from rides to - Bobbi Dempsey

FROM RIDES TO
RODEOS
Whether on bike or beast, Tim
Edmondson always goes full
throttle
On any given weekend, you
might spot Tim Edmondson
prowling the steer pit in a dusty
rodeo arena, perhaps somewhere
in Texas, scoping out the steer
and trying to get inside their
head. He’ll be assigned one of
the intimidating animals by random draw for the event, and he’s
hoping for a good one. He sizes
up the potential choices, noting
the size of the horns, and
whether they are turned up or
down. These can be clues as to
how the steer might handle in
action.
As Edmondson mentally prepares himself for competition,
with the high-energy music blaring in the background, his big
business
environment of a decade ago
must now seem a world away.
Edmondson first entered the corporate world in 1995, when he
co-founded American IronHorse
Motorcycle. As the company’s
original chief designer,
Edmondson oversaw all design,
engineering and R&D departments at the company. He was
the person who literally drew up
all the bike designs.
While at AIH, Edmondson’s
greatest achievement was the
design of the Texas Chopper
model, introduced in 2001. This
was the first production chopper to hit
the market. “It
beat all other
companies to the
market-
place by about two years,”
Edmondson says. “It debuted
around the time [popular bikebuilding television show]
American Chopper did - which
was great, because as people
went crazy for chopper bikes on
TV, they actually could buy one
through AIH, whereas the company on American Chopper only
makes a handful of bikes a
year.”
AIH bikes range from about
$27,000 to $38,000, with a production cycle of around 90 days.
Although Edmondson went on
to create other popular bikes, the
Texas Chopper is seen as his
most notable achievement in the
motorcycle industry.
To his dismay, though,
Edmondson found himself increasingly occupied
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with corporate meetings and administrative tasks. He
missed the hands-on work and longed to feel like an
entrepreneur again. He sold his interest in the company in 2004, although he remained on the board for
another two years.
By 2006, AIH had revenues surpassing $100 million.
It is currently the world’s largest custom bike production facility with a 224,000-square foot plant in Fort
Worth that produces six production custom models.
But Edmondson felt the need to try new challenges so in January 2006, he resigned from the AIH board
and started Edmondson Custom Built, a $5 million
company located in North Richland Hills, Texas. The
company makes special-order custom bikes with a
price tag of $25,000 to $75,000 that take from 30
days to four months to build. ECB’s projected revenue for the first full year in 2006 is around $1 million.
But these days Edmondson isn’t only thinking body
work and horsepower. He’s also focused on bulls and
horses, spending a lot of his time in the greener pastures of his 32-acre ranch near Dallas, where he
sharpens his skills for his current favorite pastime:
rodeo competitions. He has discovered a love for
competing in rodeo events, mainly roping competitions. Roping is a team sport, consisting of two cowboys working together. The first, called the header,
charges out of the box on horseback, in pursuit of a
racing steer. The header must rope the steer’s horns or
neck, and then his partner - known as a heeler - must
rope the steer’s hind feet.
Edmondson quickly realized that in this sport, ropers
are only as good as the horses they ride. So he took
the reins and started raising and breeding his own line
of performance quarter horses.
Edmondson looks for horses that are natural athletes.
Then he spends a lot of money cultivating that potential. “I like to try and find good horses with potential
owned by somebody who really doesn’t know how to
train them. We buy them and spend six months on
them and they’re like a whole different animal. Now
they may be worth big bucks.” A roping horse can
cost from $12,000 to $50,000 plus the cost of caring,
training and feeding, which can easily add up to several thousand a month.
“A lot of people miss the boat because it’s an expensive game to get into. But if you play it right, the
rewards are phenomenal. I’ve got a horse that, if
everything falls the way it should and the horse doesn’t get injured, the horse could in three years potentially be worth a half million, just because of his
blood line. Now if he goes and wins, it could be
worth considerably more than that.”
Edmondson spends several hours every night at the
ranch. Along with horses, he raises roping steer - a
breed of Mexican longhorn known as Corintas. He
competes in the United States Team Roping
Championships (USTRC), which is two notches down
from the top Pro circuit. He considers himself a midlevel roper. However, he competes in “open events,”
which include competitors of all levels, so he often
finds himself competing against the top pros. Roping
is a sport where anything can happen, Edmondson
says. “There are so many variables that come into
play during a competition. No steer will do the same
thing twice so there is a big factor of unpredictability.”
He recently finished third place in a competition –
impressive when you consider the difference between
positions is often decided by 1/100th of a second.
With his record this year, he has earned a national
shootout championship position in Oklahoma City.
On any level, it’s a dangerous sport. “People get hurt
often. The most frequent injury is losing your thumb.”
Edmondson recalls competing against a 15-year-old
who had lost his thumb, and mentions another event
at which a 20-year veteran lost his thumb during the
final championship event.
A scary thought – but one that doesn’t deter
Edmondson. “I’m a risk taker. When I get after something, I take it so seriously that it’s almost life or
death for me. It’s strictly passion driven. I’m a very
strong competitor and I have this yearning to succeed
and win.”