I’m going back to the Quail Motorcycle Gathering (which has been renamed to the Quail MotoFest) – come join me!
This is my favorite show of the year for a few reasons:
1. most importantly, there’s a whole bunch of amazing motorcycle people that show up (like Paul d’Orleans, as shown above)
2. as you’d expect, there’s a great collection of motorcycles to drool over
3. it’s in Monterey so if you come to LA (more on that later) then you can have an amazing ride up to the event and back!
Last year was the first time I’ve been able to help support, Iconic Motorbikes was a sponsor and we had a booth out there (though it ended up raining almost the entire time, which was a bummer). But I plan on doing the same thing this year and I hope to see you there. Here’s the link from the Quail themselves, tickets should be available soon.
The usual classes are in play (American, British, Italian, Other European, Japanese, Antique, Custom/Modified, Choppers, Competition On Road, and Competition Off Road.) But I’m particularly excited about this year’s featured classes as this will be the first year that I’ll enter one of my own bikes.
1. Italian Innovation by Bimota
2. Tribute to aftermarket supplier and racing legend Yoshimura
3. Celebrating 45 Years of the BMW GS
Our buddy JB will probably have this epic early Yoshimura race bike on display!
I’ll be bringing my Tesi 3D for the Bimota class (duh) and I’m sure it won’t win as it has a bunch of rock chips and other signs of being ridden, but I’ll at least have the wonderful memory of riding 300+ miles one way to the show, like I did last year.
Lots of folks like getting up there on Thursday so they can join the Quail Ride on Friday – I’ve done that before and it was enjoyable (you get 2-3 laps on Laguna Seca which is cool if you haven’t had the chance to go down the Corkscrew before!) but I will skip that so I can get a bit more done at work that week. My plan:
Friday: ride from LA to Monterey – here’s a rough map of what we did last year and we’ll do something similar this year unless PCH opens up again.
Saturday: Enjoy the Quail!
Sunday: ride back to LA with a similar but more direct route, we’ll likely stop at the Solvang Motorcycle Museum for a visit but it depends on how many people join for the ride and where everyone needs to get home to.
One of the many cool things you’ll find at Solvang.
I bring all that up to say that if you’re in LA (or can get out to LA), you should join me for the ride up! Show up on your own bike or if you want to fly and ride then Iconic has some BMW R1250GSes available. Either way, I hope to see you for the ride and/or the show. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to help!