La Mirada, La Habra, El Camino?

The 35th Annual El Camino Antique Motorcycle Show is this coming Saturday. In some ways that statement isn't true. I don't know how many regular attendees know it, but it wasn't always at El Camino College in Torrance.

I first heard about the show in the Feb. '83 issue of Supercycle magazine (first one I bought), when they did a feature on the '82 show. It seems they usually had the show in La Mirada in those days. The first one I went to was in '84, but was held close by in La Habra. The following year it was again in La Mirada. La Habra, La Mirada... whats the difference?

They used to make some pretty cool posters each year. This one from 82 was printed in the Feb. '83 Supercycle. Check the credits for technical assistance. I have a couple of nice posters from some later years.

Any way, it moved to El Camino in 1986 and has pretty much been there ever since. One year it didn't happen as there wasn't a promoter to pick it up (I don't know the politics or how or if the So. Ca. Chapter of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America works with the promoters these days). It also, sort of got rained out one year (2007).

I do know that Glen Bator kept it going for quite awhile. At one time he was putting on the Del Mar show too, which was some years, only a week apart.


I forgot that '84 was my first year until I dug out this old shirt. Notice it was a two day event. The show bikes were invited to a ride. I only have a few other year's shirts. Most year's designs weren't to my liking.

In those days, it was like Antique M/C Season here in So Cal. Sometimes El Camino was on Saturday, and Sunday was the Long Beach Swap Meet. Other times they were a week apart. Some years all three events were in a week's span.

Two years ago Glen announced at the show, he's moving on and not doing it anymore and the show was going to die if someone didn't step in. It was strange as it had the largest attendance ever. It didn't seem right, everyone was in disbelief and disappointed.

When the current promoter (Classic Cycle Events), took over last year, he stated he's keeping the traditional date in Sept. but up until a few years back it was always on the first Saturday in Oct. Then it crept up to the last Saturday in Sept. Now it's in the middle of the month. So much for tradition.



The old shows were quite different for better or worse. The better, it was a free event held in a shopping center's parking lot and more like a field event with riding games/contests. The worse, the bikes were roped off from spectators. It was still that style of show the first few years at El Camino where they also first began charging admission ($3.00), in '86.

I've never missed a year yet, and don't intend to miss this one.

Born-Free 3-3

Okay, are you tired of seeing Born-Free yet? If not, check it out. I know I missed a lot of them and you might have seen these same bikes on other blogs, but what the hell.

If I make any mistakes on the credits/owners, let me know.

Jeremiah of Love Cycles entry in the Builders Invite. I probably don't have to say it's his. Jeri's bikes have a style of their own, you just know. His spartan style is quickly developing a following.

Jeff Leighton's Knice Knuckle. Not the sharpest picture but I had to include it. Great stance, paint and combination of parts. So how does one safely extend a VL fork?

Lord knows I'm not a Honda guy, but this 750 from Sunrise Cycles is pretty damn slick. My two cents.... I would have left the engine cases natural or polished.

His....

...and Hers. I've seen both of these bikes in my neighborhood. The handlebars, sporty tanks with flames makes me think they are of Fats influence more than that of Dick Allen. Also, because of the headlights, seats, tires, fork width, and billet controls, I'd call them modern takes on the South Bay style.

The vintage look of this clean Panhead (black skinny wheels and springer), almost tricks you into thinking it's a Knuckle at first glance.

One for Noot. Does a Sportster qualify as a Bob Job? It's very close to some ideas I've had, but I'd like it a wee more with polished alloy rims, brakes, and with chrome shock dust covers and fender struts.

The Sunsetter from 1965. The original owner/builder (lost his name), was in attendance and very proud. The current owner told me the frame and chrome is all original and that he only had the tank and fender re-painted. That leads me to believe that it probably only had minor flaws and he should have left it alone!!!! The current buckhorns kill the look, put the drag bars back on it!

A really nice shovel ala Shawn Donahue. I heard more than one guy say it's his pick. It's similar style and mostly black paint made for good juxtaposition to John Edward's scooter. The bright afternoon sun made it hard to shoot these clean machines.

Ironhead Ron took advantage of some shade and a chair in my booth. I'm not quite as grumpy as I look, just don't like my picture taken much.

