Gophers and Cheese

The 3rd Annual Spare Arts Bike Show was held on August 27th, 2016 down in Austin, MN.  It was organized by Andrew of Hold Fast Motors.  Austin is a cool little town but is probably best known as the home of Spam and the Spam Museum .  If you haven't been, you should definitely go.  The show took place 2 months after Moto Mania 2: The Big Deuce so it was a bit of a reunion of sorts for many who were there.  I drove down to the show with my son and brought the Evil Monkey (my Honda Z50).  After the show we stopped at Elko Speedway for Eve of Destruction featuring (besides regular racing) drifting, figure 8 school bus races, a jet car melting another car, and a transforming robot dinosaur that ate another car.  Needless to say, it was a great day.

The 8th Annual "Crazy" John Markwald Bike Show was held July 9th, 2017 at the Route 65 Pub & Grub in East Bethel, MN.  This was my first time attending the show.

5 years ago, the Rockers Spring Social was held at its former location, Club Jäger.  This was before the controversy and backlash that led to its staff quitting, the bar closing, and Ton-Up Minneapolis deciding to relocate its very fun cafe-racer-focused event to other venues.  Anyway, the moral of the story is, "don't be a racist."  Seriously, don't.  Before I made my way to show, I got some nice shots of my '04 XL1200C in a field so included a few at the end of this post.  This is back when I was running a swingarm-mounted rear fender.  It hugged the tire nice and tight but it eventually cracked from stress and I switched it up to the Crazy-Frank-inspired setup I have now.

Today I'm throwing it back to September 2019 for Heavy Thursday at The Joint / Cabooze .  The bike night expanded to include vans too.  Add in some live outdoor music and a view of the Minneapolis skyline and what's not to like?