A few weeks ago, we showed you See See Motorcycles founder Thor Drake’s spoof on his own custom motorcycle extravaganza. Here’s another video (at bottom of story) giving you the low-down on what this show was actually like.
Seems this year’s event was full of a wide variety of customs, from old-school ’70s-style choppers to flat trackers to cafe racers – something for everybody, along with minibike racing and music and other fun stuff. Hipsters, punks and keeners all seem to be having a good time, which is the true ethos behind riding, owning and customizing a motorcycle. These people get it.
Perhaps the greatest sign that they’re having a good time? Thor Drake once again makes an appearance in the video, as the hipster with the heavy fake beard at the video’s start, arriving to theme music from Napoleon Dynamite. He knows motorcycles are about fun, not about taking yourself too seriously, and it’s cool to see that he’s not caught up in the self-pretension that overtakes so many other people in this scene.
CMG Slant (Zac Kurylyk)
During the clip, someone says “They should have something like this in Canada.” Good point – why don’t we? Portland gets Dirt Quake and The One show, Milwaukee gets the Mama Tried show, and SoCal gets the Born Free show, maybe the best DIY-themed party of them all. We get … zip. There’s Mods vs. Rockers, but that’s not really along the same lines, and none of the existing chopper-custom shows are either.
Why isn’t there anything like this in Canada? I get that not everybody is into choppers, or cafe racers, or whatever, but watch that video and you’ll see the show is about much more than that. It’s about working on your own machines and having a riotously good time, and I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t get excited about that.
Re:The One Show
Why doesn’t this happen in Canada? I guess it could as long as it was held in any province other than Ontario. I can just see the insurance, lawyer’s, permits etc. involved with running such an event destroying the whole thing before it even started! At one point in the video it
shows two guys “racing”
on the “track”. One guy “crashes” and almost takes out a spectator.
Can you imagine the potential for lawsuits etc. here in Ontario?
There’s Soulseekers (http://www.soulseekersshow.com/)…though it doesn’t have quite the scale (yet).
[…] Last week, we showed you a video walking you around Portland’s The One show. Here’s a midwestern take on the same theme, Milwaukee’s Mama Tried show. […]