FELLOW BIKERS, You are Helping to Kill our Sport

Got this on facebook. Thought you might be interested in the mindset of the Long Beach Folks    Art

Jim Gianatsis
FELLOW BIKERS, You are Helping to Kill our Sport, and the motorcycle industry which has declined some 70% in the past 4 years, if you boycott the few remaining quality Motorcycle Events like the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show which are trying to keep the sport alive.

Now in its 20th year the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show has been the world’...s premier custom streetbike event, and is now the last remaining custom bike show on the west coast. The Show and the FastDates.com Iron & Lace Calendar which I produce and photograph were there to discover and launch the careers of many top name builders from Russ Tom, Harold Pontarelli, Roland Sands, Jesse Rooke, Shinya Kimura, Russell Mitchell and Jesse James to name just a few. Other top name builders showcased at the Show and in the Calendar over the years have included Arlen Ness, Dave Perewitz, Jim Nassi, Paul Yaffee, Cyril Huze and Keith Ball

I have always taken a lot of pride in the quality of the Calendar Show in which I have always tried to provide our spectators the best possible event at the lowest possible ticket price with the top name builders and their latest bikes, manufacturers, entertainment, all at the most beautiful and exciting locations in the world – first at the Museum of Flying at the Santa Monica Airport, and now at the Queen Mary Park in Long Beach along side the Pacific Ocean. Included with Sow admission is entrance aboard the historic Queen Mary ocean liner, which also served as America’s troop transport ship to and from Europe during World War II.

Besides complimentary admission to the Queen Mary and The Museum of Flying, the Calendar Show originated the Calendar Bike Building Championship, World Record Dyno Shootout, the Calendar Bike Builder Seminars, and the Calendar Girl Music Festival, while showcasing Supermoto racing, Stunt Riding Shows, the Calendar Girl Model Search pageant and so many other activities for our spectators. At the peak of the motorcycle industry we featured 190 major bike and parts manufacturers, builders, vendors, and new bike demo rides.

Unfortunately, the majority of people who attend any event like ours and come away with a great experience, just expect it, and never write letters to us or the media to pay us a compliment. While there is always that one person, who needs to satisfy their own inadequacies and to garner attention, by making negative comments about a quality event and passing it off that their opinion represents the majority, which it certainly doesn’t. Or targeting our request to leave you Club Colors on your bike.

I remember a few years ago someone wrote on a blog there was nothing to see at our Show and they walked in an out in 1-hour. Amazing! just to walk past all 190 Exhibitors without stopping would have taken 3 hours, plus the 4 hours of Builders Seminars, 5 hours of live stage music with national recording stars and dancing with the Perfect Angeles, 8 hours of Dyno Runs, 3 hours to tour the Queen Mary, an hour for lunch, you really needed 15 hours – 2 full days to experience just one day of activities.

All for a low Calendar Show admission price of $20. While for comparison in greater Los Angeles a day at a major Amusement Park, Concert or sporting event like Dodger Baseball costs $50+ plus. A Lakers Basketball game cost $150 and up. Even a 90 minute movie with paid parking is $20.

And yet some bikers think the LA Calendar Show should have free admission. If so, then how are we to pay for the facility rental, city permits, required Police and Security, Parking Control, a $30,000 adverting budget, porta-potties, staging and sound PA, the live entertainment, and my own production and staffing costs? You saw that the City of Holister had to stop their Holister Bike Week because they lost some $170,000 in production costs their last year to hold it in their town.

Those same bikers will go to Laughlin, Daytona, or Sturgis for 3-4 days and stand on a street corner and do nothing, and because such street events have no admission, they think they are being “entertained” for free. But the Casinos and Hotels are jacking up their rates, all the concerts are additional paid admission. Those bikers are spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to be there, not counting the lost days of paid work to travel there and back. For just $20 ($25 the last 3 years) I’d like to think the LA Calendar Show is a much better entertainment value.

“No Loud Pipes and No Colors – Why support an organization that doesn’t support bikers?”
I am a biker and have been so all my life. I was an professional AMA racer for 12 years, motorcycle magazine editor, motorcycle designer and test engineer. My company Gianatsis Design is a Motorsports marketing and advertising design agency which serves many of the top companies in the motorcycle industry. You have their products bolted on your bike. I regularly take bike trips across Europe. Last month (at age 62) I was roadracing at speeds up to 190mph on the Imola race track in Italy with my friend, 3-time World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss.

• No Loud Pipes: Why shouldn’t the City of Long Beach not ticket some inconsiderate rider with straight pipes on his Harley riding blasting down a quiet residential street at 8-10 am on a weekend morning? I hate it when I hear straight pipe Harleys from 1/4 mile away fire up in my neighborhood on a Sunday morning. Your freedom to be a jerk, does not have the right to infringe on someone else’s freedom to have peace and quite. As our website says: Just ride to the Show on the freeway and you won’t chance being ticketed”

• Club Colors: When biker club gangs wearing club colors stop killing each other at bike events, we will be happy to change this policy. We do it to protect you. Murders at the Easyriders Show at the Queen Mary back in the early 90s, and at Laughlin about 7 years ago, forced this policy at both the Queen Mary location and at Laughlin Bike Week casinos. We’d like to be selective and let “good” Harley and Sportbike Clubs wear their colors into the Show, but then the “bad” biker clubs and the ACLU then have the grounds to sue for discrimination.

When you come to the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show this Saturday July 16th, ride your loud bike straight to the show on the I-710 freeway, and leave you club jacket on your bike in our secure parking lot, or carry it under your arm into the Show and leave it at one of the 28 Bike Clubs which will have booths there this year.

Thank you in advance for joining us, supporting the motorcycle industry and your fellow riders, and for making this the 20th year of the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show! – Jim Gianatsis, ProducerSee More

Art Jesse Who decides on the list of "Good Clubs" vs "Bad Clubs"?
3 hours ago · LikeUnlikeArt Jesse excuse me "Bad Biker Clubs" vs "Good Harley and Sportbike Clubs"