Coop's Corner: International Motorcycle Show

Saturday, January 12, 2013

International Motorcycle Show - Minneapolis

The weather the last few days has been almost spring-like, warm(er), on and off rain, melting snow, etc., that is until overnight and today. Cold westerly winds took the tease of spring away so it was a good thing we had All Things Motorcycle to enjoy this weekend.

My day started early, only slightly later than a weekday. Up to Minneapolis for coffee with the Usual Suspects, then down to the Minneapolis Convention Center for the show. I wasn't brave enough to volunteer to work the VJMC booth, but many of the coffee folks did. The only thing I had to contribute was my wearing of this year's T-shirt, promoting our local VJMC chapter on the front and highlighting the 1969 Kawasaki Mach III. I thought the booth, in conjunction with the local Viking Chapter of the AMCA was a fantastic display of vintage machines. Interest by the attendees seemed very high.

An interesting take on an XS650 Yamaha.....

I had no idea winches were the farkle of choice for the little off-road machines.

And another.....I guess I'll have to start looking at bigger machines, none of mine are big enough to carry a winch.

For as much fun as it is to look at the machines, attendance at the show for me is actually more of a social event; running into people I see often as well as rarely with the perfect opportunity to talk two wheel motorized machines. Sometimes we often talk about other things. Multiple Dave's, Mike's, Jeff's, Tom, Kevin, Brent, Robin, Mark, another Doug, Chris, Seth and then Joanne, Bob, Gary,Nina, Rhonda, Steve and others, all folks I saw and never managed to catch up with again.

This year's 6 hour presence at the show set a record for me, though the time passed quickly and getting a chance to chat with so many was great....I even had a chance to sit on a few bikes.

The Ducati women were prominent this year....I think those were iPads they were carrying around, weren't they?? Friend Mike got a nice photograph of one of the women, of course dressed in red. All of them were wearing very striking footwear but Mike's photo didn't include her shoes which was probably a good thing since Acrophobia might easily befall you had they been shown.....it was a very long ways to the floor from where the photo stopped.

Rather than dwell on photographing the new motorcycles which are easily seen so many other places, I was more interested in zeroing in on the GP race bikes.

Though I'm not really sure, one can only speculate that these guys had a series of technical questions....

12 comments:

Erik RJanuary 13, 2013 at 11:43 AM
I was down in the cities on Saturday. I would have preferred to me at the show, but I had to attend a most unusual(putting it mildly) family function. My cousin passed away on Thursday and his wife made no funeral arraignments??. The other family members, his sisters and children, that flew in from all over had no meeting place or service to attend. My sister in Bloomington stepped up and offered her house as a meeting place for for everyone on Saturday. The widow attended, but fell in the driveway and dislocated her hip!
It was a most unusual day!
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TrobairitzJanuary 13, 2013 at 2:59 PM
Wow Erik - a series of unfortunate events.

I didn't notice any winches on bikes in Seattle. I wonder if that is a midwest thing? Wenches on the other hand may have been abundant in Seattle. :-)
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SonjaMJanuary 13, 2013 at 9:10 PM
Nothing better than spending a winter day on a motorcycle show. Ours is coming up soon.
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RichardMJanuary 14, 2013 at 1:28 AM
One of these days I'll make it to one of these shows.

On the sidecar forums in advrider there are several Ural and dual sport hack rigs that are sporting winches. Those seem almost too high to be useful but that's just my opinion...
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VStar LadyJanuary 14, 2013 at 7:54 PM
Coop - a motorcycle show is a great way to wile away the day ... even if it is like spring outside (the spring'ish' thing hit here as well.) We have winches on the ATVs here and they're great as long as you get mired close enough to winch to something ... as far as the Wenches that Brandy mentioned, they mostly, don't like getting muddy so we find them in the show rooms only!
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UnknownJanuary 15, 2013 at 1:29 PM
Coop:

Our M/C show starts this weekend. But I have nothing to buy, I don't need anything so I may not go

I have also heard from our local forum that things are different this year. All the small guys have been "cut" because of the higher booth rents so there will be no clubs or other associations that were there before. The promoters are trying to make money with less vendors paying higher fees, but all the big guys will be there showing off their bikes
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayJanuary 15, 2013 at 1:34 PM
I didn't spend a dime either and doubt that any brand new machines are in my future.

Our VJMC group and the Antique Club got adjacent spaces; I have no idea what our space cost. Looks like your CA show is different than our IMS
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Katelynn WoodburyJanuary 17, 2013 at 3:30 PM
You’re right. We see bikes every day, but we don’t appreciate their beauty that often. I say motorcycle shows are perfect to share your passion with fellow riders. And if you’re lucky, you might even score rare parts! Anyway, that show has a nice collection of vintage bikes.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)