Sunday, June 29, 2008

Bikes on the Bay

I took a ride up the coast today and in the little town of Soquel I happened upon a vintage motorcycle show. It was kind of a small affair but there were quite a few cool bikes there. While I was checking out the old bikes it occurred to me that most of these "vintage bikes" are from the 1960's and 1970's. I was born in 1950 so I guess that makes me vintage too! Most of the bikes were from Europe, Japan or England with a few US made bikes. There were even some very unusual bikes like a diesel powered salt flats racer with a BMW engine in it and a V-8 powered trike!

This Kawasaki ZX-14 is said (by its owner) to be the fastest street legal bike in the world. It did 189mph at the Bonneville salt flats but it would be over 200mph at sea level. They are going to try again at the next meet for 200 mph at Bonneville.


The USA is well represented here by some classic Harleys and choppers.



This classic head gear and eye protection probably would not be approved by the CHP but back in the day this was ATGATT!!


I really took a liking to this 1970's Honda 750, I always liked the shape and size of this bike plus the 4 exhaust pipes are just to cool. This was one of the very first "super bikes". This bike has been restored to original condition and looks like it just came off of the show room.


This Honda 750 has been set up as a cafe racer.


This is a Honda CB77 which was a 350cc bike I believe. I like the chrome tank and the black rubber knee grips.




This all chrome pan-head Harley was very cool, snake skin hand grips and check out the speedometer face.


There was a lot more there to see but even those who don't want to ride on 2 wheels anymore have options like this Moto-Guzzi.



It was a great event and I hope I can attend again next year.