24 hours on a plane for a 72 hour show. still worth every minute.

I want to share some of the photos I took while in Yokohama this year. We had a great time. The bikes were just incredible. I picked a triumph that was just about completely hand made for my best of show pick and a knucklehead with a narrowed wideglide for the 60's style award that Scott Craig and I usually give out. I think Scott would have agreed. I spoke to the guy and he bought some of the parts from El Camino last year. My best paint pick was a super, super stretched and raked HD with so much flake detail, I had no close second. It turns out, the painter was a tiny japanese girl who was soooo stoked to get the award. Each year I make the two awards that I give out. I put a blue CMS pedal into a shadow box for the 60's style award and I bastardized an old soccer trophy for the best paint award. It was great getting out into Tokyo with all the Japanese guys and checking out the shops. Most of the shops there are no larger than a single garage. No lifts in some of them. Clothing on the walls to help augment the slow season. Really doing it for the love of it. I relate. I really love motorcycles and Harley Choppers specifically but the whole he said-she said/I decide who's cool movement going around has really turned me off to our scene at home. There aren't enough of us to alienate even one guy or girl. The scene is so small that you  just can't afford to blacklist people. With the Japanese guys, all they care about is that you are there, you dig the parts and the bikes and that you care enough to get together. Try that at home. It's funny that the Japanese have to teach US how to be bikers. Until everyone here can dig riding for riding's sake and get past this new chopper royalty shit, I'm tuning out. The knuckle on the BelraY wood display was my 60's style pick. He was there with his wife and two year old daughter. The nicest people you could ever meet. The front ends I shot 'cause I knew stretch would get a kick out of them. The rest were mostly parking lot bikes. The video is the Hide booth. It was pretty cool. They had a projector screen showing surfing and motorcycling and they were blasting rock and roll. I dug it.