A while back I had a post about the livery of my Kramer race bike, which is comprised of signatures from friends and celebrities in the world of motorcycling. Well it’s been a year since I wrote that up, so it’s time for an update!
The signatures originally started at the Aprilia Racers Days at Circuit of the America in 2023, so let’s resume things at the same event the following year. I was able to get a few signatures from some moto legends – the racer Mark Miller (who also commentates at the Isle of Man), Heath Cofran over at Alpinestars, Miguel Oliveira (Trackhouse MotoGP racer), and Massimo Rivola – the CEO of Aprilia Racing and their MotoGP effort!
It was particularly exciting to chat with Massimo again as only the day prior I was in his pit to watch the race and they ended up winning with Maverick Vinales!
I also collected a few great signatures while my bike was sitting at the shop hangar:
Kate Afansaveya at Beach Moto
Colin Miller – Assistant Public Relations Manager for Honda and a crucial part of events like the “Isle of Monkey” or the “Grom Prix.”
Some photos came from private track days that I was invited to – a wonderful client invited me to join him and some friends at the Thermal Club, which I had never been to before. At that event I got to see my buddy Geoff Maloney of GP Tech. I’m giving him two photos here because his “self-portrait” makes me laugh:
I also joined Garrett Kai of Kai Creative for his annual track day at Chuckwalla. Among other clients, Garrett represents Arai and Suzuki – as you can imagine he’s well-connected in the motorcycling industry. And that’s why I was able to see these friends and get signatures (I see them frequently but I never have my Kramer with me at the same time).
Jake Zemke, obviously a famous racer but he now does some side work for Ducati and he had one of my favorite suits of all time.
Adam Waheed from Octane (owns Cycle World and Motorcyclist, among other publications).
Bradley Adams, also part of Octane. Bradley is the only guy I’ve ever had the pleasure of physically bumping into while riding. Thankfully, it was part of the Grom Prix I mentioned earlier and it was my fault for being a wuss so I harbor no ill will. In fact, I kind of wear it as a badge of honor, I’m just annoyed that he got the better of me!
With all of that said, over the last year the event I got the most signatures at would definitely be at the Barber Vintage Festival.
A few were part of the DoubleRFest track day with Nate Kern, including Mark Hoyer (Editor in Chief of Cycle World) and Oleg Satanovsky (Motorcycle Communications Manager at BMW of North America)
But most were just people out and about while I was racing over the weekend:
Arthur Coldwells, the owner of Ultimate Motorcycling.
Spurgeon Dunbar from RevZilla – I shared this photo recently in a post about RevZilla/Common Tread’s amazing video that you should definitely watch if you haven’t yet. I also had the other fine Common Tread gentlemen sign my bike but I don’t want this post to be too repetitive.
Robert Pandya (at the time he was the Communications Director for the Barber Museum but he has since moved on) and Brian Case (current Executive Director for Barber)
AHRMA racing at Barber was on Saturday and Sunday – on Saturday there was a special event during the lunch break where Kenny Roberts did a few parade laps on his championship-winning 1980 Yamaha YZR500 0W48. He then came into the pit area to join his son KRJR, Dave Aldana, and Scott Russell. What a lineup!
I will say that almost every single person who has signed my bike has tried very hard to find an empty spot so that they didn’t interfere with anyone else. The sole exception is Kenny Roberts, who just went for it and ended up signing half over Marcus Kramer, the guy who developed the bike. I guess you can do that when you’re the King.
It was especially surreal when Scott Russell recognized me and said, “Hey, Iconic Motorbikes!” Thanks for making me feel famous for a second and for making everyone around me want to know what Iconic is!
This bodywork is obviously very special to me as it now has so many reminders of people who have made my motorcycling life better.
My favorite!
So now I sometimes feel a little nervous about riding the bike as hard as I can as I don’t want to damage the fairings and lose some signatures that would be hard to get again. With that in mind, it’s time to retire this set of bodywork: I’ll clean it, clearcoat it, and hang it up at home or at the shop. Then I have to figure out what livery I’m going to use for next year’s race season – I’m taking suggestions, and that’s what the next post in the series will be about…