Solvang Motorcycle Museum

95 Really Special Bikes.

Click on the link below to go to the museum website.

The Museum

There were only four people there for the special opening of the museum. 

The lady who is the assistant to the owner opened up for us an gave a brief history of the place.

 This is the legendary Mike (the bike) Hailwood, who despite winning multiple TT events and the Italian Grand Prix died at the age of 40 when he and his young family were hit by a truck making an illegal turn. Hailwod and his 9 year old daughter were killed. The truck driver was fined $150.

This is a highly modified Vincent meant to do one thing.

Go very fast!
That is the biggest SU carb I have ever seen. It probably would pull enough gas to power a 747.

I like looking at oddball shit and this is certainly oddball.

This is a small version of a rotary aircraft engine, the crankshaft  also front axle stands still and the cylinders revolve around it.

That's got to be some kind of GYRO effect!

You would not want to ride it, but this is such a great looking bike.

The MARS built in Germany.

A V8 Moto Guzzi twin OHC with 8 sets of points to time.

How about that for a challenge.

As shown in the picture it does not have the "DUSTBIN FAIRING"

This is what it would have looked like back in the day.

This is a very good looking AJS 7R called the boy racer, a very fast machine and becoming increasingly collectible.

This is a rotary engine Norton similar to the one they had in the museum.

For some reason I don't have a picture of it.

However, it struck a chord, the classic stick in the mud, British Motorcycle industry were slow to move to multiple cylinder machines despite the Japanese onslaught.

Then they take a humongous leap of faith to a rotary engine which was miserably inefficient and a complete dog. Apart from which it looks like crap. OK miserably inefficient might be a stretch but they were very prone to seal wear and needed frequent and very expensive rebuilds.

The one in the museum had zero miles on the clock, not surprising to me.

These are just a few highlights from the visit.

Enjoy.
Ciao Bella
Norm

First Ride On The New Scoot

The New Scoot!

As most of you already know, we traded the two wheel Harley for a three wheel version.

There were lots of pros and cons, but finally common sense prevailed.

We decided to get away from the potential danger of dropping the bike and move to the more stable three wheel platform. Riding it is something of a learning curve but it gets better each time.

Here's the Leopardlady ready to go.

We rode up the 405 freeway out past LAX to the junction with the 101 and then took the 101 out to the coast in Ventura.

The roughness of the 405 freeway is something of a challenge, fortunately the scoot has handles built in for the passenger to grab.

Once in Solvang, we checked into the hotel Corque, a very nice place and almost new.

As one might expect, it was decorated for Christmas.

This was the view from the balcony of our room.

In the evening we decided to take a walk "downtown" to check it out. As we walked along we passed the city crew who roll up the side walks and take in the street lights at 7:30 pm.

So I started looking for signs of life, my favorite is an illuminated two word sign:

We went into this place which was pretty well empty apart from a couple who were doing dance step practice, odd I thought. BUT as this place had Bud I can deal with odd.

As the time progressed, it transpired that this was dance class night, there were people from Lompoc and Santa Barbara who had driven in for the class. The guy who was the "instructor" was about as annoying as possible as he used the same to phrases repetitively. Victor Sylvester he ain't!

OK, I know Victor Sylvester now I'm showing my age. Look him up on GOOGLE.

We decided to travel a little further down the main drag and as we were passing the parking lot of a restaurant / bar there was a guy unloading instruments from a VW bus.

"Do you want to hear some music" he said with a strong Danish accent. (Turns out he really is Danish)

We were lured into the place, the music was to be performed in the bar so we sat down and ordered food and drinks, no Bud just "Craft Beers" here the bar tender informed me. I think that he could tell that I was not impressed.

There were only a couple of people in the place when we got there. More started drifting in until it was jumping. The duo were very accomplished musicians who traded a variety of instruments back and forth between them.

An announcement was made that this was an open mike night. 

"Oh! shit I thought, Karaoke"

But I was wrong, yes I know it surprised me too.

To quote Jimmy Buffet

" A lady dressed in purple 

who was dancing all alone

wandered oh so gently

 to the vacant microphone"

Well she was actually dressed in blue.

It would appear that she was well known to the local crowd, and boy could that lady sing.

Her timing and delivery were impressive to say they least.

In fact she was so good that no one else stood up to sing.

Then the dance music started!

This guy named Ollie from London did not know what hit him. Never having met the Leopardlady until that evening.

But he still could manage a smile.

He and his buddy Rob were really good sports, they were on a short sightseeing tour. Rob works in Santa Monica and Ollie was over on vacation to visit him.

Next day, my birthday we walked around town and visited one of the famous bakeries.

My birthday treat, a humongous pastry filled with jam.

Then on to the main event of the day a visit to the Solvang Motorcycle Museum.

I won't bore you with the details here as I intend to have a separate post for the gearheads covering that part of the trip.

In the afternoon we took a ride over to the casino which is being extended and rebuilt extensively inside.

I had my usual luck in Indian casinos, so it was a short visit.

At dinner that night with my birthday cake.

Attached to the hotel was a very swish restaurant and lounge. Again they were overboard on the Christmas theme.

