This is an odd one. A story about a half-dozen grubby bikers on old rusting bikes blazing up the picturesque California coast toward the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay, one of the most lavish upscale hotels and golf courses on the coast, just a few miles south of San Francisco. In an industry packed with runs, bike shows, rallies and events, the Legend of the Motorcycle Concourse D'Elegance was a totally unique affair and appealed to us all, for different reasons.

Billy Lane was invited to be a guest builder and jammed across the country pulling a massive trailer with his 1%er employee from the Warlocks MC, Philz. He hauled his Henderson four custom with a BMW transmission, Indian front end and a Honda shaft-drive system. His riding iron included a 1938 EL Knucklehead and a '48 flathead 74UL.

"That Flathead is the best running Harley I've every owned," Billy said. His mission was multi-wrapped. He wanted to trade me some '20s Peashooter parts for my 1912 Pope single engine. He also wanted to take some time and visit builders and bike connections along the coast. He's facing the prospects of jail time, and it hangs like a life-interrupting scepter over his head. He's scrambling to put his life in order if he must step out of sight for a few years.

On the other hand, Billy is driven like a pitbull with rabies to build every dream machine that crosses his engineering- educated mind. His overall building concept, in a world fraught with excellent chopper competition, is to build running bikes around historic engines, chassis and drivelines, such as the Pope. He also plans to strike a match to the World's Fastest Henderson four.

While Billy and Philz rambled across the country, they picked up Christian Clayton, the Boss of Sucker Punch Sally, and his '64 Panhead. Christian had a mission to ride with us wherever the road led and to walk away from the Bonham's and Butterfield auction with a reproduction Crocker Speedway racer. He didn't load up a new Sucker Punch Sally ride with a fresh Evo engine and an electric start. He kept with the theme of the ride--all old kickers.

That left my terrible self and the local boy, Jeremiah, and his '73 Shovel in a made-rigid frame by Ed Walker. Jeremiah and I built that bobber last year during the build of the Assalt Weapan for Bonneville. That bike is tight and runs like a raped ape. It's also a kicker. Jeremiah also had a mission. He's a contractor of sorts and usually has a half-dozen screaming clients breathing down his neck, plus two Xs, three kids and a new girlfriend. He needed to get out of town. So we did.

Oh, about my ugly self. I suppose I had a mission to see if my old 60-year-old bones would handle the 400-mile ride to Half Moon Bay on a rigid. We also strapped my 1928 Shovelhead into the back of the Philz trailer for a ride to the auction, to see if I could raise some cash for another similar project.

The barroom napkin-etched plan called for rolling into the wind on Wednesday and peeling north, which we did at about 10:00 in the morning. Riding through Los Angeles is always traffic-timed. We could leave at 4:00 a.m. or roll the dice at 10:00 and slip between rush hour and noon lunch breaks. Since we were rambling along right at 60 mph, we peeled onto the freeway out of the harbor away from the Bikernet headquarters, jammed slowly onto the 405 north toward Santa Monica and off the freeway on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). We encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic just past the Los Angeles International Airport, but for only a couple of miles until we could escape toward the coast.

Billy was riding his Knucklehead and the float bowl began to act up. Christian's Pan sported an early S&S carb without an accelerator pump, and it was occasionally hard to start, plus the fasteners holding the hinged rear fender were on strike and left the scene constantly. Ah, but the sun was shining, the ocean blue and the coast pristine. Whatta ride!

We stopped at the famous Malibu Pier, and at County Line leading out of Los Angeles, a biker hangout and noted surfing location. The coast road rolled into agricultural Oxnard and up to the Top Dead Center bike shop, where Andy greeted us and we tried to coerce him into straddling his flathead and scooting north toward The Shop in Ventura, the home of a 40-year-old Indian restoration facility owned by Dave Hanson. There's a decade old cross-town rivalry afoot and Andy bowed out.

The Top Dead Center crew builds some wild shit, including twisted bar stock frames, sorta like Damascus-bladed knives. Andy's son hand-builds components like wrought iron gates, giving his bikes a look we've never encountered before. They also built a Knuckle in a single-loop VL frame that had race written all over it.

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