Every year at the beginning of January the International Motorcycle Show makes its way to my hometown of Washington D.C. Every year I attend and every year I feel a little bit let down.

Don’t get me wrong it is really great to see a good amount of brands and motorcycles at the show especially ones our local dealers don’t have access to yet but to be honest I always leave the show at the end of the weekend feeling like so much more could be done.

I’ve never been to the Long Beach show or the New York one but I see photos upon photos, articles and videos after those events and it sure does seem like one hell of a good time. I am not sure why D.C gets the shaft but we definitely do. Even the motorcycle shows going on up in Canada have more stuff going on than we do and it’s a heck of a lot warmer here.

One thing that keeps me going back is the hope that this year will be different, this year the fine folks from the IMS will see we need something more and those fine folks will bring us something more.

You drive up after not having any parking at the convention and you expect a large sign or even maybe two large signs directing you where to go, but nope that doesn’t happen, if you blink too quickly you will miss the knee high sign and what looks like a child handwriting pointing you in a new direction for the show this year.
Well I wasn’t looking at things knee high, missed the sign and wandered my way up to where the show is usually held only to find it empty. BOO.

I eventually figured out where the show was located and head on in. My main intentions this year for going was to see my good buddy and incredible artist Ryan Danger. Ryan was setup at the Ducati booth where he was enlisted to do an art piece that was inspired by the new Ducati Scrambler. Having someone at the show do a live art piece did help make the show better. Ryan seemed to be one of the main attractions at the event, maybe having all of the Ducati Scramblers next to him with some very beautifully and knowledgeable ladies hanging around helped a bit too. At the end of the weekend I tried conning Ryan into giving me the massive piece he did but no dice. I think its actually on display at a local Ducati dealer. Maybe I can sneak in and grab it without anyone knowing

I had to sit on the Scrambler to see what all the hype was all about. I was definitely impressed. That bike is even better in person. If I had to choose between all the models I would go for the Urban Scrambler. I think its because of my friends over at Dime City making it look like I could easily take on the dirt and concrete without any issue with this bike. I very quickly glanced at the Multistrada and even checked out the Diavel which I will admit I am not a fan of.

I spent a good amount of time at the Triumph booth. My old team Riders Discount won the Daytona 200 this past year and Triumph ending up buying the bike from the team and now it’s part of their traveling road show. This might surprise some people but I don’t get uber giddy about straight up street bikes but I do get giddy when it’s a race prepped Daytona 200 winning Riders Discount Triumph 675R. Brian and his design guys really built one of the best looking race bikes I have ever seen, sure I am be a little biased but that bike is undeniably sexy.

Also at the Triumph booth was the bike Triumph had built for Soccer Stud and semi naked H&M spokes model David Beckham. Holy shit is that bike badass. It’s a custom Bonnieville part scrambler part adventure making dream. I had read a few stories about this bike and about the journeys its been and and I was pretty stoked to see it in person. I would love to take it out for a few week long adventure somewhere in southeast Asia. Who knows maybe I will end up building one of my own.

 

Triumph and Ace Café teamed up to design a custom Thruxton. This bike is special to me in many ways. The guys and gals have become a family to me and I was there for the official USA unveiling down at Barber Motorsports for an event I coordinated called Ace Corner during the Barber Vintage Festival this past October. This bike won’t be a one deal bike like David’s instead it will have a limited release and I think I recall 300 of them shipped to be sold in the US. If you are into the Vintage, custom, café scene then you have heard of Ace Café London. In my next article I will touch on my upcoming adventure with them but for now back to the show.

Some great things that do happen at the Progressive IMS show is the School of Rock. For those of you that don’t have any idea about what that is I suggest doing a google search and getting to a show even if its just to check these kids rock out. It’s pretty damn cool to see these young kids push aside their fears and nervousness and jam out of stage.

The rest of the show was OK. I went to all of the manufacturers checked out all their bikes, drank some beers, ran into a bunch of my moto buddies from the area and planned world takeover. I tried doing the little race challenge Progressive had but the line was too long and I got distracted by the guy doing the pin striping. I do have to say one success of my two days at the show was being with a friend of mine and I would like to say I helped as he picked out his first ever Motorcycle helmet. Bell is really stepping up there helmet game the last few years. My friend just got his motorcycle license and the first thing he wanted to do is get a helmet. He ended up choosing the Bell Bullitt. Good choice if you ask me.

 

 

I would like to see more activities going on, the MC’s for the manufacturers that I know attend other shows, maybe have some professional riders come sign autographs and talk to the fans a bit. I know it isn’t easy to run an event like this but it would be nice for DC to get some love like Long Beach and New York do

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At the end of the day I know I will be back again next year and most likely the year after that. In the middle of winter we all need our bike fixes and sometimes just sitting on these bikes and making vroom vroom noises will have to do