Maybe one or two more Born-Free post to come.

Born-Free-3-2

More from the show. As said before, I didn't have enough time to see all the bikes, take photos, or inspect their details , as I'd liked to.

1947 Knucklehead with lots of nickel plating built by Dave Polgreen was another Builders Invite award winner. Love those wheels. Paint by Harpoon.

Robert Hernandez's long bike. I think it won best in that class. Class was judged by long time long bike expert Sugar Bear.

Levi Louie's Loose Goose. Built it in 69. He's now offering Dick Allen styled forks. This is the bike that was in my first "Ladies Like'm Long" post. Unlike most, he made the back bone one piece from the seat post to the neck.

Mike Davis brought out his own Knuckle Project. Mike has a nack for putting just the right parts together.

A very clean and nicely done Panhead out amongst the sea of bikes. Bobber?... I still say it's an early style chop.

I remember seeing this 70's style Sporty in flat black at the Jan. 2010 Long Beach Swap Meet. Click HERE to see it then. At that time, I had no idea it was a work in progress.

I judged the Bobber class and chose Hogan's '47 Knucklehead as it was obvious that he took great effort to make it authentic. The white and blue pan behind it also belongs to him. His buddy, the notorious Doc. Sprocket rode his Sportster down from Sacramento to Hogan's place in Socal and then accompanied him on the Bob Job to Born-Free. I later found out it won the same class at the David Mann Chopper Fest.

The proud owner, stopped by my booth to say thanks and farewell.

More to come.

Born-Free 3 #1

Well it's come and gone, but it definitely did not disappoint.

It might have been too much show for one day... at least for me. I had a booth and also judged the Bobber Class, so it limited my time for photography and viewing . Anyway, here's Round 1 of what I did shoot.

I don't know who thought them up, but the Cali info signs for the invited builders were a nice touch.

There were quite a few high quality Triumphs on hand. This one is by Todd Asin.

This excellent recreation of an early David Mann centerfold on the Love Cycles entry was the coolest tank art I saw. I'm sure it was a real challenge to make that image wrap around the tank.

We are talking Vintage Chopper. John Edwards' jewel of a Panhead won best original. You might make a chopper more wild, exotic, extreme etc., but it's hard to beat the purity of this tried and trued classic... with all original period correct parts to boot. I'd seriously consider it for "best of show."

Max's Pan in a VL won an award and was surely one of the crowd's favorite's.

The Mooneyes crew brought out this old company relic. I admit it, I'm an H-D guy, so I think the rickshaw section would look really cool on a custom Servi-Car.

Part Timer Steve listens as the two Riches discuss being banned from some blogs. It was really good to finally meet Dr. Sprocket!

I believe this skinny Knuck by Jason Weber placed 2nd or 3rd in builder's choice..

A very nice knuckle by Scott Craig. Why does he always paint the front fork legs?

There's likely never been a better state side representation of the vintage style and the words "best show ever" were heard more than once. It seems many of us are tired of the typical Harley show of today.

I think we may be witnessing the beginning of new golden age of vintage style show bikes.

Thanks Mike and Grant.

Born Free 3 on Saturday

Just in case someone still doesn't know, the big show is Saturday. Click on this: Born Free for all the show info.

This brown version is one of about 24 I did working with Mike and Grant. Grant probably did another 6-12. I want to make a collaged image of all of them.

Last Saturday

I went over to the Gasoline Gallery for their annual art and street show (California Screaming 6). Maybe it was because I got there around 3 p.m. and the show started at noon, but compared to other years, there wasn't much left in the way of cool cars or bikes.

Is it a Harley, an Indian?... nope, a Rikuo! I've been meaning to do a post on them for a long time. Other than the Rikuo and the Shovel (way back in the distance), there weren't any other cool bikes to be seen.

I figured since there wasn't much happening outside, inside would be the same, and that would make it easy to photograph and look at art.... wrong. It was crowded and LOUD! so I only took a quick look around and split.

Overall I didn't see as much as usual that I liked.

This one stood out on that wall. The red dot signifies it's sold.

Ink on scratch board. There's a lot of work involved here.

Interesting but, not quite sure I get it?

This one was fun.

There's aways a lot of wacky monster stuff.

