Author: Morgan Gales

Any other weekend in Santa Barbara and you’d never guess that Steve McQueen and James Dean used to race on these streets. The high-end Southern California beach town is no longer known for its adrenaline-inducing roadraces, but rather its beautiful views and expensive real estate—but that didn’t stop TROG. The Race of Gentlemen has managed to shake up the surfside community, bringing classic cars and motorcycles to race side by side through the city streets once more.

Nick Toscano on his dual-carbed 1950 EL Panhead was one of the fastest riders of the day. (Morgan Gales/)

Cabrillo Boulevard runs parallel to one of Santa Barbara’s most prominent beaches—a long, straight(ish) road perfect for converting into a makeshift dragstrip. This was to be the one-day home of The Race of Gentlemen, an event series started on the East Coast to celebrate old-timey racing, race vehicles, and the culture that surrounds them. Motorcycles have to be made before 1947 and all cars are required to be manufactured prior to 1953. The rules are a bit exhausting, limiting any and all non-period correct modifications, but, hey, that’s how they keep it tight. Drivers and riders dress in 1930s–’50s attire as if to make it seem like you’ve just stepped out of a time machine, something that works a little better when you’re on the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey, like the original event, as opposed to outside of a Hilton Hotel like this one.

Over the course of the day, cars and bikes ran down the strip in different pairings. Some spitting rubber, burning out, and tearing down the road, others slowly sputtering to life as riders push off with their feet to get going. The selection of vehicles wasn’t massive, numbering somewhere close to 40 in all, and when each race takes less than 30 seconds and the event runs all day—that’s a whole lot of runs for the same cars and bikes. We were lucky enough to not witness any crashes, though we did see a couple of participants break their cars at the starting line and have to be pushed off.

They haven’t announced plans to come back to Santa Barbara next year, but we’re hoping to see TROG back on the West Coast again. While it was great to see racing back in Santa Barbara, we have our fingers crossed for another event on the beach.

Atsushi Yasui with the thousand-yard stare as he gets pushed up to the starting line. (Morgan Gales/)

Dressed in period-correct clothing or not, everyone was out there to go fast and have a good time. (Morgan Gales/)

Grant Peterson of the Born-Free Show loses the launch. (Morgan Gales/)

Harley-Davidson was the main sponsor of this year’s event. (Morgan Gales/)

Go Takamine taking another win on the 1937 Indian Sport Scout. (Morgan Gales/)

Josh Kohn getting in the zone before throwing his Flathead down the strip. (Morgan Gales/)

One of the rules is “no hydraulic forks”—springers, girders, and leaf springs only. (Morgan Gales/)

The backdrop of fences and gates isn’t as visually pleasing as the beach in New Jersey, but racing on the streets of Santa Barbara is worth it. (Morgan Gales/)

The cars may be pre-1953 but they can still burn some rubber. (Morgan Gales/)

Racing a bike built with help from his recently deceased teacher and mentor, Smoky, Go Takamine took win after win. (Morgan Gales/)

The DJ and announcers’ booth sat on an old custom van near the starting line. (Morgan Gales/)

Tom Branch about to race his Roadster down the strip. (Morgan Gales/)

While we did miss the flag girl, this guy’s enthusiasm more than made up for it. (Morgan Gales/)

See you next year! (Morgan Gales/)

The Sergeant pants from Fuel Moto look like the sort of pants my dad would have worn riding his old Honda thumper off-road in the ’70s. Suede panels, accordion sections, quilted padding on the thighs—they hit all the key points of well-constructed old-school riding gear but with a little more modern tech than meets the eye.

Constructed of an 11.5-ounce stretch cotton twill on the outside and backed with an abrasion-resistant aramid layer in the seat and knees, the Sergeant will keep you safer than normal jeans even without the pads. CE Level 2 padding does come equipped, however, in the knees and hips. The knee pads conveniently slip out from the outside, as you can see in the video, which is great when you’re walking around off the bike—those pads can be a little cumbersome.

In The Mail: Sportster Chain Conversion Kit By Zippers Performance

While I initially got these pants for some dirt and adventure riding, I continuously find myself surprised by how at-home they look on everything I ride. They fit a little small in the waist, so if you’re between two sizes, go for the bigger one. The hem on the pants is also quite short, which is why you see them pictured with tall dirt boots so often—this may limit off-bike wearability for some of us taller guys, but I pair them with some tall Red Wings and they don’t look bad at all.

Priced at 275 euro, or about $310 US, they’re right where you’d expect them to be considering all the materials and pads used. Stay tuned for an in-depth review once we get some time wearing these rad new pants and head over to Fuel Moto’s website to check out other products in the meantime!

Virtually every Sportster will go through a transformation over its lifetime. The entry-level Harley-Davidson is one of the most customized bikes in the US, and for good reason. You can pick them up cheap and they have been produced with essentially the same engine since 1986, meaning lots of parts are readily available. From choppers and bobbers to racers and extreme custom applications, the Evo Sportster motor has powered them all.

When you’re building a racer out of a Sporty, changing from a belt drive to a chain is a must. A chain provides a stronger driveline and is both cheaper and easier to repair when it does break, but the main reason for the conversion is the ability to change your gear ratios—finding the right balance between horsepower and torque by adjusting sprocket size. After talking to the team at Zipper’s Performance, we decided a 23-tooth steel front and 53-tooth aluminum rear would be the ideal setup for my bike as it was going to be commuting and spending some time on the highway occasionally but also taken off road for some scrambling on the weekends.

