From France to the Middle East – a journey

It has been a long and interesting adventure so far for passionate Harley-Davidson enthusiast Claude Abry

Words by Jeremy Pick

From riding motocross in his native France, to becoming personal chef to King Abdullah II of Jordan; from opening up the Kingdom of Jordan to motorcycles, to running Harley-Davidson^® tours in the Middle East and Europe; from owning a Harley-Davidson dealership and now managing dealerships in Saudi Arabia and much else in between, it is fair to say that Claude has packed a lot into his colourful life so far.

“My association with Harley-Davidson started a long time ago, when I was still in France,” Claude recounts. “I was a lifelong motorcycle rider with three generations of bike riders in the family, a member of Lyon Chapter and I had just stopped riding motocross on the birth of my first daughter in 1991. Then I moved to the Middle East in 1994, and it has been a rollercoaster ride ever since.”

Within a few years the talented chef, trained by the legendary Paul Bocuse, had risen to become Director of the Palace Kitchens for the Royal Hashemite Court in Jordan, in effect responsible for managing all the staff of the royal palace kitchens of His Majesty King Abdullah II. In addition, Claude was involved in setting up the kingdom’s first nationwide school of culinary excellence, the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, under royal patronage.

At this point, motorcycles had been entirely banned within the Royal Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for more than two decades. With the blessing of His Majesty King Abdullah II, a Harley^® owner, Claude and a group of other motorcycle lovers set up a project in 2008 to form the Royal Motorcycle Club of Jordan. This association legitimised and regulated motorcycle use in the kingdom, promoted safe motorcycling and set standards for rider training – in effect, overturning the complete ban on motorcycles that had been held up to that point.

With motorcycles now officially sanctioned by King Abdullah II, the next logical step for Claude was to set up the first official Harley-Davidson dealership in Jordan: Harley-Davidson of Amman.

“The day the King agreed to end the ban on motorcycles in Jordan I picked up the phone to Harley-Davidson EMEA in Oxford,” says Claude. “I spoke to one of the top executives there, Mark McAllister, and told him I wanted to establish a dealership in Jordan. At that point it wasn’t widely known that the motorcycle ban had ended, so I arranged for a letter from the King to be sent to explain the new circumstances. After that, everything moved quickly!”

By 2010 the new dealership was open, with Claude as managing director in charge of a team of passionate staff keen to introduce the kingdom to the allure of Harley-Davidson motorcycles for the first time.

“My conviction has always been, if you are thinking of opening a Harley-Davidson dealership and you don’t have a burning passion for the brand, then you won’t succeed,” says Claude. “The passion is what brings you the business. When we first opened there was such interest in Harley-Davidson and so much pent-up demand that though we predicted we would sell 40 Harleys that year we ended up selling 87 – more than double the projection!”

As part of the initiative to introduce the Harley-Davidson brand into the region, Claude created the Kingdom of Jordan Chapter, acting as sponsoring dealer for the next five years and raising membership to more than 200 active members, organising trips within the region and overseas.

By 2015 Claude had moved on again, working as general manager of a dealership in Bahrain and then setting up Dream Roads Saudi, organising and leading Harley-Davidson tours around the world as well as introducing riders to the roads and incredible scenery of the Middle East, a region relatively unknown to motorcyclists from outside the region.

Now, Claude remains as active as ever within the Harley-Davidson world, living in Bahrain and managing two Saudi Arabia Harley-Davidson dealerships, in Jeddah and Dharan, on behalf of owner Monther Almutlaq.

“I’m proud to have such a big part in promoting Harley-Davidson in the region,” says Claude. “There have been lots of changes, many challenges and lots of work yet to be done. My team and I have already achieved a great deal here, setting up new activities for owners, setting up Jeddah Chapter that now has more than 400 members, making sure customers are made to feel welcome and making sure all potential and existing customers have a great experience with Harley-Davidson. We run four or five tours a year, we just ran a very successful trip to Italy, 39 people over 12 days covering 1,700km – an amazing tour that shows the passion for Harley-Davidson in the region.”

After 31 years in the Middle East, 5,000km from his native France, and after decades of promoting and selling the Harley-Davidson brand, Claude shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.