Kickin' It At the Quail
KICKIN' IT AT THE QUAIL
THE
QUAIL
IF MOTORCYCLES ARE A DRUG, THE QUAIL MOTORCYCLE GATHERING IS ECSTASY
JOHN L. STEIN
After forty-whatever-it-is years of motorcycling, sometimes I just figure I’ve seen it all. And then I go to The Quail Motorcycle Gathering. Just completing its sixth year at the Quail Lodge in Carmel, California, this past May, this wide-encompassing show continues to bend my mind. Sure, there is the expected array of beauti. fully restored production classics like a Honda CBX, Triumph TR6, and Moto Guzzi V7 Sport, along with impeccable blue chips like Vincent and HRD. And a barbecue lunch deserving of a long ride to Monterey County in its own right.
Then you stroll farther across the grass at the Quail Golf Course and discover the prototype Brough Superior SS100, a holy grail among collectible bikes not seen publicly in 50 years. Or you find yourself beholding the actual Gyronaut X-i, a twin-Triumph-powered streamliner that was the world’s fastest motorcycle in 1966, part of a 27-bike Bonneville collection that was the largest of its kind ever assembled off the salt flats. Then you come face-to-face with a 1947 Doodle Bug, one of the first minibikes, and nearby a triple-engine Yamaha TR2 dragbike. It may sound cliché, but you really never know what you’ll find at this event.
LEGENDOF THE SPORT FOUR-TIME 500cc WORLD CHAMPION EDDIE LAWSON RECALLED HIS FIRST MOTORCYCLE RIDE AT ACE SEVEN. “I COULDN’T WAIT TO WAKE UP IN THE MORNING AND GET BACK ON THAT BIKE. I’VE NEVER LOST THAT.”
Although he credits the enthusiasm of the entrants and spectators for the show’s success, impresario Gordon McCall is clearly the gravitational force that pulls everyone together. Like a musician who can play strings, reeds, and a drum kit equally well, McCall’s eclectic interests range from old dirt bikes to sportbikes to classics, and so The Quail fairly honors them all. Is it a stuffy show? Only in appearances, situated as it is on perfectly manicured lawn in an expensive zip code. But judged by the stoke of everyone on the show field, it’s extremely welcoming and accessible. As long as the $75 admission fee, which incidentally included lunch, is doable.
One of The Quail’s biggest assets, diversity, means you have to keep moving to see everything in the show’s five-and-a-half hours. Especially with the 256 motorcycle entries (awards are given in 27 different categories). Best of Show went to the gorgeous and rare 1932 Vincent HRD Python Sport of Gene Brown, the same bike featured in CW (“Rare Birds,” Oct. ’13).
As fine as the static show is, Friday’s 110mile Quail Motorcycle Tour was an excellent place to get up close and personal with 100 new and old motorcycles in motion. Led by swift-moving California Highway Patrol officers who held traffic at key intersections, it’s just about the easiest organized group ride you can take. As before, it included several laps of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and its famed five-and-a-half-story drop through the Corkscrew.
We believe motorcycles were meant to be ridden, even show bikes, which is why the first Cycle World Tour was held Saturday, starting at the Quail Lodge Clubhouse and returning to the show field before lunch. Anyone can sign up, but if your bike is entered in a judged category, you get extra consideration if it comes down to the wire. Limited to 30 riders, the Tour proved to be an exact cross section of Cycle World’s readership, with machines from a 1973 Kawasaki Mach III to KTM 500 EXC to a new Triumph Tiger 800 ridden by 10-time sports-car racing champion Randy Pobst. The CW Tour Award went to the Magni-framed BSA triple of Brent Lenehan. It was a beautiful, howling machine with MV-inspired pipes and magnesium wheels.
Pobst, a Laguna Seca lap-record holder, wasn’t the only champ in attendance. On the car side, 1985 Indy 500 winner and former Fi driver Danny Sullivan arrived on his Mert Lawwill-built Street Tracker. And motorcycle racing was well represented by Doug Polen, Wayne Rainey, and Eddie Lawson, the trio holding nine world championships among them. Rocky Robinson, the current motorcycle land-speed record holder at 376 mph, attended too.
The Quail isn’t just about old iron, either. In addition to the fastest motorcycle on the planet (Robinson’s AckAttack), The Quail featured the Lightning LS-218 electric superbike that beat every internal-combustion rival at Pikes Peak last year. Plus a retroscrambler-styled 2015 Yamaha SR400 prototype and the 2015 Kawasaki Ninja ZX10R 30th Anniversary Edition, along with a tantalizing array of 49CC bicycle-themed mopeds from the fertile mind of Specialized Bicycle’s Robert Egger. Also, for the first time, this year event organizers had kids age 12 and under chose their favorite bike for the Why We Ride Award. They picked a 1973 Honda XR75, proving that minis and kids magnetically connect—then and now.
The above is just the barest set of high points I experienced at this year’s Quail Motorcycle Gathering. But no matter your viewpoint, when you stroll onto the show field in the morning, it feels tremendously exciting, like tunneling into an Alice’s Wonderland for motorcyclists. And when you walk out again after the awards ceremony, you’ll feel nothing but inspired.
That’s some kind of medicine.
For a full list of winners, visit cycleworld.com.
