So many great bikes, so many familiar faces! Of course, Born Free is a bike show and one of the best in the world at that. But for me and so many others, it is also a well-deserved reunion. With the show canceled due to Covid in 2020, and then the postponement and rescheduling of the 2021 event from its traditional June slot to late August, we were all eager (desperate?) to get out and see each other in person. Despite the recent challenges from the surge of the Delta variant, the world has been reopening, and Born Free was there—ready, willing, and able to host the festivities.
Joined at the hip to Born Free, and always scheduled the night before the show opens, is the People’s Champ Competition at Cook’s Corner on Friday night. This event, sponsored entirely by Biltwell, is the defacto kick-off pre-party for the weekend. And this is where I first sensed the “reunion-like” tquality of the weekend. As you walked around, you couldn’t go more than a few feet without running into someone you hadn’t seen in a long time.
The People’s Champ competition would typically include six bikes, but due to Covid and the resulting travel restrictions, the two bikes from Korea and England couldn’t make it. The four remaining bikes completed their mandatory shake-down ride Friday morning and were displayed on pedestals on the large concrete pad behind the bar. In the end, it was Cliff Cavins who took this year’s grand prize home for his somewhat perplexing single-sided right-side only handlebar ’79 Shovelhead—with a front exhaust that ran straight into the down tube. For this, he was awarded $10,000 ($6,500 more than Born Free’s Best of Show) along with the honor of putting his bike into the “Invited Builder” corral to be viewed and judged against the rest of the Invited Builder bikes. Kudos to Biltwell for working so hard this past year to do this competition up just right!
Also, on display at Cook’s, but not on pedestals, were the six bikes from last year’s 2020 People’s Champ competition that never had the opportunity to be shown due to the canceled show. Steve “Part-Timer” Glennon was the big winner of that show with his beautiful S&S Panhead sporting gold-leafed flames over a white base. After several postponements and without the customary fanfare, Steve got his $10,000 prize in what ended up being a virtual online competition. Thankfully, Steve also got to put his bike on display in the Invited Builder corral this year.
One big difference between this year’s show and all 11 previous Born Free events is that the Invited Builders had nearly two full years to prepare this year. The extra time may have been ideal for perfectionists like Christian Newman and Hawke Lawshe, two Invited Builders who typically have more complex engineering behind their builds. However, there were a few others that the extra time may not have helped at all—like the builders that still didn’t get their bikes completed on time and had to drop out.
Saturday morning, game on! Walking into Oak Canyon Ranch, you could sense the excitement. The builders were in the corral early with their cleaning kits spit polishing their bikes. Sure, they were focused on making their bikes look the best they could, but they were also eyeing each other’s work. Each builder had to turn in a voting card with their top three picks that were the basis for the first round of awards that same afternoon. The anticipation was palpable.
As always, the gates opened to the public at 10am. For whatever reason, the crowd seemed to build slower than in years past when they would be lined up fender-to-fender in front of the entry gate early in the morning. Regardless, as the day went on, bikes rolled in steadily until the numbers were virtually the same as in 2019—so the show’s overall look was quite similar. For those that got on it early and purchased a “Grass Pass” online (before they sold out), they rolled right onto the grounds filling what little space was available inside the venue and becoming part of the show.
There was more to see than time allowed—between the very cool vendors, great displays, shows within the show, and live music on both the Main and Dice Magazine stages. For me, one of the sillier standouts was Mark Atkins’ endearing alpaca “Rusty,” in the Rusty Butcher booth—replete with helmet and goggles. Brandon Wurtz and Ryan Stallcup’s Rawhide Cycles’ 1966 Shovelhead in a box, or more accurately, custom Harley in a massive replica of a yellow Kodak camera box, also brought an immediate smile to the face of anyone that walked by. Not only was I smiling, but I laughed outright as the “Ramonahs” played the big stage. This all-drag Ramones tribute band led by the infamous tattoo artist and judge on the Ink Master reality TV show Oliver Peck was an absolute hoot. Oliver explained, “We just got up there, acted like idiots, and a lot of people got a kick out of it.” Any way you slice it, they were fantastic! Another crowd-pleaser was The Ive’s Brothers Wall of Death. There was a long line to get up into the big wooden barrel to watch this thrilling vertical wall stunt show all weekend long.
With Born Free being one of the premier bike shows in the world, there’s no question it’s the incredible customs that bring everyone together. For starters, you can pull right in and find yourself surrounded by excellent bikes parked right out on the grass. Then there’s the great FXR and Dyna sub-shows sponsored by San Diego Customs, and a guest corral for bikes identified as worthy of being in this particular area close to the stage. It included builds from past invited builders, cool old bikes, a group of period British bikes, survivors; all the way to the other side of the spectrum with an art-deco-inspired hand-fabbed air-ride sidecar rig. This area alone would be a show in and of itself anywhere else.
The show’s primary sponsor, Harley-Davidson, had a good-looking display right near the main stage. Many questioned Born Free for taking this industry behemoth on as a corporate sponsor a few years ago, but it seems to have worked out well for everyone. They had a tasteful layout of new bikes, appropriate goods offered from their museum store, as well as another invited builder display that demonstrated what top builders could do with contemporary platforms.
