Sculpture Cycles

A couple weeks ago my roommate Marcus had a bike show in LA. He has a company called Sculpture Cycles that builds custom Harleys. I figured it would be a good way to celebrate my birthday on the beach, so I went along. My buddy Dave also came along, and a friend of Marcus's named Mandy came to help with the show.

We left at 6:30 AM on a Friday morning. We were in a big Ford F-250, hauling a big trailer in the back holding 3 big bikes and 1 big frame. It was about a 6 hour drive. The show was actually being held in Long Beach, right on the water, and we got there in the early afternoon. It took us a couple hours to set up the booth. Marcus has some "easy up" tents which took us about 20 minutes to put up. We later saw some other guy do it in about 20 seconds. The booth was 10 x 20, just big enough to hold everything.

Me on Steroids!"

Marcus has his own frame, that he designed, called the "Steroid Frame." I screwed on a couple of plates on the wheels of the display frame that he had there, so I could officially call myself a bike builder. Dave helped out with
a little spray painting. The rest of the show we talked up our professional bike building skills.

Me: So, how long have you been the head of painting at Sculpture Cycles?
Dave: Pretty much as long as I've been working here at Sculpture Cycles.

After we got everything set up, we zipped up the booth and headed to our hotel, the Holiday Inn. Then we headed to the beach for a little bit. Dave and I tried out his skimboard. Our skimboard skills were somewhat akin to our bike building skills, but it was fun.

That night Dave and I drove around looking for something to do. We had heard there was a big singles activity, but we couldn't find it, so we finally ended up at In 'N' Out Burger. I saw a guy with a couple of girls at a table outside...

Me: "I bet those guys are Mormons."
Dave: "You think?"
Me: "I dare you to go ask them if they're Mormons."
Dave: "Shut up... all right." (Walks over to their table.)
Dave: "I was wondering if you could settle a question for me. My friend over there thinks you guys are Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Why??"
Dave: "I guess you look like Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Get out!!"
Dave: "OK... thanks anyway."

That was our entertainment for the evening.

On Saturday morning we finished setting up the booth, and prepared for people to come by. We all had our Sculpture Cycles T-shirts on, and I picked up some of the relevant info about the bikes so I could act like I knew what I was talking about.

Passer-by: "This is some pretty trick stuff!"
Me: "Yeah, this is the steriod frame, we designed it ourselves. The back wheel is a 360, it's the biggest wheel currently available on the market. We've got a 120 inch merch engine in there. The price starts at 48K, and you can go up to about 80K depending on what options you want. This particular bike goes for 68K. The stretch is 4 inches..." (etc.)

I sold one T-shirt for $20, but no bikes.

After working the booth for a few hours, we walked around and checked out the other booths. There were a lot of really intense bikes.













Then Dave and I headed back to the beach. First we stopped off and Dave bought a boogie board. The waves were big and we had a fun time trying to catch them.

That night we went to a "VIP party" on the Queen Mary, a former cruise ship now serving as a hotel right close to where the bike show was being held. After 10 minutes of the loud party, Dave, Mandy and I headed out to explore the ship. Marcus stayed to schmooze with bike vendors, or something. The ship was pretty cool, and it was nice to be right there on the ocean.

Sunday was my birthday, but I didn't really do anything official to celebrate. We went back to the show for a couple of hours, then Dave and I went to church, at the Eldorado ward. After church we went back for the end of the show. The show winners were announced in the various classes. Unfortunately, they switched locations for entering bikes in the show, and so our Franken-Buell didn't get entered. It likely would have won the Sportster class. The winning bike for best-of-show was a crazy looking over-the-top cowboy themed chopper, which I didn't get a picture of unfortunately.

After the winners were all announced, the show was pretty much over, and we spent a couple more hours tearing down the booth, and loading up the bikes. We had dinner at Red Brick Pizza and some ice cream from Coldstone. We went back to the hotel and relaxed in the hottub.

Monday we slept in, then went to see one of Marcus's suppliers, called American Suspension. The owner, a guy named Vince, who Mandy said looked like an older version of Fabio, gave us the tour. They have a pretty big operation there, where they build the motorcylce front ends. I ran some rough numbers and figured out that they are probably a 10 to 20 million a year company.

As we were driving away I saw a house-for-sale sign in a yard, so I called up to check the price. It was a paltry 700K for a 1300 square foot house in about a 20 year old neighborhood. Maybe Phoenix isn't as expensive as I thought...

After the tour we all went to the beach and tried some more boogie-boarding. The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli... so we (or at least I) got pretty beaten up by the waves. But it was still fun. And we of course did some obligatory frisbee tossing for a little bit.

After the beach we headed home. I drove for a couple hours. Not very fun, too big of a rig. But I got used to it after a while. We got home around 1 AM.

As we left the show on Sunday, the guy selling sunglasses at the booth next door, Tim, said, "Hope to see you at the next show." So I guess I'm going to have to go to Sturgis!