At one of the busiest intersections in Kane County sits one of the newest members of the area business community, Zylstra Harley-Davidson/Buell.

But it’s not sitting still. Instead, the motorcycle dealership at Ill. Rt. 64 and Randall Road in St. Charles is buzzing with activity—from sales and service to family barbecues and bike shows.

That’s because June marks the grand opening festivities of the biggest venture in company history, its flagship 80,000-square-foot dealership and service center.

Tommy Zylstra and his family own three dealerships in the Midwest—company headquarters in St. Charles and other stores in Ames, Iowa, and Elk River, Minn.

The St. Charles dealership was created after the company purchased an existing Harley-Davidson dealership in Elgin in 2002, and decided it was just too small. Zylstra and his wife, Beth, lived in St. Charles and began looking for a site that better suited their needs.

“We needed accessibility to more space,” Zylstra said. “We just didn’t have enough room for the bikes.”

Now, with 32,000 square-feet of showroom, the dealership offers up 250 motorcycles, about half of them used models.

Access to the Kane County fairgrounds next door to the dealership was also a consideration in Zylstra’s search for a site.

“It’s a nice place to have an event,” he said. “I don’t know of any other dealership that can host large scale events adjacent to their building.”

Built atop nearly 40 acres adjacent to the Kane County Fairgrounds, the dealership officially opened its doors in December 2006, but held off the celebration until the motorcycle season was underway. The location is designed to host at least one event each month, usually more, for Harley enthusiasts from around the area or around the country.

Zylstra offers a training center for new riders and a wide variety of value-added services, including customization, accessories, performance work, winterizing and storage. There are also 9,000 square-feet of clothing and other merchandise for riders and Harley fans to peruse. And if customers are unsure of which bike they’d like, Zylstra has rentals.

“It’s pretty exciting to see the improvements Harley-Davidson is making, and the new people coming in,” he said. “It’s really a fun business.”

There’s no doubt that Zylstra sounds—and is—passionate about his work. He’s loved motorcycles since he was a youngster, and still owns his first motorcycle, a 1975 Yamaha 125 he has had since 1977. He bought his first Harley-Davidson motorcycle in 1988, a 1979 Low Rider which he still owns.

Motorcycles were a hobby he shared with his father, Robert, a cattle farmer. In the late 1980s Robert turned his hobby into a part-time business, and began buying and selling an occasional motorcycle. Tommy also became involved in the new business while still in college at Iowa State University.

“By 1991, the decision was made to stop feeding cattle and start selling Hogs,” Zylstra said, although he and his father still run the Iowa farm that the Zylstra family has operated for more than 100 years.

It started slowly. At first it was a few motorcycles here and there, bought and sold out of the farm shop. The business was successful, quickly acquiring one of the three largest inventories of used Harley-Davidsons in the United States. The family moved the business to a downtown storefront owned by Robert’s brother Harry, a pharmacist, in the early 1990s and business just took off, Zylstra said.

The family was selling more than 150 bikes a year. They purchased an existing dealership in Ames in 1994 and were given new franchise rights to open a store in Elk River in 2000, followed by the Elgin purchase in 2002.

In 2001, the family acquired the Buell brand as well. These two remain the only new motorcycles sold at any of the Zylstra dealerships.

“The motorcycle business is still pretty strong, though it’s not as growing fast per year as it used to,” Zylstra said.

There was a time, he said, when demand was so high that customers had to wait two or three years to get a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Now, Zylstra has about 125 new bikes in stock and anything else takes about six months. The time for growth is now, he said, even in spite of rising gas costs.

“Even the biggest Harleys we have get up to 50 miles per gallon,” he said. “It may not be a selling feature, but we do like to let our customers know.”

While total growth may have slowed, popularity of the bikes among new market segments is stronger than ever.

“We see a lot of women that have never had a motorcycle before,” he said. “They come in to buy, for classes, information. We have clubs for women that are growing every day.”

In fact, women now account for 12 percent of new Harley-Davidson ownership, Zylstra said.

The average age of a Harley-Davidson is dropping, and he has seen an increase in minority sales, which he says could be due to a combination of location and changing economic status.

“A motorcycle is not something you have to have,” Zylstra said “We get people with huge incomes and we get blue collar folks. This area has got to be one of the biggest depths of ownership I’ve seen.”

And the great thing about the wide range of owners, he said, is that they ride together and commiserate over motorcycle topics and events.

“I spend a lot of time in management, but it’s fun to go down on the floor and hear their stories. After all, they are part of our family.”

As for the real Zylstra family, Tommy says everybody is still involved in the business in some way. Uncle Harry is at the Ames store. His dad still comes around. But in St. Charles, it is Zylstra and his wife who keep things humming.

“My wife, Beth, is the organizational genius,” he said. “I’m the entrepreneur.”

Zylstra said keeping those family connections is important, because the small town values the company holds translate to how the dealership treats its customers.

“We want to be the biggest volume store in the Chicago area, yet maintain the atmosphere. We have people who come into the showroom a couple times a week, just to talk motorcycles. That’s the great part about this business.

“We want people to see that we really do care,” he said. “When someone buys from us, the purchase is just the beginning, a small part of it. It’s the next ten years that really count.”