Elegance In Evolution
THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MONTEREY THAT ATTRACTS THE FINEST AUTOMOBILES AND MOTORCYCLES. FOR CARS, IT'S PEBBLE BEACH. FOR BIKES, IT'S THE QUAIL, WHERE CLASSICS SUCH AS THIS DUNSTALL NORTON LOOK GLORIOUS ON THE LAWN.
ELEGANCE IN EVOLUTION
JOHN L. STEIN
THE QUAIL MOTORCYCLE GATHERING HITS YEAR FIVE AND IS BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER. BUT YOU HAVE TO MOVE FAST TO SEE IT ALL
The neatly mown lawn by the Quail Lodge clubhouse in Carmel, California, is just eight acres. You could run across it in 60 seconds or whack a Titleist clear overhead, given a decent swing But it's plenty big enough to contain almost the entire history of motorcycling-yours to savor for just $65? Admittedly, that matches the entry fee for many races, and it's way pricier than cuddling up with Wild Hogs on Netflix. But when you leave The Quail Motorcycle Gathering, you will not be thinking about that.
Instead, this year, you'd be contemplating the $175,000 it will take to buy a Vincent Black Shadow like the one belonging to Bruce Canepa that earned the "Spirit of The Quail" award. You will be thinking about that tattooed cutie you saw nestled into Randy Grubb's alloy-bodied Decopod. You'll be wishing for more of the luscious barbecue that's included with a show ticket. Marveling at the 1904 Belgian FN, now 109 years old, that looks as ready for a country ride as it did four years before the Model T arrived. Or contemplating the crouching Tavax cruiser that took Japan's Ken Tabata three-and-a-half years to build. So, while The Quail Motorcycle Gathering is small, it is actually very, very large.
Let's continue with the list of things you could have explored at The Quail, held for the fifth consecutive year in May, if you had more time. And that is the real problem here, because the event is technically just five-and-a-half hours long, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. With 236 bikes on the field, that gives you just 1 minute 23.9 seconds per bike if you want to see all of them and talk to their owners, who often stay closer to their machines than a mama grizzly to her cubs.
And who wouldn't want to connect? For starters, the owner could be someone like three-time 500CC Grand Prix World Champion Wayne Rainey, who lives nearby. Event organizer Gordon McCall was allowed to wheel Rainey's championship-winning Yamaha YZR500 out of the living room and straight onto the lawn. The two-stroke V-Four won "Best of Show," and Rainey won a new Quail award, "Legends of the Sport."
Fellow three-time GP champ Kenny Roberts was there, too, as were Jim Rice and Don Castro, both of whom appeared in On Any Sunday. So was Danny Sullivan, the 1985 "spin-and-win" Indy 500 champion, with his Mert Lawwill-built Street Tracker. Ducati organized a Monster ride up the famed Pacific Coast Highway from Southern California, and onto the field rumbled a dozen Monsters, accompanied by original Monster designer Miguel Galluzzi.
Actually, there is little hope of absorbing every detail of The Quail show simply by moving through it faster, because this only means you'll miss those details. Our solution was to also register for Friday's 105-mile Quail Tour ($295, including a formal dinner and event entry for two), where this year 101 bikes most additionally featured in Saturday's show Could be seen and heard in motion. One was a lovely 1967 Triton, winner of the Cycle World "Elegance in Action" award. Built over four years by ex-pat Brit Jonnie Green, it consists of a Norton Featherbed frame discovered at a swap meet, Manx-style bodywork and a 750cc-kitted pre-unit Triumph Twin engine the precise cocktail that lit up the Ace Café scene back in the day. "It's a blast to ride, and it's also my exact vision of how a café racer should look," Green said. It's also our vision that great bikes are made to ride; that Green's Triton is really used cemented it as CWs award winner.
It's impossible to know what will appear at next year's Quail Motorcycle Gathering. But if it's as promising as this year's event, we'll definitely be there moving fast, as slowly as possible.
MOTOCYCLE GATHERING
2013 QUAIL
RANDY GRUBB'S FLIGHTS OF FANCY
THE FORMER BLASTOLENE PRINCIPAL CALLS IT "THE YEAR OF THE MOTORCYCLE"
DECOSON Built on a 1984 Sportster, the Decoson (commissioned by Steve Boone of Northwest H-D) made its debut at The Quail. Says Crubb, "Steve's first question was, 'How many doors do I get?' because he'd seen the Decopod (below). But you ride outside the shape on this one."
ROCICETII Not art deco, but how do you pass up a blown 426 Hemi trike? Dubbed Rocket II, it was conceived by artist/ owner Tim Cotterill and constructed by Michael Leeds and Crubb. Corvette-LS6-powered Rocket III is next, to be built by Crubb.
DECOPOD Crubb's scooter-with-doors "pod" concept is a Piaggio MP3-based "Tripod" leaning three-wheeler (twowheelers were Bipods). "I'm not building contraptions," says Crubb. "I go for balance, flow, movement, things that make good sculpture."
