Every Sunday, my partner Adam over at Iconic does a Sunday ride from our shop to the Rock Store and back. I joined him this week as we wanted to get a group photo with some customers (see above) for a fundraising campaign we’re about to launch – more on that later. Here are some of my highlights from the day!
Actually I lied – I’m going to back up to Saturday first. One of our clients from Northern California reached out during the week, asking if he could come by to check out the shop as he hadn’t seen us since we moved to the Santa Monica Airport in late 2020. When he came by, he mentioned that he was in town as he had just bought a Peugeot 205 Rallye on Bring a Trailer in Palm Springs and was in the process of driving it home! I had to give it a closer look.
Look at that style! Kudos to people who actually enjoy their collectibles.
I also decided to get take my white classic out, so Vy and I took the R100CS Last Edition out for a dinner date.
The next morning, I showed up at Iconic to find that Adam had a crazy idea. He wanted to take a Honda NR750 that we’re waiting on paintwork for a bit of shock and awe. The NR750 is also known as the RC40 – I took out a RC45 that we recently imported from England.
The first stop is a gas station where we sync up with a few friends. Gard Hollinger of ARCH showed up on a prototype of the new 1s:
There’s a lot to dig about this bike and I’ll hopefully get into some more details when I see it again at the Quail Motorcycle gathering this weekend. But one interesting thing I haven’t seen before is how the gas cap works – part of the “A” in the ARCH logo is a handle which you can twist to pull up a cover, exposing the fill neck.
My buddy Jay showed up on his Megamoto – obviously I’m a big fan. His is stock except for the seat from a HP2 Enduro and a gorgeous titanium exhaust system made by Sasaki Sports out of Japan.
The next stop was Malibu Country Mart, where our mechanic Olly showed up on his personal RC30. That made for a great lineup of Honda RC bikes. I ended up riding the naked NR750 back to the shop and it’s the best-riding NR we’ve had (out of about 9). It’s a Euro bike so it’s de-restricted, and it’s got a Penske shock, 17″ rear conversion, and some work has been done to the front forks. It’s what the NR always should have been.
We then rode out to the Rock Store – here were some of my favorites.
I’ve shared this ZRX before, but the sheer amount of modifications is worth another quick look.
The owner of this bike has six KZ1300s, and I believe he used to have four more on top of that.
I like this person’s riding buddy. Their license plate frame called this bike Rocinante, a reference to Don Quixote.
This Harley caught my eye for two reasons: 1, it’s gorgeous.
And 2, he’s using a YOM plate like I do on Vy’s Honda S90. YOM (or Year of Manufacture) is one of the very cool things that the California DMV does. If you can source a decommissioned license plate for your bike (1969 or earlier) in which the last tag on the plate corresponds to the year that the bike was manufactured, you can adopt the plate as an awesome period touch. So in this case, even though the plate was made in 1956, the last registration sticker was 1962, and CA lets this owner use the plate as it’s a 1962 H-D. They also supply a small extra tag to put your current registration sticker – I spray-painted mine black to match the S90’s black and yellow license plate.
Those were my favorites this weekend, and now I’m prepping to ride up north for the Quail Motorcycle Gathering, where there will be plenty of cool bikes to take photos of. Will I see you there?