So I went and ordered the whole kit. Front and rear sprocket, front sprocket spacer, and a fancy gold RX-ring chain from RK Racing Chain to match my gold wheels (I had to). Altogether, I was out $333. It’s on my bike now and I’m happy with the performance ratio as well as the look of both the chain and sprocket.

RELATED: 5 Grips For Your Sportster

Check out zippersperformance.com for more performance H-D and Indian parts.

I remember the first twist of the throttle riding Yamaha’s XSR900 and the front tire floating above the pavement as I exited my first turn. My eyes widened in my helmet, my ass pinched the seat as my hands tightened on the grips. I had wanted to ride the bike for months leading up to this because I loved the styling of it, but now realizing that it’s a high-performance modern sportbike (just in a stylish package), I could tell we were going to need some serious time together and I was going to improve as a rider because of it.

Style is a natural part of motorcycling, from the gear you wear to the bike you ride. If these bikes had full fairings and looked like you should only be riding in a full-leather tracksuit, I wouldn’t be nearly as attracted to them as I am. But my time on these deceptively aggressive machines has made me a better rider, forcing me to be more conservative with my throttle hand, focus on brake feel and body positioning. While riding up until this moment had been more of a mellow cruise, these bikes make it a sport, and I wanted to keep getting better.

These five motorcycles are stylish, modern, and appeal to both the aesthetic and performance sensitivities within us. Come for the style, stay for the trackdays.

This bike is no joke. Despite its art-school aesthetics, the Vitpilen is a rowdy beast just waiting to be ridden hard. In fact, it hardly lends itself to riding easy. Clip-on handlebars, rearset foot controls, and an incredibly torque-rich, single-cylinder, 693cc engine will have you trying to drop a knee in corners or ride out third-gear wheelies. At 346 pounds dry, the Vitpilen is here to make skilled riders out of hipsters, and I think it’s going to work. (Husqvarna/)

While this bike is designed for some dirt scrambling as well as on-road shredding, it has enough performance chops in each category to inspire riders to hop off the road on to a trail, or get a little deeper into that next turn. The bike carries its 456 pounds of wet weight well, feeling lighter than it is with reactive, nimble handling. Good ground clearance and suspension, a torque-rich 803cc L-twin and Pirelli Scorpion Rally STR tires that grip both road and dirt surprisingly well make this bike a stylish option that most riders will grow into, rather than out of over time. (Ducati/)

The Triumph Thruxton was born to win races, handbuilt and in very limited numbers when it was first released in 1965. The modern Thruxton R takes that same racing spirit and elevates the Bonneville platform with Öhlins suspension in the rear, Showa fork, and Brembo brakes—working with the 75 pound-feet of torque and 87.4-hp engine to make this bike as capable as it is good looking. Clip-on handlebars, rearset foot controls, and a tall, café-style tailsection give the Thruxton the most aggressive ergos in the Bonnie lineup, which is suiting as it is definitely the rowdiest bike in that bunch. (Triumph/)

The bike that won <a href=”https://www.cycleworld.com/best-middleweight-streetbike-yamaha-xsr900″><em>Cycle World</em>’s Best Middleweight Streetbike of 2016</a> didn’t do so on looks alone. Somewhere between naked sportbike and a heritage-styled model, the XSR900 will have you grinning like an idiot in your helmet as it easily pulls into wheelies but can also be tamed a bit with its multiple power-delivery modes. The inline three-cylinder engine puts out 102.82 hp in our testing. (Yamaha/)

Honda’s neo-retro CB1000R is a fun, well-rounded bike, but it will kick your butt if you let it. It’s fast, nimble, and comfortable, whether you’re sending it through some tight corners or just cruising around town. We tested the CB1000R at 121.83 hp and 68.81 pound-feet of torque, and the electronics do a good job of taming that power for the street if you want them to. When you’re ready to open it up, however, this bike is ready for it. (Honda/)

What started out as sort of a joke has turned itself into a full-blown art form here at The One Moto Show. A Coleman 100cc pull-start will cost you all of $350 online, but these builders are throwing countless hours at them to turn them into the awesome customs we saw on display. While they come in a small package, a lot of work went into these little customs.

From pristinely restored Honda Trails and Monkeys to the lineup of pull-start choppers, there’s no doubt that all builders involved had a lot of fun with these bikes. Now off to Mama Tried to watch even more minis compete at the Flat Out Friday races!

RELATED LINK:
Minibikes Are Ramping Up For A Resurgence
Custom Minibikes Of Mooneyes Yokohama

When the show was over, the HWY team chained this to a pole outside of See See and posted the code to the lock on their Instagram for one lucky winner. It lasted three minutes. (Morgan Gales/)

Warren Kendall’s little orange chop had us wishing we were 3 feet tall (Morgan Gales/)

Utopeia Moto’s Honda 250 (Morgan Gales/)

Savannah Rose built this mini to match her KitchenMade chopper (Morgan Gales/)

Rich Silva’s stoner chopper might be the most work ever put into a pull-start (Morgan Gales/)

A replica Panhead primary on Warren Heir’s tiny chopper (Morgan Gales/)

Prism Supply manages to make a pretty proportional chopper, just in a tiny little package (Morgan Gales/)

Ashley Mitchell’s splatter-paint pull-start springer (Morgan Gales/)

Hermes, Son of Zeus by Prism Supply Co (Morgan Gales/)