Hunt Fish Grill

The best kind of publicity is spontaneous and free, and the marketing gods just keep shining on Rokon.

This is the little company in Rochester that for over 50 years has produced the sturdy motorbike that will take you anywhere.

It puts along through thick woods and up mountains due to its two-wheel-drive system, light weight and hefty power. It will run for nine hours on a full gas tank, and even more if you use the hollow wheels to store extra fuel (no kidding!) It even floats.

They've been featured in movies, celebrities such as Goldie Hawn and James Earl Jones have one, President Bush got one as a gift, the president of Harley-Davidson has one, and the Jordanian desert forces patrol in them.

Now a new wave of awareness about Rokon has hit, thanks to reality TV and the History Channel show "Pawn Stars."

This is the series about a family that operates a pawnshop in Las Vegas and their interesting adventures with customers and the items they bring in.

As luck would have it, one of those items last year happened to be a beaten up 1967 Rokon Trail-Breaker. The customer wanted $2,000 but he finally accepted $500.

The pawnshop owners went on about how the Rokon was a classic and still is made.

They ended up sending it off to another business to be restored, and once finished the bike was estimated to be worth $5,000. Not bad for an original selling price of $795. (A new one today is about $6,000.)

The episode aired about a week ago and Rokon President Tom Blais' Blackberry immediately started pinging with e-mails from viewers who wanted catalogs. It was the kind of marketing that's priceless and results in sales. Blais estimates 2 percent of inquiries end up as purchases.

Mostly, it's another in a long, long string of oddball advertising plugs that keep coming Rokon's way. Did you know there's a Trivial Pursuit game question card about the bike?

"Anytime you get awareness about your product there's a buzz. This was major and it doesn't cost you anything," says Blais, who's owned the company since 1991.

Manufacturing in America has taken a serious hit lately and it's gratifying to know there's still a U.S. company that continues to make a product that's sold worldwide and is produced in our own backyard.

The fact Rokon is the antithesis to faster, cheaper products that put American manufacturing on the downslope or out of the country makes it even sweeter.

The Rokon doesn't go fast and it hasn't changed much since it first came out in the 1950s. There are three models now, including the classic Trail-Breaker, sold online and at dealerships. It does exactly what an "all-terrain" vehicle should, which is get you anywhere, including up a 60-percent slope or through a two-foot-deep stream.

Don't get Blais started on four-wheel competitors, who have captured most of the American off-road market with slick marketing but whose products can't go places the Rokon can and aren't nearly as safe, he says.

Conservative by nature, Blais continues to believe a product should be built to last and owners should be able to fix it themselves. He estimates there are 60,000 Rokons out there in the world, 95 percent of them still operating.

You're not skeptical of this when you see the detailed and simple repair manual he includes with each Rokon. A big part of his business is supplying parts to owners.

Blais knew his product was going to be on TV when the restoration firm used by Pawn Stars to restore that old '67 model contacted Rokon to get parts. Blais gladly donated them for a chance to publicize the brand. He was tickled to finally see the episode last week and estimates it will re-run more than a dozen times.

The benefit will be huge and well deserved for a product that's as solid as the frames and parts manufactured right down the road.

Blais likens this newest plug to the time he was asked to bring a Rokon to the Killington, Vt., filming of the movie "Icebreaker." He ended up playing a terrorist who rides it up the mountain during a snowstorm. But that's another marketing story.

"It's just another wacky thing after another," he says with a grin.



Jeremiah Turner can be reached at 603-742-4455, ext. 5390, or at jturner@fosters.com.