Legend of the Motorcycle Concours d'Elegance

Had the distinct pleasure of attending the first annual Legend of the Motorcycle Concours d'Elegance held at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay (a coastal town about 25 miles south of San Francisco) today. The idea behind the event was to create a world class Concours, on a par with the best in the auto world, for motorcycles. Kind of a Pebble Beach for bikes. I am no expert on vintage bikes, but this event blew my socks off. Several hundred motorcycles ranging in age from the late 1800's to the mid 1970's. Many absolute classics. In addition, they had an amazing assortment of truly fascinating custom V-Twins, vintage dirt bikes, race bikes and miscellaneous other amazing pieces of equipment. A large contingent of classic car buffs also made an appearance in an array of beautiful cars. Neat old motorcycle movie posters. A small motorcycle art collection. The odd celebrity floating about. Fairly mind blowing.

I will post just a sampler of pics here. Several hundred can be seen on my Smugmug account which is linked at the end of the report.

The setting, on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, next to the golf course:





A couple of celebs (or near celebs) :





A bunch of really cool oldies:























Some truly astonishing choppers:













Some race bikes:











Classic dirt bikes:





Flat trackers:







Classics of every type:













A few detail pics:















A few oddballs:







And even a few classic cars:





The movie posters:





Even the parking lot had its mojo working:









Quite the event. As many pics as I have shown you, they only begin to scratch the surface of what was presented at this event. I can't imagine that there has every been an accumulation of more incredible bikes of all types in one place ever before. Kind of like the Guggeneheim exhibit on steroids.

The rest of the pics can be found here.

Excellent stuff,thanks for posting them .

I swear that those are some truly outstanding photos... great job. Everyone of those old bikes are truly a work of art.

Thanks for the pics. Would have liked to make it down to Half Moon Bay.

Thanks for sharing. That radial engine chopper is cool.

Ive wanted one of these since the first time I saw it.

Uses a BMW engine with a turbo option.

http://www.peraves.ch/ndexe.htm

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but if you can't appreciate the beauty in those pics, you must be blind.

Great shots!

Great !!! I had been invited to attend as press, and was going to go, but was unable... bummer... looked really good !!!

Incredible pics, magnificent two wheeled eye candy - I hope an event like this makes it to the east coast.

Fantastic. I hope you're fully paid up on smugmug, because I think you're about to attract alot of traffic!

Many thanks for posting those, that's been a good way to spend an hour on a Sunday morning.

Outstanding!

That was great.so much to see.I would love to hear the rotary bike ride by me on the road.Thanks for sharing.

Not into choppers...but this is the best I've ever seen. It is also the only radial engine I've ever seen on two wheels and without wings. Like C Munch says, would love to hear it. Any info on the bike/engine?



Thanks heaps for showing the pics

Nice stuff KM! Lucky...

Nicest pics I've seen this year Kirk

This Ecomobile is local, I took this in '03..... he may still have it for sale.

Did not meet reserve on ebay and you cannot licence it in Canada.

Good job, Kirk

Typical HMB weather, that first pic looks like you're at St Andrews

Thanks everyone.



It did feel like St. Andrews.

We've had a helluva Spring in our parts. Started with a couple of months rain of near Biblical proportions. As soon as the rains stopped, the fog rolled in. I can't remember what that little orange ball in the sky looks like any more.

KM, thanks for all your hard work uploading all those pictures! I looked at all 308.

I need a set of those tire chains for my GS...

~DB

You win. Any other cool pics?

Pretty amazing show, huh? We decided to go at the last minute. Sure glad we did. Too bad we didn't run into each other there. Did anyone else make it?