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:

  1. 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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    1. Erik!! I'm thinking you ALL belonged at the Convention Center...there are quiet corners if you know where to look :)

      Our ice wasn't very friendly, I fell going to the barn to feed the cats in the dark last night, luckily my hip is still where it belongs. Hope your cousin's hip heals well.

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  2. 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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    1. Brandy, I was tempted but left it for you :)

      Thinking I've been paying attention, seeing the small winches on two bikes came as a surprise. Don't expect to see any on my bikes in the near future, though there was one time this summer when I might have used one.....no, I'll choose to go without for the time being.

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  3. Nothing better than spending a winter day on a motorcycle show. Ours is coming up soon.

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  4. 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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    1. Richard, I hadn't even considered mounting height. Seems like pulling an up high machine that would tend to tip low for the shortest path might be a challenge.

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  5. 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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    1. Karen, I really enjoyed myself, probably as much as any show before. We all spread out so much with different riding styles and machines, etc that it gets hard to see everyone unless just the right event is the excuse.... the Show is it.

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  6. 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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  7. 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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  8. 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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