two-stroke stuff, and I tell people that's not what we do. We've done this since day one, and Papa Yoshimura did this when he first started hand-grinding camshafts. He stayed true to what he did. 

Vital MX: I like that, as a company, you took that headache on yourselves and didn't put it on the consumer to have to deal with chasing one down. 

Big E: That's just one example. Those things happen a lot, and we catch stuff before it goes out. If you can catch it before it goes to the consumer, make it the best you can, you know?

Vital MX: What's coming from Yosh in the next three to five years? Anything special?

Big E: On the exhaust side, there's so much more pressure to make a quieter exhaust. Definitely in Europe. In the next three to five years, many people don't like this, but the mufflers will get larger to quiet the bike down. So, that's one of the things that will happen throughout the industry. If you want to sell an exhaust, it's got to be quiet. Then we started the cycling thing; who knows how that will take off. Right now, on the bicycle side of it, man, we can't make pedals and stems fast enough. So many people want the product. It started as a hobby and is now taking off to be a nice piece of the business on the side. We're passionate about bicycle stuff, so me and Yusaku and the guy that runs the cycling thing, his name is Colin. Nowadays, mountain bikes are melting and blending into what a dirt bike is becoming with a SUR-RON. The next five to six years in bicycling, mountain biking, and dirt bikes are going to be very interesting to see what happens.