A Gathering of Strength
A Gathering of Strength
UP FRONT
MARK HOYER
YOU KNOW IT'S BEEN A GOOD WEEKend when the last words out of your mouth are, "Dammit, how much is this going to cost me?!"
And it wasn't even Sunday yet. In fact, it was just Saturday evening when I uttered those words in the last light of day. The second running of the Quail Motorcycle Gathering in Carmel Valley, California, was just about wrapped up, and as I walked out on to the vast, beautiful lawn in front of the Quail Lodge's clubhouse, there was my friend Paul d'Orleans riding across the grass on his 1928 Sunbeam TT90 racebike (the first black bike in that line of beauties below). It's a 500cc Single with some neat history, apparently being one of the machines the famed Harry Weslake worked on during his tenure at Sunbeam. Hearing that bike make its great vintage-Single sound on the empty grass at the Quail, with Paul "giving it the berries" was well and truly awesome. Paul's creed with vintage bikes—historic, rare or otherwise—is, "Ride them as the maker intended," which roughly parallels my own thoughts about vintage gear: "Ride them 'til they break, fix them, then break them and fix them again. Get used to it."
He let it rev quite a bit across the green expanse, looped around and pulled up. "Wanna try it?"
Sometimes you feign disinterest. But this was not one of those times. I started walking forward before I blurted out, Yes\ Then I climbed on the rigid-framed bike, bounced up and down on the sprung saddle and took in its patinated glory while Paul explained the rightside, no-spring-return lever throttle, left-hand clutch and right-hand tankshift gearchange. He didn't offer that the brakes were an empty promise...
Luckily, I didn't need them. The roads around the lodge and through the golf course were basically empty. I got used to my right hand flipping the throttle lever back and forth between bouts with grabbing the next shift. The power was amazing—better, I fear, than my 26-year-newer Velocette MSS, itself a good-running, performance-modded 500cc Single of British origin. The air had grown cool but the warmth of the day lingered and the moisture from the grass crept up in a mist as I ripped across lawns normally reserved for golf carts and dudes in plaid pants. It really couldn't have been much better.
That's really a good description for how the Gathering weekend went overall, in fact. Friday started for us with the Quail Motorcycle Tour, a 100-mile ride through Carmel Valley with a lunch at the top of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca's Corkscrew—after two laps on the track for everybody on the $250-perhead ride. The tour was pretty amazing. There was Shinya Kimura riding one of his "art customs" with hand-hewn alloy bodywork on a Ducati 999 frame and engine. Ahead of me was some guy riding a Mert Lawwill-built Harley street-tracker. That guy turned out to be 1985 Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan! Meanwhile, there was this cracking exhaust note in the background, one that quickly moved to the foreground and left the faint waft of castor oil in its wake. It was a Reg Dearden-built 1961 Norton Manx, piloted by contributor John Stein. This was the very same bike we featured in "Tale of the Rat Manx" , 2000), but its rat days moldering away in a South African shed were long over. It was clean and sorted, and it sounded beautiful. When we hit Laguna Seca, Stein wound it out with the engine singing its full old-time GP song and passed me. He then turned in crisply, knee-out, with magnificent style. As I understand it, he'd warmed up well when he'd "accidentally" fallen behind on the 40-plus-rider group tour and was faced with suddenly open backroads... It was that kind of creativity and dedication that landed him the Cycle World Elegance in Action trophy, an award for, well, doing what Stein did!
The Gathering itself was the meat of the event (for a complete report and photo gallery, visit www.cycleworld.com/ quail), with a Bonhams auction mixed in for a bit of spice. Perfect weather greeted a diverse collection of machines that underlined the boundless energy and creativity that has gone into motorcycling from its very beginnings. Craig Vetter was on hand with several of his experimental fuel-economy streamliners; aluminum-artist Evan Wilcox was there with a few of his bikes and examples of his hand-hammered tanks and bodywork (including a wickedly cool setup for recent Ducati SportClassics). Kenny Roberts, Wayne Rainey and
Mert Lawwill cruised the event. Last year's Elegance in Action trophy winner, Tim Stafford, returned again with a BMW, this time a 1961 R50 in light blue. Stafford's restoration work is ofifthe-charts amazing and he loves to ride the stuff. Which is why his bike was awarded this year's Best in Show.
The auction promised much with the Roush-built Barney Li "new" Vincents (the Honda RC51-powered machines were a cover feature in December, 2002) up on the block, along with an amazing 1957 Mondial twin-cam 125cc racer. But actual sales were tough, no doubt hurt by the economy and currency troubles overseas. Bonhams' CEO Malcolm Barber ran the show with style and grace nonetheless, and I am sure that, like most of us, he hopes for a better economic climate. Soon!
On a more optimistic note, event-organizer Gordon McCall announced that next year's Quail Motorcycle Gathering will become a fully fledged judged concours event. So start polishing your bikes.
I wonder how much a good-running pre-War TT bike would run me. Or perhaps a rat Manx would do... □