The crown jewel of Born Free is undoubtedly the “Invited Builder” corral. Here, you will see the bikes that vie for the “Best of” awards in categories like Best Knucklehead, Best Panhead, Best Sportster, Best Paint, Best Digger… The most coveted are the two biggest prizes, including a “Best of Show” as voted by the builders on Saturday and the People’s Choice “Best of Show” awarded Sunday. These each include a $3,500 check along with a trip to Japan for the builder (airfare, hotel, expense) and his motorcycle so they can be part of the Yokohama Mooneyes Show in December.
The bike chosen by the builders for their Best of Show went to Jake Wreesman for his 1948 Harley-Davidson Panhead. This classic chrome framed chopper showed off Jake’s metalcraft skills, not only on the beefed-up downtube section of the frame but also with very elegant bracketry.
The Sunday “Best of Show” award came with a twist as it was for the first time a tie going to both of the builders mentioned above, Hawke Lawshe for his supercharged Arlen Ness-inspired 96-inch Shovelhead and Christian Newman for his eight-valve extreme custom 1939 ULH. I was surprised on Saturday as Hawke’s bike got a third-place overall when the builders acknowledged each other, and then Christian’s bike got no mention at all. (I believe both bikes to be exceptional examples of craftsmanship that push the limits of materials, engineering, and style.) But then, with every person having their unique sensibility as to what looks right, and the underlying point that Born Free started as a vintage chopper show, many would like to keep it that way—you just never know
I see it as quite an endorsement of Born Free and how respected it is that Brad Richards, Harley-Davidson’s VP of Styling and Design, was at the show all weekend with members of his design team to check out what is relevant in the world of custom. He also gave out a special Harley-Davidson Styling and Design Award to one of the builders. Even more interesting is that Jochen Zeitz, the recently appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Harley-Davidson, also spent the weekend there. That’s what I call “boots on the ground!”
Most shows have a problem keeping the crowd around through the awards, let alone after the awards, but Born Free got this one figured out years ago. All it took was some incentive. Grant and Mike from the get-go had a raffle for which the winner is announced from the main stage as the very last offering. This year, they pulled tickets for three bikes including a beautiful old Knucklehead that Kiyo (Mitsuhiro Kiyonaga) rebuilt, a stunning custom bagger built by San Diego Customs, and a brand-new stock Milwaukee-Eight Harley-Davidson Softail. And yes, of course, the winner had to be present to win!
There were few differences from the last event in 2019. Moving the show from June to August meant shorter days (two full months after the June 21 summer solstice), but this had virtually no impact on the event since the venue shuts down before 6 pm anyway. More noticeable was there not being a Stampede, the annual flat-track race that kicked off the Born Free Show and doubled as a pre-party and Invited Builder bike preview. Unfortunately, the powers at the “City of Industry” (where the Industrial Hills Expo Center dirt track is located) deemed the races a casualty of Covid.
Perhaps the differences are more subtle and can only be seen when looking at how the show may have changed over all 12 years; I am looking at the bikes and how there is much more diversity now than there used to be. There are still plenty of vintage-looking choppers, but the quality keeps getting better, and there is more and more creativity. On top of this, you see customs in the spirit of Arlen Ness that may not be the best for riding cross-country on, and not even bar to bar, but builders are exploring how far they can push the envelope. There have been quite a few Japanese and British bikes in the past few years, so perhaps there will be a BMW or Ducati down the line? Who knows, maybe we’ll see an electric in the not-too-distant future?
I imagine (hope) by next year, we will be through the pandemic and closer to how life used to be. Born Free will be back at Oak Canyon Ranch in its original June timeslot, and there will be a bonus to look forward to. At the time of this writing, it seems most likely there will be a second fall iteration only in Texas! “Born Free Texas,” as some are already calling it, won’t be the same, but with all the energy and all the incredible bikes; it will be equally wonderful. Stay tuned as details become available in the coming months.
It’s only eight months until we’ll all be together again in Orange County, and then again in Texas a few months later. I would expect our European and Japanese friends that we haven’t seen in ages to join us as well. Yes, the bikes bring us together, but after the last couple of years, may we agree that it’s the “being together” that’s most important and what it’s all about? See you at the next “Reunion”!
In 1979, Easyriders started to publish some of Michael’s motorcycle photography. He photographed a number of smaller events and features specifically for them, proved his abilities and then was off on his third trip to Sturgis in 1981, now on assignment for Easyriders, for whom he has returned there ever since. Also in 1981, after a solo exhibition of his work at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin, Ireland, which was boycotted by the League of Decency, Michael became disillusioned with the “art world” and again changed course. He stopped publicly exhibiting his photographs in favor of publishing his motorcycle work in Easyriders and simultaneously began developing his career as a commercial advertising and corporate photographer. By 1982, his studio was open in Boulder, Colorado. It wasn’t long before he developed a clientele that included companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Kraft Foods.
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