Last Saturday, May 8th, was idyllic in a special way that only Carmel, CA can be. The large circular green at Quail was filled with rare and legendary machines, that included among many, a bright orange 1913 Flying Merkel 500cc Board Track Racer, a 1967 Münch Mammoth (the world's first super bike), the ex-Steve McQueen 1914 Indian Model F Boardtrack Racer, and Jay Leno's wild blue MTT Jet bike, (which was shut down by grounds keepers for setting the lawn on fire). The vibe was refreshing and relaxed, and it was a relaxed and beautiful day from moment one. The variance and personality of the different motorcycles, the set up, the care that Gordon, Courtney, Laurie and their team had set it up with, the varied vendors, which ranged from incredible aluminum tanks, Ducattis, our friends Riders For Health , the official charity, and Adam Wright, who had his photobooks there (including the new one, which is so good) - all made for an eclectic mix of all things motorcycle related, and a great mood.

Especially meaningful to us, and spear-headed by Dean Micetich from DicE Magazine, the freshly hatched custom section had transformed the field of metal wonders, into a field of friends and peers, filled with imaginative creations that reflected their technicolor metal, into the honey-fluorescent, Northern Californian light...


Here are some of our highlights, which included Jason Jesse, who is invisible on this page because he turned up with his legendary "Black Tibetan" Panhead, just as it disappeared into the noonday sun taking him along with it, before we could take a snap-shot to share it with you:


Seeing Shinya's new custom Ducati 999S, gleaming on the grass like mercury next to his 750GT round case, was surreal and beautiful. It was inspiring to see how his inventiveness translated through the mechanical eras. You can't get much better than motorcycles viewed through Shinya's lens, as far as we're concerned. His craftsmanship and design is original and phenomenal, and seeing it in person makes us bow to the angels of steel, iron and aluminum, to thank them for living at Chabbot.


Shinya and Ayu feel like kindred spirits, they are a team and do everything with full care and love. Ian really wanted to (steal) ride this bike away at a million miles per hour (and not come back) ...!


Jeff Decker brought his custom 1948 Vincent Black Shadow and 1941 custom Crocker.


The Vincent was peppered with as much subtle edge, and as many classy references pointing toward the best in motorcycle history as one would imagine, coming from the Hippodrome connoisseur. We loved it.


I've had a photo of his Crocker in my phone for a while now, and although he says he left the tank "Bulbous", so addressed that in his mind by sectioning the Vincent (which looked fantastic), I loved the lusciousness of this one too.


Kouske Saito brought his first official Sunrise Cycle. We were lucky enough to have Kosuke work with us before he started his Los Angeles based company. As a builder he's as good as they get, and he's really developed his very own style: We wish him the world and he deserves for it to become his multicolored oyster as he continues on his path.



Cole Foster was there with two of his custom motorcycles, including his 1949 Panhead (front), painted by "Wild Bill Carter". After the show, Cole and his wife Susan, had the entire motley crew of builders over to their home, and cooked a Carne Asada taco feast, fit for a king (or lots of them).


Jay LaRossa came with his family, and a 1976 CB750, a departure from his other café's in that it was covered in amazing leaf work.


Gordon McCall and the Quail were beyond inviting and good to us, almost embarrassingly so, because much as we are very proud of the work we are doing, and the level we hope we are doing it at, Falcon is a new-comer to the scene. It was incredibly nice of them though, and so appreciated. At one point, Gordon and Wayne Rainey meandered over - what a super nice and approachable man, an inspiration on so many levels! As most will know, Wayne was the top World Champion 500cc Grand Prix rider of the early 1990s, and won three consecutive World Championships riding for Yamaha before he suffered a career ending crash at Misano, Italy in 1993. A hero of ours, it was exciting to see him testing out the action of the Kestrel's hand levers and hear his appreciation for our bike.


A gorgeous, lime-gold-green elongated bubble, the Buddfab Streamliner 'flies' at a whopping 144mph despite it's mere 50cc!!




Leif and his family, Junior and Jill, and the Fiorita family. Joe F. is ultimately responsible for Falcon, in that he inspired Ian to build his first motorcycle when they were in their teens.


Robo and the three bears.


Mert Lawwill came to check out the Kestrel at one point, nerve-wracking for Ian, as although many people today know him as a featured AMA Grand Champion racer in the McQueen film, "On Any Sunday", he is also one of the top motorcycle racing frame designers and builders in the world. As such, Mert has never focused on Beauty, or had the luxury of time and no-cost barred, so he was intreagued by the Kestrel and geuninely impressed that its engine and enginnering were on par with it's looks, phew... brows wiped hard and good after that one!


Herb Harris' Works Series 'C' Black Shadow cutaway engine - the only one that is known of.




DicE Magazine's dean, was in the impossible position of having to choose a custom bike to win "Best Custom", from the motorcycles that included many built by his good friends, all of whom had put time, imagination, effort and incredible investment of all kinds into their machines. He (understandably) passed the gauntlet to a friend of his, Brett Sauder from New York, who picked the Kestrel. While it's obviously nice to be recognized for hard work, we ended up feeling kind of depressed after the fact, because there is no "winning" among friends, and no way to compete against one-off-machines, each of which had such different qualities, strong points and personality. Cole & Susan's tacos and a Guinness that night definitely helped lift our mood, as did realizing, that that the recognition really needed to go to our team of talented and crazily dedicated guys at the shop, see below: - (and to their wives: Summer, Angie and Katie, and Kids: Noah, Bella, Riley B. and Riley L.), for putting up with epic amounts of intense overtime and non-existent weekends.


From left to right: Steven Blalock, Leif Lewis, Troy Morris, Ian and Scott 'T-Bone' Jones. Overseen by Ian, these guys (along with Dan Kanzler and Jimmy Bajza who coded our cylinders, and Mike, who gave up way more than a couple nights), turned tires, hubs, half an engine, the BSA transmission, and a pile of Ian's sketches, into our follow up to the Bullet, the Kestrel. They wear these clothes to work every day, by the way. (Sponsored by Tide).


1913 Flying Merkel 500cc Single Board Track Racer


After a brief 'picnic' stop.


After the show, Ian took advantage of the miles of private road, to take the bike on a spin and start to break in the engine, which we need to do before we take it to El Mirage at the end of the month. I pretended not to care that he was tearing around for hours without a helmet in the in on-and-off-again rain.




We loved Legend of the Motorcycle, the Concourse we took the Bullet to in 2008. It was the ultimate motorcycle museum, alive, lining the green cliffs on the breezy Californian coast. Machines we'd only seen in photographs, read about and dreamed of seeing in person one day, one after the other in rows and around nooks and crannies, on the layered plateaus of grass, stretching in to the distance. As importantly, if not more, the people that loved them, raced them, rode them, and revered them; happily sharing their stories, appreciating their beauty and breathing in their pasts, whilst somehow incubating their continued meaning and future. We left that weekend, finding ourselves sharing a mutual horizon for the following year, and the calendars of newly acquired friends. When Jared and Brooke Zaugg announced that Legend was no longer (which I still don't entirely believe), we, like many, felt that something fresh and vital had gone missing in the motorcycle community.

The Quail Motorcycle Gathering  has since then created its own personality and character, style and set up and seared a place in our minds, We are proud to be invited, happy to have been included, and can't wait to see it grow. It attracts and holds a vortex of magic machines, and is helmed and attended by some wonderful people, so I hope it moves forward with much goodness in it's future.

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