On the flip side, there were more than plenty of offerings from local dealerships looking to unload some of their stock inventory. Whether your interest lay with the sport bikes, the cruisers, or anything in between, you could find a bike that would suit your needs/desires. The prices didn’t look to bad, either. Naturally; the urge to pick up a new bike began to rear its ugly head, but I forced it back down. Too many other expenses have been waiting their turn, and there’s no cutting in line!
We wound our way up and down the lines of vendors, checking out some sweet paint work (Wow, I can get that flamed mailbox for only $75?), some interesting fabrication ideas (Why, you’re absolutely correct, sir…that razor-sharp shark fin welded onto the backbone – directly in front of your nuts – does bring everything together quite nicely… ), some promo videos (you mean, if I buy your instructional DVD, I’ll be able to fly my bike over tall buildings, too?), and a myriad of other things. One item that did catch my eye was a bike done in a spider web theme – a lot of non-functional filigree (webbing) was…woven…throughout the bike, and overall, it made a nice presentation, but like most other show bikes; it wouldn’t have stood up to a good pounding (??) on the highway. The taillight was excellent, though. Whoever fab’d it did an exceptional job. The cutout was perfectly shaped like a creepy spider and the lighting assembly behind it was more than luminous (LED setup). I snapped a pic with the phone (again; apologies for the qualities of the pics – these were taken with my phone because I’m an idiot and forgot my camera);
From there, we worked our way to the back wall as there are always some old school bikes parked there. You’ll never find an owner here -someone looking to jaw your ear off about how they did this or that, spent this much cash, how many trophies they’ve won, etc. Just old school bikes, sitting alone and unattended, speaking for themselves. These are the bikes I like to check out. I was disappointed that there were only a few there this year, but I snapped some pics…
Another bike that caught my eye was one that belonged to the late, great Indian Larry. (Well, I believe it belonged to him. Either he owned it, or Paul/Keino built it in his memory.) At any rate, I had to take a pic of the bars. No wires, no directionals, no cables, no mirrors, nothing. Hell, they look like they were stripped off a bicycle, bolted onto this ride, and that was it. (But the giveaway was the wires winding out of the bar, just behind the headlight.) Look how clean those babies are!
We were winding our way back to the entrance and getting ready to head off to the rest of the day when one more bike caught my eye. This thing was actually sick enough to look interesting. Not sure how long it would take that engine to get those two massive chunks of rubber screaming, but can you imagine the looks you’d get from the local boys in blue once you were blasting down the highway? It looks like it’s hauling ass even when it’s sitting still. If you took this thing out, you might as well start shouting “Hey Mr. Policeman, I have too much money in my wallet and I want to give it to you!”
Having accomplished a complete tour of the event, we beat feet for the door and headed back towards home. Not a bad showing for this year’s Expo, all in all. A nice taste of biker camaraderie was shared with about 2,000 of my closest friends - and judging from all the smiles I saw, we all had a good time.
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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