Some of you may know from reading Sonja's blog that we met in Tacoma on Saturday to visit and attend the "Meet at the Ace - A Summer Shakedown 2012 Vintage Motorcycle and Scooter Festival" sponsored by the Ace Cafe London. In case you haven't seen it, Sonja's trip report can be read by clicking this link ----> Link
Troubadour and I arrived in Tacoma around 10:00 am and drove straight to the hotel. We knew we were too early to check in but thought we could leave our car parked there and save the $10 parking fee at the LeMay Car Museum (location of the motorcycle show). The hotel had no problem with that and gave us a pass to park in their underground garage.
As we were walking out we noticed this loaded BMW from British Columbia. I'd be worried those auxiliary lights would be taken out by a rock.
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| (Loaded BMW) |
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| (some serious lights on the crash bars) |
We wandered over towards the LeMay and realized the bikes were still rolling in. We thought it best to wait until later to commence the drooling. And so we walked. It was a beautiful sunny day and we'd never really been in Tacoma.
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| (Random bridge in Tacoma) |
We found ourselves at the MOG - Museum of Glass. We'd heard from our friend RickRick that it was an interesting place to tour.
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| (Museum of Glass - Tacoma, WA) |
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| (Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA) |
The museum wasn't quite what we expected. More of a gallery of fancy pieces than any history or factoids. We probably should have looked it up online first. I did take a few pictures that I will share in a future post.
We met Sonja and Roland at Quickie Too and had a nice lunch and were able to talk and visit and eat way too much. Lunch was good but I did find it was a little salty judging by how much water I would later drink.
Here are some of the highlights from the motorcycle show.
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| (Summer Shakedown - LeMay Car Museum in silver building on left) |
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| (Laverda) |
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| (1937 Triumph Tiger 90) |
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| (Norton) |
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| (1956 Triumph TR6) |
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| (Suzuki 125 cc) |
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| (Triumph Daytona in imperial purple and silver) |
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| (Yamaha XS-650) |
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| (Yamaha 250 cc) |
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| (Bikes with the Tacoma Dome in background) |
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| (Gorgeous 1973 Triumph Hurricane X 75 - only 1,048 were produced) |
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| (1973 Triumph Hurricane X 75 - designed by Craig Vetter) |
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| (interesting BMW by Puget Sound Autobody) |
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| (vintage scooter) |
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| (Pretty Lambretta scooter) |
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| (Vintage Indian with sidecar) |
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| (Vintage Sears motorcycle) |
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| (Complete with authentic Pacific Northwest rust) |
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| (Harley Davidson) |
These are the niceset of the pictures I took of the motorcycles entered in the Summer Shakedown. In a follow up post I will include pictures of the cars, motorcycles and scooters from the LeMay Car Museum.
This was the view from our hotel room window. We stayed at the Best Western Tacoma Dome Hotel.
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| (LeMay Car Museum and a lot of motorcycles) |
to be continued.........
- Au Revoir
" Fun is about as good a habit as there is." - Jimmy Buffet
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I love pics of old bikes, Geoff will be along shortly to dribble as wel.....
ReplyDeleteIt was fun wandering around in the sunshine checking them out.
DeleteWonderful photos. All of the bikes look wonderfully simple without all of the modern improvements. Not much to go wrong on any of them. (I like that!)
ReplyDeleteAnd what a great hotel you found near the show.
Definitely they are a less complex bike than the bikes of today. ALthough I do enjoy my fuel injection.
DeleteWe knew the hotel was close but I didn't realize it was that close. It was a very nice clean hotel which was appreciated.
Trobairitz:
ReplyDeletewhat a lovely day to sightsee in a different city. Tacoma seems to be a place we are always passing and not stopping to see what they have to offer. Didn't seem like that many people were walking about, perhaps a bit early in the day
If I had my choice I wouldn't know which one to pick
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
My Flickr // My YouTube
I think we were a little late in the day. We were by early when the bikes were rolling in and just went to the car museum then we came back about 3 and took pictures of the bikes.
DeleteThanks for all the old bike pics. It's nice to see well preserved or restored oldies!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome. Someone definitely put a lot of work into those bikes.
DeleteI don't remember seeing any Kawasaki models though. Odd now that I think of it.
Love the old Triumphs and LOVE that old flathead.
ReplyDeleteWas gonna ask if the Museum of Glass is a museum about glass things, or a museum made of glass, but your post explains this.
I thought you might like the old Harley. Thanks for identifying it as a flathead for me.
