If you’re wondering why Eric Bostrom is making an appearance in Between the Races (typically interviews with industry types) rather than Tuesday Conversation (almost always rider interviews), it’s because E-Boz is now both. Along with this brother Ben, the Team Yamaha rider is now also running Boz, a company that manufactures and sells exhaust systems and casual wear. We spoke with him yesterday while he was taking a welcome break from madly preparing for the Indianapolis trade show by taking part in the AMA test at California Speedway.
By CJ

RRX: I know most people are asking how it went for you today on the track, but what I want to know is, will you be ready for Indy? How’s the business going?
Eric Bostrom: [Laughs] Presumably well. I’m really excited about it, and I know Ben is too. It’s been challenging, but it’s been a great learning experience. It’s been fun working with everyone in the industry because for the first time ever, I’ve got to call my friends that are friends and be like, “Hey, I need help.” We’ve really had a bunch of good help.

Is it interesting to see how another side of the industry works?
Yeah, for sure. It’s frustrating because things take more time than you want them to and everything, but then that’s the way the world goes. It makes you realize you’ve got to set dates before the real date and try to nail it down. So far, I’m really pumped with the way that the product’s coming out. The people that we’re working with, building it for us, are doing an amazing job. The quality is the best I’ve ever seen of any exhaust pipe.

Explain a little bit about the idea behind the company.
The idea is to have fun with something but also kind of bring a little bit of our lifestyle and fill in some of the gaps that are there right now. It’s going to look really nice on the bikes. The same thing with the clothing line that we’ve got coming out: It’s really high-end clothes, but fortunately it’s going to be in a really good price range for what they are. That hurts us a little bit, but we’re still the motorcycle industry. We’re not selling our clothes out of a Versace store, so we’ve got to keep them affordable. It’s tough for us to produce the clothes that we want to, but still keep it in a motorcycle-industry price range. But everything that is going to come from both the clothing line and the exhaust line is going to be pretty high-end. It will be pretty obvious, I think, when people see how nice the fabric is. I don’t think there’s too much out there like that. They compliment each other because you’ll be pumped to go out on your bike with something that you’re pretty proud of showing off—we’re going to be fairly small and not everyone’s going to have it, so you’re going to have a little bit of novelty straight away—and then the clothing’s going to be the same. It’s going to be something where you could have got it down on Melrose and paid $100 or $200 for this T-shirt.

You were the one who originally decided to start this company. How did the idea come about?
The exhaust side came around because a friend of mine in Vegas and I were kicking around the idea of making some exhaust pipes that were a little more edgy and out of the ordinary. We didn’t understand enough at the time, and the ideas were probably a little too far out there, because you couldn’t manufacture what we wanted to make. The cost was through the roof. As we educated ourselves, we realized that we do have to tone it back a little bit, but not that much. We came up with the best compromise we could, and I think that price-point-wise, for our full system, we’re really in a good range at a more competitive price than anyone else out there. I’m excited that we could accomplish that, but it was difficult.

What about your real-estate endeavors? How’s that going?
We’ve kind of been in that for a long time now. My parents have always kind of messed around with real estate a little bit—which has been good for them and very bad for them [laughs]. Hopefully it will be good for us. It’s fun and entertaining, but lately we’ve kind of cut that back a little bit because we’ve been working so hard. Plus, right now is obviously not a good time to buy real estate.

Okay, switching over to your other job, how’s your shoulder doing?
It’s coming around. It’s amazing how much something like that affects you. There’s something in your mind that just turns off and says, “Okay, I’ve done 10 pull-ups now—I’m tired” and you just quit doing pull-ups, even if you’re not ready to quit. It’s just recently where I’m starting to get beyond that barrier, where I don’t have to listen to it just shutting me down. It’s sore every morning when I get out of bed. That’s okay, but I’m getting over that hump where I can start pushing through it. Every other time I’ve been on the bike, I’ve been worried about crashing—I felt like I could bust apart. Now I’m starting to feel like I can take a hit, and that’s a big mental change.

Has it taken longer than you expected?
Yeah, it has. The last time I had surgery done a month-and-a-half sooner, so I had more time to recover before testing and stuff, but I think this procedure was more invasive.

You really do use your shoulder a lot in road racing, don’t you?
Yeah, for sure. If you’re a motocross rider, if your knees are bad, it’s a bit problem. In road racing, the knees aren’t so important, but if you look at the shoulders of almost every road racer, they’ve got a lot of muscle on them. The moto guys have all the muscle down low, and the road race guys have it all up high because you’re having to change direction on a 400-pound motorcycle. It takes a lot of force, and it’s a big handicap on that stuff, but it’s coming good.

Are you having fun with the new team?
Yeah, actually, the last two tests have been really fun. We’re just now starting to stride in the right direction. We were really beating our head against the wall at the early tests and making no new inroads with the bike. I just felt like the same shit kept repeating itself, and now we’re just knocking things down. The bikes are coming pretty nice. The 600’s still a challenge. It’s so weird to have to rape the little bike all the time. I guess you get a certain amount of respect for the superbikes, and you just have to ignore all that and just really wail on the thing—abuse it, disrespect it, kick it, all that [laughs]. The last time I rode 600s was ’01.

Is it fun to ride such a light, nimble bike.
It’s definitely a learning tool. Up until now, it’s been no fun, just because I didn’t get along with it, but today I had fun on it. It’s amazing what it teaches you, because it’s so quick and knifey. It’s getting to the point of being fun, but it’s amazing how quick it is. It’s like nothing I’ve ever ridden.

Is it teaching you good stuff for the 1000?
It’s teaching you that in an idea world, this is what the 1000 would do. Of course the 1000 probably won’t do that for another 10 or 15 years until it weighs what that thing weights or whatever. But it’s good. You kind of get used to all the corner speed, and I guess you just don’t slow down as much—just like a 125: if you slow down, you’re done.

What about the 1000? How’s that going?
Definitely [improving by] leaps and bounds. The biggest thing there was we had a balance issue with the bike—kind of a pitching motion—and we finally got the thing settled. It’s working more as one. On our last outing, we only changed a few clicks on the front end, but it was enough to balance the bike, and we just dropped a second. It was free—one free second! What a difference! I was kind of out of the ballpark, and now I’m pretty close to the ballpark. It’s exciting.

Do you feel at home on the team yet?
Yeah, the team’s great. I’ve ridden for a lot of different teams, and most of them are all basically the same, but this team’s really structured in a different manner. It’s got a much different structure, and that’s been the biggest thing to get used to. All the personnel’s really cool, and I get along great with everybody, but it’s been kind of weird having two different crew chiefs and really two different teams [one for each bike]. The structure’s hard to get used to at first, but it seems to be working. It takes a little more time this way, but there’s advantages to it.

Are you looking forward to doing the Daytona 200?
[Hesitates] I don’t know. I’ll tell you in a month or so. I’ve never really enjoyed the race, but maybe on a 600 it won’t be so bad, and I won’t feel so threatened by the wall and the banking and all that. I guess I’ll find out. I’ve always really had mixed feelings about the race.

Well, thanks, and see you in Indianapolis!
Yeah, I hope! [laughs]