BUMPUS HARLEY-DAVIDSON OF MURFREESBORO: THE LONG WAY UP

I’ve been lucky enough to spend time all over the United States. But there’s something about Tennessee that really sticks with me. It’s not just the roads, though they’re some of the best you’ll find anywhere. It’s not just the food, though you’d be hard-pressed to eat a bad meal if you tried.

It’s the people.

Southern hospitality gets thrown around a lot as a phrase, but there’s no place that stands on it harder than Tennessee. Everyone wants to make sure you’re taken care of.

They want to know where you’ve eaten so they can point you somewhere better. They want to know where you’ve ridden so they can send you down a road you hadn’t heard of. They want to know where you’re staying, and if it’s not up to their standards, they’d probably offer you a spare room in their own home without thinking twice.

In a lot of places, out-of-towners are tolerated at best. In Tennessee, however, everyone’s welcome.

That feeling followed me the entire way from Nashville down to Murfreesboro on a cool, sunny day in early March. I had managed to thread the needle between rainstorms, and for a few hours it felt like the sun had come out just for me. The temperature hovered around 55 degrees, brisk enough to keep you alert but comfortable enough to enjoy the ride.

I was on a 2025 Road Glide that had been loaned to me by our friends at EAGLERIDER, and when I pulled into the lot, my buddy and Bumpus Harley-Davidson of Murfreesboro General Manager Ryan Tapley was waiting for me with open arms.

Full disclosure: I love this guy. When I think of all the things that make me proud of Harley-Davidson and all of the thousands of folks in our dealership network, Ryan — and people like him — stands out because he eats, sleeps, and breathes Harley-Davidson.

Ryan started at Bumpus Harley-Davidson of Murfreesboro as a janitor. The year was 2002, and like he’ll tell you himself, there was nothing glamorous about it. He was 17 years old, fresh out of high school, and his job was to clean bathrooms and mop floors. Every single day, from the front door all the way to the back of the shop.

“I’ve never been above any job in the organization,” he said, and there wasn’t a single part of me that questioned it.

We hadn’t even made it fully into the showroom before he started pointing people out. Not in a “let me introduce you to my team” kind of way, but almost like he couldn’t help himself.

“This one’s been here 20 years,” he’d say, nodding toward someone across the floor. “She’s been here fifteen. He’s pushing ten.”

At one point, he paused for a second and said, “If you added up the years of experience in this building, it would be in the hundreds.”

And of course I expect to hear that when someone’s giving me their dealership’s story, but there’s just so much happening at this dealership that probably couldn’t if all this experience wasn’t the case.

People aren’t rushing around trying to keep up. They’re not stepping on each other’s toes. Everyone seems to know exactly where they need to be and what they need to be doing, and more importantly, they seem happy doing it.

We made our way past the front desk, where Carolyn greeted me like I had been coming in there for years. Before Ryan could even say a word, she was already pointing me toward the customer lounge, letting me know there was free coffee available, offering me a bottle of water, and asking where I had come in from.

By the time I was heading out later that day, she had come around the desk, asked me if I was a hugger, and pulled me into one of those big, genuine embraces that we all love getting. She even asked if we could be friends on Facebook. I told her of course.

Ryan just smiled when that happened, like it was exactly what he expected.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.

We kept moving, and he guided me over to MotorClothes®, where Paula was working the floor. I needed to grab an H-D® shirt for a meeting later that day and she had me covered. Same story. No rushing or pressure, instead, someone taking the time to help me find what I actually needed. We talked through a few options, landed on something that made sense, and that was that. It didn’t feel like a transaction. It felt like someone doing their job well and taking pride in it.

Ryan watched that play out for a second, then looked back at me and nodded.

“We give a shit about everybody who comes through the door,” he said. “Whether you’re buying an O-ring or a CVO, we treat you the same.”

I watched that line play out over and over again while I was there.

We made our way back into the service department, where things shifted a bit. The showroom is clean and polished, exactly what you’d expect, but the service bay is where you really see how a dealership operates. Bikes up on lifts, tools laid out, guys moving from one job to the next without a lot of wasted motion.

Ryan introduced me to Alan “Dino” Meeks, the service manager, who’s been with Bumpus for the same amount of time he has. Twenty-three years. They came up together, and Ryan talks about Dino with a kind of love and admiration usually reserved for blood family.

“The toughest job in the building is service manager,” Ryan told me. “You’re dealing with people who are already having a bad day. Something’s wrong with their bike, something didn’t go how they wanted, and it’s your job to make it right.”

Dino walked me through what they had going on, showing me a few bikes they were working on, explaining what they were doing and why. Nobody stopped what they were doing just because I was there, and that’s always a good sign. It means the place isn’t performing for you. It’s just operating the way it normally does.

The only time I interrupted the service team was to snap a quick group photo of them, and looking back on it later, it made me smile because you can see that these are the exact kinda guys you want filling your service tickets. An incredibly talented and knowledgeable group of goof balls. I’ll let you guess how many Harley-Davidson Master Technicians are in that photo.

At one point, we circled back toward the front of the dealership and Ryan pointed out a customer pulling in who was stopping by just to bring lunch in for the staff. Later, someone mentioned another guy who comes in every Saturday morning with a box of donuts, to the point where everyone fondly calls him “the donut guy.”

Ryan didn’t make a big deal out of either of those moments, but they’re hard to miss when you’re paying attention. That kind of relationship is built over time, and it’s built on consistency.

Bumpus Harley-Davidson itself has been around since 1986, when it was founded in Memphis by four brothers: Dan, Tom, Tim, and Scott Bumpus. They started out selling multiple brands before eventually focusing on Harley-Davidson, and over the years they expanded, opening additional locations in Jackson and here in Murfreesboro.

The Murfreesboro dealership, where I was standing, has been there for about 30 years and now serves as the flagship store. It’s still family owned and operated, and Ryan talks about that with a lot of gratitude and respect.

“Their dad, Jerry Bumpus, he’s like a grandfather to me,” he said. “They’re all still involved. They’re always thinking about how to do things better, how to grow the business, how to invest in the people here.”

That last part comes up a lot when you talk to him.

The people.

He doesn’t talk about the dealership without talking about the team, and he doesn’t talk about the team without talking about their families. At one point, he told me he knows their spouses, their kids, even their dogs’ names. It might sound like a throwaway detail, but it proves a point: this isn’t just a place where people come work. It’s a place they stay.

“I see these people more than I see my own family sometimes,” he said. “I’ve been here more than half my life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

For all the emphasis on culture and relationships, the business itself is doing great. The Murfreesboro store moves around 600 bikes a year and has been named Best of Music City across all motorcycle dealers three years in a row.

Their first bike night of the season a couple weeks ago had somewhere between 500 and 600 people show up, which, for a random Friday night very early on into the riding season, tells you everything you need to know about their presence in the community.

But even when he talks about that, Ryan doesn’t linger on it.

“That’s not what makes this place special,” he said. “It’s the people.”

By the time we wrapped up, that was pretty hard to argue with.

Nothing about the experience felt forced. Nothing felt like it was being put on for show. It was just a group of people who care about what they’re doing, care about each other, and care about the customers who walk through the door.

And it all runs through Ryan, not in a way where he’s trying to be the center of it, but in the way he sets the tone. He’s proud of his team, proud of the dealership, and proud of the way they do things, and he doesn’t need to oversell it because you can see it for yourself.