Wheels & Waves Cayucos

[A co-production of the Southsiders MC and TheVintagent.com]

The Southsiders MC have been organizing rides in Biarritz/the Pyrenees/Spain since 2009, when we made up a baker’s dozen for a few days riding on vintage machines.  I’d met Vincent Prat at the Legend of the Motorcycle Concours in Half Moon Bay in 2008, and he’d invited me to come ride with his friends in France. With exceptional riding roads, little traffic, and terrific Basque food, our merry band of vintagents had found a perfect combination of company and environment. 

The event was repeated the next year, and the next, growing with each iteration; by 2011, the Southsiders added a party in Toulouse to the ride, with an art exhibit and music, which was the prototype for Wheels&Waves, which began in June 2012 in Biarritz.  That little ride with a dozen of us is now an event with 15,000 attendees, still with the ride in the mountains, and other fun in the region, like the Punk’s Peak hillclimb/sprint, and now a flattrack race in Spain, along with the ArtRide exhibit, and music at the central ‘village’ at the Cité de l’Ocean in Biarritz.  It’s a terrific mix of moto-centric fun, and a unique mix of the vintage, custom, chopper, surf, race, and skate scenes.

What does this have to do with The Vintagent?  It’s a strategy: one-make vintage motorcycle clubs, and groups like the VMCC and AMCA, have an aging membership, and their members/boards lament and fret on how to interest younger riders in old machines.  Younger riders are in fact already interested in old machines – alt.custom sites like Pipeburn and BikeExif feature plenty – but aren’t interested in hanging around a boring bike club.    A mix of old an new machines is happening organically at events like the BikeShed and Wheels&Waves; what better place to fan the interest of younger riders than to bring old bikes, and ride them in the mix at cool events?

To support this concept, TheVintagent partnered with the Southsiders MC last month to host Wheels&Waves Cayucos, a low-key flag-planting on American soil of a great event.  A few friends were invited to the Swallow Creek Ranch for 2 days of riding through the Central Coast hills, and an opportunity to hang out without distraction.  Our mascot for the event was Richard Vincent, who raced Velocettes and Triumphs in Santa Barbara in the early 1960s, and surfed in the area too.  Richard brought his vintage surfboards, Velocette dirt racers, and a bunch of photographs from his racing/surfing days.  Susan and I shot MotoTintypes with our Wet Plate Van, and portraits of a few friends, which I’m sharing here, along with a few of my iPhone shots.  Stay tuned for next year’s event!