It all started last weekend - Those who have had the chance to live in Portland, Oregon, know quite well what it feels like in winter up in the Pacific-Northwest (PNW). It gets dark early, before evening arrives, and you have an 85-percent chance to get precipitation at any time. Now, add some west-side traffic into that mix, and put yourself on the road towards the downtown area on a Saturday night. You would do much better to cover yourself in a trash bag and bicycle to your destination; you would arrive more quickly and it would be safer. This is why the writer arrived at The One Motorcycle Show a little late, simply put.
The location of the show was to be at Savoy Studios, which was the location on the show poster, although a different location appeared online; always better to read and abide by the poster, so I went to Savoy Studios. It is in the industrial area of Portland near a huge hospital and a water treatment plant. It is a perfect location for this show; the photographic value of the area is rather decent. One important discovery was that this show was very well advertised and a large crowd was in attendance. There must have been somewhere near 400 people, likely more, about two hours after the doors had opened. If it becomes annual, it will certainly grow quickly.
The inside was basically a few industrial garages, offices, showrooms and a kitchen or two with the doors removed or flung open. That allowed a great deal of space, making it possible to see 90-percent of the show bikes unobstructed - except one area where the people never seemed to move; I thought they were robotic mannequins at one point, but I still snapped the photo.
Products of several local and PNW area builders, modifiers and artists were featured in the show. Vicious Cycle had a good sized representation, as did See See Motorcycles. The Vintage Advantage even had a photo shoot during the show. If one were able to determine all of the people behind each one of the great motorcycles on display, they would surely be listed here. There were many 
and the signage…well, I must have simply missed it. The bikes were the true stars of the show and it was nice to see people genuinely interested in the machinery on display. The marques on display were the likes of Honda, BSA, Harley-Davidson, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Triumph, and some rather rare examples and, of course, hybrids; though, not the gas-electric kind. Being Portland, you would expect something…you just don’t allow yourself to expect at all. It’s more fun that way.
It was not the exact make and model of these motorcycles or their provenance that made the show what it was. What seemed to be the very obvious characteristic of the bikes on display was that these were not meant to sit in some museum somewhere being dusted by hands in white gloves. The devices were built to be ridden across the roads or tracks to which they are taken. Each one was built or re-built to not only look good – or, maybe, ‘interesting’ would be a better word – but to be a true motorcycle, not a piece of static art. It was this very fact that I believe made this show so appealing to so many. It shows what can be done with not much money and just a simple desire to build something you would want to ride. No, there were no 300-horsepower road-burners on the pedestals here, and they were not really missed. And there were no exorbitantly stretched out show choppers. There were, in fact, plenty of good looking sporting machines and they felt fast and spirited just standing next to them; a enviable patina of experience on each one.
The designs were good, even if there were one too many skulls here and there – so aughts, the trend now is a bit brighter. One which I liked particularly was an early model Suzuki GSX-R which was painted all black and the logos done as if etched into the black paint – they looked like they probably felt. There was some remarkable paintwork on display, but some other examples had slightly thicker layers of time – as designed, I am sure. The small collection of Honda ‘Cub’ bikes at the front was great to see as there are so few of them on the roads in the US these days – except on the backs of RVs. A very sweet looking Bimota DB4 was in the front hallway and looked as if it had been kept in a very clean garage under a cover for most of its life – one of the few which seemed more for show and weekend riding at this point in its life – as long as it is exploited in full from time to time. Straight back from the entrance was a 
small display of speedway motorcycles – one sweet looking pearlescent-green and black bike attracted plenty of attention. So many lovely vintage and custom motorcycles on display and so little time…some of them mysterious and a bit dangerous to your relationship with local law enforcement.
Sitting in the area farthest from the entry of the show was a hulk of a machine which appeared to be powered by steam. Confirmation was not possible (read: I did not ask anyone and did not see a sign with information) of whether this was true and it worked, or not. It did have a rather radiator-shaped box attached to the front frame downtubes. It also had a headlight which looks like it is gas-powered, leading one to even believe that the machine could be powered by methane. No matter as it was great to stare at it for a while (I will get info). The alloy cladding had a distinct look of copper tubing and/or copper plating; if true, it is a valuable machine indeed.
A sum of The ONE Motorcycle Show from the advertisments: “Funny thing about motorcycles, when you get one, you want two. When you get two, you want ten. Then one day you have ten motorcycles and you start to think about how to combine all the bikes into one bike. Not literally combine the parts into one bike, but take all the knowledge you have accumulated and build one bike that encompasses your vision of the ideal bike. The One Bike.”
This show might not have presented that "perfect" motorcycle, but it did show what might be the ‘One Bike’ for the person who put their passion, heart and soul into creating their own perfect machine.
- Some of the photos included in this article were photographed to purposely give them a sense of motion and of the exhibit itself. A flash was only used on occasion when the lighting was dim.