The art generally seemed very reasonably priced. It made me wonder how some of the artist could justify the time doing them and letting them go so cheap. Especially considering galleries sometimes get 50%.

I probably didn't hang for more than 15-20 minutes. Since I wasn't 'feeling' the hot rod beatnick crowd, it was time to blast over to The Garage Co. for Born-Free Night. I knew I'd be much more comfortable around bikes and bike people.

Small groups of bikers came and went for another night of Knucklehead gawking and barbecue munching.

Grant proving it runs....

.... and Kiyo proving it rides.

The evening ended with a raffle. Some lucky Son of a Gun won the Bear Co. seats. Claimed he never wins anything.

El Camino 2011 Part 1 Sportsters Only?

I'm real late in posting anything from this years show.

If you go to the promoters website, it says that this years show was the biggest and best ever!... "Really?"

When I was asked what it was like, my reply was, "it sucked"! ... and think it has been in decline for sometime. My reason... for the last several years there has been a shrinking amount of American bikes entered in the show. Sure, there are always some interesting ones in the vendor's booths or rode in, but actually entered, very few. I do have some ideas why, but won't get in to that.

That's All Folks! This photo shows ALL of the bikes entered in two classes of American bikes, 1936-64 and 1965-89. Way back is Ty's very nice panhead , a K-model (cool, but of not show bike quality), and some sort of modified scooter that was completely out of place. To top it off, I overhead that the show officials had to ask 2 vendors to bring their bikes over to the show. There were 3 or 4 more Harleys in the custom class.

This very nice '72 and the above orange '69 were automatically in contention for 1st and 2nd place in the '65-'89 class. I would have liked to have got the owner's names.

This is definitely the nicest '72 XLCH I've ever seen and makes me question selling mine.

Again this bike, is nice, so don't get me wrong!... For fun and a personal challenge, I like to play judge and see if I can detect anything slightly a miss on bikes like this.

Disclaimer: I realize that many times an owner will make some personal choices which they are fully aware of. That said, I came up with 10 small items that a judge might find plus 2 I'd have to double check.

1. Fork bearing cups should be cad plated not black. 2. Front fender should have rivets not acorn nuts. 3 Inner front fender mounts improperly positioned. 4. Kickstand should be cad not chrome. 5. Kicker should be black not chrome. 6 Battery lid should be chrome not black. 7. Wire loom should be plastic not fabric. 8. Speedo cable routed incorrect. 9. Rocker box plugs should be cad, not chrome. 10. Carb/Air cleaner support should be cad, not black.

Two questionable items. 1. I'm not sure this type of passenger pegs were an option for this year. Most had a mount bolted to the rear engine mount. 2. I don't think the #1 points/timer cover is correct for this year.

I know this post got sort of disjointed, but wtf?... and OK, the show wasn't all bad, so I'll be posting more.

One last thing, Hey Noot, How'd I do?

Born-Free 3 #4 The last post

This will likely be the last full post I do on the show. Not to mention, by now, you've probably seen most of the same bikes over and over again.

I like old Triumphs the best when they tight and simple. That is not to say that it's simple to build a bike like this.


It's not hard to make a rigid look good, so I'm always interested to see how different guys handle a swing arm bike.


Hogan, who won the best bobber also owns this Panhead. I sort of have a problem with white frames... not the most practical color for and old Harley.


VL frames have made a comeback. Some make room for an overhead mill better than others. This is one of the better ones. Also, It appears the hard tail was replaced with a EL/FL rear section.


Josh resets the knuckle just before the winner is announced. I think he's doing a double take to make sure it ain't gonna fall off it's side stand. The guy with all the camera gear is the famous biker photog Michael Lichter.


One different way to set up a shovel. The rear seat doubles as an auxiliary fuel tank.


Shameless Self Promotion. A few goodies in my booth. I hand color (paint), black and white line art prints. The goal is to make and sell affordable one off original art.


This very cool 1938 knucklehead was runner up for the Best Bobber Award. It was a very tough decision between it and the Panhead I ultimately picked.


It wasn't just choppers. Todd had his own display full of antique bikes. This all original cop bike ran like a sewing machine.

I may post a individual shot of a particular bike here and there, other than that... That's all folks!