By Susan W. Murray
news@thewoodstockindependent.com

Allied Motorsports offers inspections, repairs, and storage

It’s possible, when turning into the driveway at 14910 Kishwaukee Valley Road, to think that your GPS has made a mistake.

The first thing a driver sees is a white, two-story single-family home with black shutters. But the work of Allied Motorsports is done around back in a spacious shed where a 1975 turquoise Vespa is in storage and a newer Harley-Davidson Dyna Street Bob awaits a few last adjustments before its owner arrives at noon.

It’s where Danny Room practices the art of motorcycle maintenance on “a lot of scooters, a lot of Harleys,” and everything in between.

‘Obsessed with motorcycles’

“I’ve been obsessed with motorcycles since I was 5 or 6 years old,” Room said.

Growing up in Oxfordshire in South East England, the young Room gravitated to the motocross track near his house where he would spend hours watching the bikes go around and around the track. Although just a child, he began saving money for his first bike – a used Suzuki A100 – bought “behind my mum’s back” when he was 11 or 12 years old.

“She was not impressed,” Room said.

But Room’s father, an airplane mechanic, understood his son’s fascination and helped him put off-road tires on the bike. The A100 barely worked, Room said. “You had to make it work.”

That began the process of learning how to service two-wheeled motorized vehicles, but his journey from first love to career was no more of a straight line than, well, a motocross course with its turns, jumps, and obstacles.

Not a company man

Following his dad’s path, Room trained as an airplane mechanic and began working on aircraft while he was still in his teens. The job, however, “paid peanuts.” Room switched careers, taking a job in IT and digital marketing with a pharmaceutical company, where he met his wife, Carly. When Carly’s job was transferred to Chicago in 2016, Room was able to switch to the Chicago office as well, but his visa required that he take 100 days off before he began work. He used the time to try to acclimate to Chicago.

Previously, he said, the coldest place he had ever been was when he stood at the top of Mount Blanc, the highest point in the French Alps.

“I didn’t expect it to be colder than that in my back garden,” he said.

Beyond the weather, Room found the adjustment to his job difficult.

“I was trying to be a corporate American guy,” he said. “It didn’t work for me.”

Room took a job in a private motorcycle repair shop in Northbrook. For the next five years, he saw “a huge diversity of motorcycles” that allowed him to prove to himself that he “could work on anything.”

When Room set out on his own, he worked out of his two-car garage in Prospect Heights. With a need for a bigger garage for him, a reasonable commute to O’Hare for business travel for her, and his desire to have “as much land as possible,” he and Carly began house hunting. 

When the pair had arrived in the United States, they had assumed they’d be stateside for three years and set out to see as much of the country as they could. They toured the U.S. on motorcycles – 40 states in the past nine years – finding little country towns where they could “walk around, get a coffee, get an ice cream.” The Kishwaukee Valley Road house fit their needs – and Woodstock was just like those towns that they had enjoyed visiting.

Having ‘a chat’

The benefit of a one-man shop, Room said, is that “the same guy picks up the phone, is here when the bike is dropped off, does all the work, and is here when the bike is picked up.”

Every motorcycle comes with a story, he said, and he begins by hearing the bike’s lore.

“Every customer that comes in, we have a chat,” Room said. “We build a relationship before we start.”

Room provides general, routine maintenance and crash repair. While some repairs require hooking up the bike to a computer, Room practices “the dying art” of hours of background research and listening for what the whine or the rattle is telling him about the problem.

“I’m very diligent about what I take on,” he said. 

The diligence extends to his shop, where his background as an airplane mechanic is evident in the shop’s cleanliness and meticulous organization.

After Room met a customer who had overpaid for a lemon of a bike, he began offering a pre-purchase service inspection to customers.

With the space in the shed, he can also provide off-season storage.

“My nightmare,” he said, “is waking up and finding that my bike has been left out in the snow.”

Weekends are for riding

Generally, Allied Motorsports is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, but with the shop behind his house, Room offers early drop-off or a later pickup. He also has a trailer for customers who need pickup and drop-off service.

Weekends, though, are for riding with Carly. For riding, Room has an Aprilia Street Bike RSV4, for racing, a Beta 250 RR Race.

“I can’t believe . . .”

Recently, the owner of a late 1970s, early 1980s BMW motorcycle called on a Monday. He had a bike trip with his buddies to Wisconsin’s Driftless Region scheduled for that Friday, but the bike needed work. Room told him to bring it in and spent an hour running through diagnostics, giving the man a list of the work needed and what it would cost. The parts were ordered, and Room completed the work on Thursday night.

That weekend, Room received a text with a photo of his customer in Wisconsin. “I can’t believe I could make this trip,” the man texted. “Thank you so much.”