Hosted by the Southern California Norton Owners Club, the Hansen Dam Rally is one of the largest classic British motorcycle events in the US. It’s an excellent opportunity to check out some classic Britbikes and talk shop with their owners, so that’s what I did yesterday. Here are some of my highlights!
We’ll start with a lovely example of a first-year Norton Commando:
Love this Triumph Tiger Cub tank logo:
A buddy said he had a “rare BSA” that I had to check out and he walked me over to this. Spoiler alert: he did not win Best BSA but he did get a laugh out of me.
I’ve shared this Black Shadow before – it’s covered over half a million miles.
This Norton Commando features bodywork by Evan Wilcox.
This gorgeous 1951 Rapide is for sale. It’s numbers matching, has several extras, and it’s up for $58,000 or best offer…
There were a few customs, including a wild chopper powered by a ’57 BSA 650 engine, Dustin Kott’s Triumph Daytona 500 Bobber (which he built for Born Free), and Kott’s turbocharged Honda CB750.
A BSA Super Rocket won Best 60s British bike.
I really enjoyed this 1950 Triumph Thunderbird that was paired with a 1920s “Flexi” sidecar. The hack is built so that the bike can lean – plus the horn in between is foot-operated:
The most incredible bike to me was a Spondon-framed Norton RCW588 tribute.
I filmed a video with the owner that we will share over on Iconic’s YouTube channel.
The short story is that he acquired it in 2012 but it needed an engine rebuild. The owner was holding off on doing so until he was able to track down the needed parts, and he recently found out that the folks over at Andover Norton were parting out a crashed Interpol so he was able to get some of the parts he needed. With that said, he started the rebuild last year and this is the first time the bike has been seen in public. It still needs a few things before it’s ready to ride, including a wiring harness and the front caliper.
He was inspired to bring this out after seeing a Norton Classic win last year, and he was right – this Spondon-framed beauty ended up winning Best Norton. It also won Best Modern Bike, which tells you a bit about the age of the average bike in the show considering this is a 1989.
There was also a class for best non-British bike -my vote went to the Morini 3 1/2 but the lovely Ducati next to it ended up taking home the trophy.
I thought about entering my Bimota for non-British bikes but I figured the show was probably looking for older bikes so I instead parked in the spectator area. Despite the location, the Tesi got a lot of attention from people who were intrigued by the front end.
There was one other Bimota – a lovely DB4 ridden by someone who’s owned it for 4-5 years.
There were plenty of other cool motorcycles that were ridden over by locals who were just there to spectate.
I unfortunately couldn’t get many details on this beautiful Moto Guzzi but I thought it was worth a few photos:
This guy was very proud of his kick starter.
The boys from Classic British Spares showed up in force, including a bike that they bought through our auction site over at Iconic Motorbikes. This is a Trident 150 that was done up as a replica of Gene Romero’s Daytona racer but it was street legal.
CBS has put their own touches on it and fired it up a few times during the day – it sounds fantastic!
I also got some video footage so expect a YouTube video soon. UNtil then, congrats to the winners and thanks for reading!
