Golfers might disagree, but one has to admit that the Quail Lodge & Golf Club’s driving range makes a dandy venue for a motorcycle show, with 350 bikes and 3,000-plus visitors.
Last May I found myself very happy: all it took was a warm, sunny day in California’s Carmel Valley, 350 beautiful motorcycles parked on several acres of neatly trimmed grass and 3,000 happy people walking about, chatting and inspecting the bikes. A good lunch and a cone of Marianne’s ice cream helped.
The Quail Motorcycle Gathering limits attendance to 3,000 so that the venue is not too crowded, allowing one to move about easily. The attendees are as important as the motorcycles, from formally dressed and well-hatted ladies to the mass of blue-jeaned men and women. This remarkable custom is a 1960 Harley-Davidson Super 10, based on the 125 two-stroke DKW design that the U.S. got as part of war reparations from Germany.
A small portion is industry folk, from the OEMs, the aftermarket and the moto-press, while the rest are simply lovers of motorcycles. Whether one is rich as Croesus or poor as me makes no difference, as our common denominator is the love of motorized two-wheelers.
The Quail appeals to me because it does not focus on any one type of motorcycle, but has a bit of everything scattered around the grounds, from old to new, stock and modified, beautiful and bizarre.
The most bizarre in 2018 was, to my eyes, the Curtiss Zeus Concept, a new effort to break into the electr...