The 2013 Quail Motorcycle Gathering illustrated not only the set theme of the Past, Present and Future of motorcycles, but also how art can be functional. The pictures here illustrate only a small fraction of what my senses took in.

On Saturday May 4th I traveled with Team Mork, to the scenic Carmel Valley to participate in this civilized event. Imagine a proper English Garden Party with perfect weather combined with bad boys of motorcycling and lots of female riders, and you come close to this event.

Team Mork included Fred Mork himself, Ron Perconti, Jeff Scott and myself. Due to some mechanical issues we were not able to take the ten motorcycles that we’d planned on transporting. Instead we chaperoned two racing Harley Davidsons from the 1960’s and in the long run that turned out to be fine.

From the 1913 Veloce on the left of this photo, the very rare Velocette Mk VII factory racer, to Frank Recoder’s 1966 Thruxton, many decades of development are covered. Next to the VOCNA booth were the bikes of the future. The 2012 Molinari G2 is a flying bike. As the motorized vehicle moves forward, it powers the lifting propeller (not pictured). Once in the air, the other propeller (visible behind the seat) moves the vehicle forward.

In addition are many prototypes for bikes of the future. Electric motorcycles. Diesel motorcycles. Stream-lined motorcycles. Who knows?

From the top of the liner, we took some photos. It was still early in the day. The field became much more crowded later.

Everything was magnificent. The weather sparkling. The food great and abundant. The only mistake was in the sign for Fred’s collection. It seemed to predict the problems he would have getting his collection to the show. However getting a prize more than made up for any mistake.


Yes that’s Paul d’Orleans interviewing Fred. Paul was in his element as Official co-D.J. Other VOCNA members present included Frank Recoder who had two bikes in the show and was quite the star himself, and Elizabeth Recoder, John Ray who set up the VOCNA booth, Pete Young & Don Danmeier who were working as judges, Kim, Atticus and Siri Young, Debbie and Niel Macdonald, and John Sims who rode his silver Venom to the event. (He was told to park across the street, because they didn’t identify what his bike was.)
Finally it was time to go home.