DeleteThe museum I think was more for rich people to look at very expensive pieces of glass art. All pieces behind glass cases, security guard wandering around. We were so out of place, lol. Although they do have a residency program and we got to watch the students work the kilns and that was cool.
Great day! The MOG building is interesting. Looks like the top of a space ship coming out of the earth. :)
ReplyDeleteI favor that TR6. Gorgeous!!
I have pictures from inside the cone I'll share with the MOG post. It was above the kiln room.
DeleteI could see you rockin' that TR6. Hair screaming out behind you - hollaring into the wind........
Its just like our very own Oregon Vintage Motorcycle show and swapmeet.....Just with more sunshine.. Amazing, the weather actually cooperated...they do have 300 days of rain on avg..
ReplyDeleteedit.....
DeleteI imagine that is what Don's garage looks like sometimes....
Are sure Don was not there.?????
The sunshine was nice, but we came to the conclusion that there are more bikes at the OVM than there were at this show. They were just spread out further in Tacoma than what they are at the fairgrounds at home.
DeleteI didn't see Donn, but you never know what his garage could look like. His Harley and Triumph probably would have won ribbons.
Lucky you were so early in the day. Later on we had more people around the bikes, and it wasn't that easy to get a pristine shot. I like the shiny effect.
ReplyDeletePS: Now that you're mentioning it, maybe the food was a wee bit on the salty side, I was so thirsty but I chose to blame it on the warm weather.
Believe it or not these bike pictures were taken when we went over in the afternoon with you and Roland. We only went into the car museum earlier in the day. Maybe we had the "we've only had 2 hours sleep - back off" looks on our faces and it kept people away.
DeleteI could have adjusted the camera to avoid the shiny effect, but I was too lazy. I figured they'd look like superstars this way.
I think we went through a lot of those bottles of water at dinner. That is what made me think of lunch as being salty.
I'm not the biggest fan of vintage motorcycles, prefering a bit of technology. But boy I can appreciate the amount of man hours that have gone into these oldies to make them look like they just come off the showroom floor.
ReplyDeleteI just like to wander around and look at how well they have been fixed up and preserved. I still prefer the reliability of my newer machine with all it's technology. Sure that makes it harder to fix with more bits to go wrong, but that just keeps the mechanics employed.
DeleteSuperb old timers at that show.
ReplyDeleteMy how the Ace Cafe has long tendrils. It's not more than 15 miles from where I am sitting, right now, on the A406 and it is sponsoring events 6000 miles away.....
I believe I read somewhere that this is the only event in North America that the Ace has ever leant their name to. We'll see if they decide to make it an annual event or not. Troubadour picked up a T-shirt just in case it is the only one.
DeleteI'd much rather hop across the pond and visit the real Ace Cafe. You are lucky you happen to be so close.
Brandy,
ReplyDeleteRoger had it spot on and I'll hold you personally responsible if the drool on the keyboard shorts something out!! Fabulous photos thanks and what a pleasure it is to see early Japanese bikes being restored as well as British ones. It's really exciting to imagine what must be lurking in people's sheds the world over!
Hopefully your keyboard still works Geoff. Can you just imagine what some people have stored away hiding them from the world........
DeleteBrandy,
ReplyDeleteLooks like a great show - You know I have a soft spot for Yamaha and I don't see the oldies restored often thanks for capturing a couple. I usually only see the Brits restored, but then I have a couple of friends who specialize in restoring them. I have to agree with you, if I'm really gonna ride it, I prefer modern technology. To me, the vintage bikes are art!
It was nice to see some of the older Japanese bikes all shined up and restored. I agree, we usually see Brit bikes too. Except at our local Oregon Vintage Motorcycle Show - there are usually a lot of Kawasakis.
DeleteI'd never seen the Hurricane before. Very nice. I think that is my favorite.
ReplyDelete~k
I don't know if I'd seen one before either. But it was my favorite too. Well either that or the purple and silver Daytona.
DeleteI honestly couldnt pick a favourite from that lot. Looks like another great day for you guys .. and so shiny and glittery :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the awsome pics (mind you, nearly any pic of a bike is awsome isnt it?) I had to look a few times before I could absorb it all.
Everything was really shiny. I wasn't complaining though, it was nice to soak up some sun.
DeleteI am glad you enjoyed the pics Brenda.
I wish we had more Vintage events down here in Arkansas. THAT looks AMAZING! I'm sure I would have been drooling.....
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of us were drooling. I am not sure why, but we seem to have a lot of vintage events in the pacific Northwest.
DeleteThanks for stopping by Chris.