I thought that this Christmas tree was both elegant and innovative. 

This was the construction!

All too soon it was time to saddle up and head for home.

As we were preparing to leave, there was a group of Asian tourists outside the hotel.

My guess is that they had never encountered a Harley let alone a Harley trike complete with a Leopard adorned passenger, she is now being shared with half of the world on FACEBOOK or some equivalent.

It was a cold start to the ride home, but we made back in one piece.

More on the museum soon.

Ciao Bella

Norm

Update on The Birthday Events

It seems like it has been a long time since I said there would be an update soon.
I've been going through some computer issues and have only now resolved them to a point where I can make a posting.

On the actual night of Anne's birthday, we went to the Performing Arts Center in Cerritos to see Flash Dance.
Not my bag, but then it wasn't for my birthday. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it more than I thought that I would.

Missy stayed with Brent and Jake and we spent the night in the hotel opposite the Performing Arts C

enter.

Ready to go across the street to the show.

Inside the theater.


A couple of weeks later I was seconded at the last minute to accompany Anne to a performance by a Pink Floyd tribute band when Brent had to cancel..

The band is called Which One's Pink.

The event was held in the Lido theater in Newport Beach, an announcement was made prior to the show that the building is to be flattened in January, no more bands.

We took LYFT there and back so that we could have a couple of brewskis, at $10 for a Bud I almost needed resuscitation!

Once back home there was a photo op in the yard with the new scoot,

 Training wheels and all.

More about the scoot on the next post.

Ciao,
Norm

Lots Going On

Wow!

There's a lot of stuff to cover with this post.

I'll give you a list first and then the details for each event.

1) A few weeks ago we had a neighbor dinner.
2) The celebration season opened with a theater trip for Anne's birthday.
3) Rick and I rescued a bike.
4) The wind blew the awning off the house.
5) We put the awning back on the house.
6) The birthday season continues with a theater trip to see Flash Dance.

Neighbor Dinner

I decided to cook some Spanish themed food for a neighbor dinner following our recent trip.

The main course was a pork chop stuffed with chorizo and corn bread, with patatas bravas on the side.

The recipe I used was provided by an American chef which she found in Canada, go figure!

It turned out really well.

We had Tapas outside in the yard to start, pinchitos morunos are my personal favorites.

Check the bar sign provided by Joni and Charles.

We had entertainment, of course.

On this occasion it was provided by Maria, our Au Pair girl who looks after Missy.

She sang "The Spaniard Who Blighted My Life" and accompanied herself on the castanets.

The chorus line, Charles, Joni, Jim and Marjorie were heavily involved in the "Oh Yes - Oh No" parts.

I was not, as my singing voice is not what it was.

Nah! I never could sing.

I tried out for the church choir once and the following week someone commented to the vicar that the organ needed to be tuned!

So much for that idea.

The Birthday Season

I saw that Schubert's Piano Quintet, The Trout Suite was being performed in Orange County and decided to get tickets for the start of the birthday season.

For those of you on the other side of the pond, the Trout Suite is the theme music for the TV series "Waiting For God".

When I saw most of the audience, I thought  "How apt"

We booked brunch at Scott's in Costa Mesa before the show, when we arrived we found that they had a jazz performance during the meal. The show was hosted by a local jazz DJ Mr. Bubba Jackson, and a really nice guy is too..

It was quite a surprise to find that Scott's is closing in January, as Mr Jackson said, it;s all about the money!

Back to the plot.

We walked along to the Samueli Theater which is part of the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

A very nice venue for a chamber orchestra recital.

The music was introduced and led from the piano by Orli Shaham,sister of Gil Shaham, a world famous violinist, not that it matters if you aren't a music buff. Just thought that I would throw it in.

Of course, as always, the piece you want to hear is performed last, so that you have to hear a couple of other things that you may or may not enjoy!

OK, not everyone's idea of a fun afternoon but we enjoyed it.
The venue was great,the musicians fantastic and the composer dead a very long time, my favorite combination.
They make it look so easy.
Note the guy sitting behind Orli Shaham, he is the music page turner.
The other guys have to turn their own pages, but she plays in every part of the piece and needs the pages turned when she nods.

Bike Rescue

After a couple of fruitless trips to the end of the earth looking for bikes for Rick we went over to Fountain Valley, about 5 miles from home and picked up a Kawasaki 500 Ninja with really low miles.

It was an easy pick up as the bike started and was able to be ridden on to the back of the truck.

Rick is very happy with the bike so far.

Awning

As we were loading the bike on to the truck in Fountain Valley, one of the neighbors came out to chat, as we were talking I commented about the sun umbrella on his front yard. When he looked around he was very surprised to see it there as it had been in the back yard a minute before.

The wind had blown it over the roof.

A short while later, Anne called to say that the wind had blown down one of our awnings.

It looks like it was a very localized strong gusty downdraft.

Rick and Girvan to the rescue.

New attachments with lots of extra bolts were installed and the awing re-mounted.

Anne's Birthday 

Tonight we go to see Flash Dance at the theater in Cerritos.

There will be an update on that and her other birthday celebrations real soon.

Ciao Bella

Norm