CSC Classics Meeting Other Classics…

Steve, Joe, Ben, and I took several California Scooters to the BSA Owners Club Hansen Dam meet Sunday.    The weather was perfect, and giving the California Scooters a chance to mix it up with classic British, Italian, German, and US bikes was a great way to spend the morning.   We arrived early, but interest was high as soon as we took the bikes out of Steve’s trailer. 

This is what the event is all about…classic BSA 650 twins made in England.  The one in the foreground is one of the last Beezers made in the early 1970s, with the oil-in-the-frame configuration.  The one behind it is from the 1960s.  I love those big chrome tank panels.

I caught a bit of shade under the EZ-up and watched the crowd checking out all of the vintage bikes… 

I had a lot of fun watching folks discovering the California Scooters.  The bikes were barely off the trailer when people had their cameras out snapping photos of these unique machines.

 

While folks were taking pictures of our bikes, I wandered around a bit and grabbed a few photos of the vintage machines…here’s one of a Vincent, which was the fastest motorcycle in the world in its day…

Take a look at this gorgeous, fully-faired Norton twin…this bike is 50 years old, but it looks brand new…

 And here’s a Velocette, a big single-cylinder performance bike from the 1950s and 1960s…

I didn’t want to stray too far from the California Scooter area, mostly because I enjoyed watching folks’ reactions to these modern classics.   This fellow asked if he could sit on a CSC Greaser, and he really lit up when Steve told him to fire it up and take it for a spin (which he did)…

Then another Vincent parked right next to us.   These are very cool, very exotic high performance machines.  Check out the size of the speedometer, just above the headlight…that thing probably serves as a fairing!

Another California Scooter test rider on a CSC Classic…just think…in another 50 years people will be bringing California Scooters to events like these!

I took a break and watched the folks taking it all in…that red California Scooter Classic looks right at home in this ritzy neighborhood, doesn’t it ?

And yet another Vincent…and this one I knew I’d seen before at one of the earlier Hansen Dam events.   Check out the airbrush painting on the tank… 

Rollie Free set the motorcycle land speed record on the Bonneville salt flats on a Vincent back in the day at a cool 150 mph…he stripped down to a bathing suit and rode the bike stretched out in the prone position to do it, too…just like this Vincent’s tank art shows… 

If you’ve seen the movie, “The World’s Fastest Indian,” there’s a scene in which a guy comes up to Anthony Hopkins at Bonneville and offers to help him.   He introduced himself as Rollie Free.   I thought it was a nice touch in that movie, which is one of my favorites.  I’ll bet less than 1% of the folks who watched that outstanding movie realized the significance of that name, but I’ll bet quite a few of the people reading this blog know exactly who Rollie Free was.

You know, the feat was duplicated on a Mustang that hit 100 mph at Rosemont Dry Lake, piloted by Walt Fulton.  There’s a fascinating history behind the Mustang ‘s racing adventures.   Don Cook, of the Mustang Motorcycle Club of America, was kind enough to send this photo to us of Walt setting the Mustang record…

We’ll come back to the Mustang’s racing lineage in another post, but when I saw that airbrushed Vincent tank, Walt Fulton’s 100 mph record was the first thing I thought of, and I wanted to let you all see the photo Don provided. 

So, back to 2010…here’s another cool vintage bike at Hansen Dam, a British Norton…

More folks checking out the California Scooters…

I kept drifting back to that red Norton.  A sleek Matchless parked right next to it.   Matchless was another British bike.   This one is a big single.

Cindy from Century Cycles wanted to check out the blue Classic.  She looks good on it!

Another Hansen Dam rider on the blue Classic…

A couple of riders rolled in on Indians.   This one is a bike that Royal Enfield (in the UK) actually made for Indian, and Indian rebadged it near the end of their company’s existence.   During World War II, the Army told Harley and Indian that they had to focus all of their production on meeting the military’s needs.  Indian did so.  Harley didn’t, and they kept making civilian bikes along with their military bikes.  Indian lost most of their civilian customers, and they never fully regained their place in the market.

I grabbed this shot of another Matchless as it rolled by…

This one was of the more stunning vintage bikes at the show…a Norton configured as one of the original cafe racers…

Here’s an Italian Moto Guzzi with a sidecar.  Its rider demonstrated his ability to “lift the chair” (get the sidecar off the ground) making tight turns in the parking lot, but I wasn’t fast enough to catch it with my camera…

And finally, more people checking out that beautiful bright red California Scooter Classic at Hansen Dam.  I told this young lady she already had the leathers to match the bike, too…

The Southern California Norton Owners Club hosts a Hansen Dam vintage bike event in November, and the BSA Owners Club does the same thing in April.   The meet starts around 8:30 or so, and then the vintage bikes roll out for a ride through the San Gabriel Mountains.  We stayed until the vintage iron left (an impressive departure!), and then we headed back to La Verne.  We had a great day, and I hope you enjoy viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. 

Oh, one more thing…I met a very interesting guy from Scotland (my new friend Jim) who was admiring the California Scooters.   As we were leaving, Jim showed me a bunch of black-and-white photos of his riding adventures in the 1960s in the UK.  I asked Jim if he had the photos in digital form, and I told him I wanted to share them with the fine motorcycle enthusiasts who read our blog.   To my surprise, Jim gave me the photos, asked me to scan them, and he’s trusting me to mail them back to him (which I will).   So, keep an eye on your California Scooter blog, because I’ll post Jim’s incredible photos here for you to enjoy in the next week or so…