MAKING YOUR LIFE EASIER
ROAD Posse Rear Combo Stand $89.95
Posse 160 Piece Fairing Bolt Kit $29.95
TOOLS | TRAILER ACCESSORIES | PIT & SHOP
WE HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED DIRTBIKES | SPORTBIKES
Outlaw Kevlar Clutch Kits $115.95
STREET Outlaw Sintered Brake Pads $24.95
? local dealrer to or call ucts at your ca od lo pr r er al ou Can’t find.pitposse.com for de Go to www
1-866-44POSSE! SPEND LESS...GET MORE!
13PitPosse_StreetAd1-1.3_AMAmag.indd 1 AmericanMotorcyclist.com
26
5/13/13 11:33:09 AM
L-R: Kenny Roberts, Jeff Buchanan, Mert Lawwill
Bialetti out and brewed up a pot of coffee. I like my coffee the way John Steinbeck liked his: “Thick enough to float a nail.” After packing up we trekked the few minutes down the hill and into a two-wheel, metallurgical equivalent to a stroll through Amsterdam’s red light district—a beautiful spectacle of two-wheel indulgence spilling out over the immaculately kept lawn of the Quail Lodge. Entering the event, I was immediately stopped in my tracks by sight of a 1971 Honda CB350. It was a memory-inducing replica of the bike I spent riding the summer of 1972, tooling around the Santa Monica Mountains with a newly acquired motorcycle permit (at the tender age of 15 and a half). That was the first of many such visits to my youth courtesy of the bikes on display. Everywhere the eye went, there was something of intrinsic, visceral value to the enthusiast. I was able to trace my entire love affair with motorcycles as I perused the bikes, from my earliest desires, such as the Honda Mini-Trail 50 and subsequent Yamaha Mini-Enduro, to a Hodaka 100cc and a DKW 125. There was a rare Maico 400 square barrel, a Bultaco Pursang and a pristine Ossa Phantom 125cc. A Honda Elsinore 250 (just like the one I had in 1973) took me back to my motocross championship aspirations. There was a Yamaha RD350 like the one I owned in 1975. On and on it went, a cadre of beautifully restored motorcycles that have been imprinted on my mind and not seen in person for some 30 years—as well as a horde of beauties from before my time. My wandering brought me head to head with the biggest single influence from my motorcycle youth: AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Mert Lawwill, standing next to his 1970 Harley XR750 flattracker. When I was 13, I sat through five consecutive showings of the movie “On Any Sunday,” instantly acquiring Lawwill as my hero and cementing an already rabid infatuation with motorcycles. It’s hard to believe it’s been 40 years.
Amid a broad array of racing motorcycles from multiple decades was the ultimate show stopper: Wayne Rainey’s 1991 Yamaha YZR 500. The machine, brought to the Quail by local resident and legendary three-time MotoGP World Champion Wayne Rainey, recalled a by-gone era when men raced irascible 500cc two-stroke fire breathers that delivered gargantuan snaps of power sans the luxury of computer-aided modulation. In this era of anti-lock brakes, traction control and advanced, on-the-fly, electronic suspension adjustment, there is something disarmingly charming about motorcycles that are primarily two wheels, a chassis and a carburetor-fed engine operated by a throttle cable. There was a simplicity of mechanical operation in the machines on display that touched on the sublime. We stayed well past our intended 1 p.m. departure from the Quail event, lured by the beautiful polished steel of motorcycle history. By the time Wayne Rainey and Kenny Roberts, the event’s special guests, had spoken and the bikes started being returned to trailers and into the beds of pick-up trucks, it was 5 p.m. We reluctantly pulled ourselves away from the gleaming parade of restorations from my youth and headed home. The weather on the return trip seemed to want to punish us for not waiting to watch every last gem of two-wheel invention be rolled off the Quail’s grass— or for not having planned better to spend a second night in the campground. As we headed back down Highway 1, the evening clouds and dark moved in with that nasty, biting Central Coast chilling wind—strong enough to push a bike around—and pounded us relentlessly with a fine drizzle. As it got later, and we got wetter, and the sky got darker, my traveling buddy’s words kept ringing through my head, which I had allowed to make up my mind for me about my rain suit: “Dude, it’s California.” I was thinking, I could sure use a coffee right about now.