Antique Motorcycle Club, Magazine Features: Viking Chapter National Meet

Magazine Features

	We ReCycled The '60s Viking Chapter National Meet St. Paul, Minnesota, 2007 By Paul Meisel and Sean O'Neil Photos: Tom Nordmeyer Suzuki, Moto Guzzi, Indian, AMCA's Indian Torque Four, Harleys and Hondas, we had them all. (Click image for full gallery) The 2007 Viking Chapter National Meet was a huge success! After holding our meet for 30 years at the Dakota County Fairgrounds in Farmington, Minnesota, we made some major changes. We changed the location to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul and expanded every aspect of the meet to fit the new venue. The change paid off big-time with triple the number of visitors, the largest display of antique bikes in the Midwest, lots of new members joining and plenty of memorable experiences for all our guests. We're sure it's a motorcycle, and it looks like it's an antique, but Sid Chatland's "farm job" was the only bike leaking antifreeze at the meet! Our new location tapped into the growing interest in antique bikes in the general public and biking community by providing an easy-to-reach location in the heart of the metro. The cornerstone of the event was the display of over 165 antique bikes in a beautiful 100-year-old building full of natural light. Even with so many bikes, we still had plenty of room to walk around each one and fully appreciate the many one-of-a-kind machines. There was the AMCA's Indian Torque Four, Steve Hamel's World's Fastest Vincent, two of Ky Michaelson's Rocket Bikes, and many other bikes which have been featured on the cover of this magazine. Each bike had its own placard describing the details of the machine so that both the antique enthusiast and the novice could appreciate what they were looking at. Ky Michaelson's twin-engine BSA Drag bike and rocket-powered bike broke many records back in the early '70s. This year's theme was "ReCycle the '60s." With such a huge room to play with, the club experimented with some new attractions in the main building. Repeating the success of last year's "lounge area," this year the entire center of the room was set up with comfy couches, chairs and tables for visitors to kick back, read magazines from the '60s, and watch bad biker movies Cycle Savages!, The Wild Angels, Born Losers and more! Dave Moot created displays of rare, '60s memorabilia which gave visitors a walk back through time as they enjoyed bikes from that period. The club set up two additional photo opportunities for visitors to pose with. Paul Meisel created a life-sized cutout of the famous World's Fastest Indian along with a backdrop of the Salt Flats. Recreating the advertisements in motorcycle magazines of the '60s were two gorgeous female models – the BSA Girl and the Norton Girl. You could get your picture taken with the models and a beautiful '60s era BSA Gold Star or Norton with the profits going to charity. Keith Braun enjoyed the ride to Porky's Drive Inn. Spacious, tree-lined camping, with modern amenities, took full advantage of all that, one of the largest (320 acre) and most successful state fairgrounds in the country, has to offer. The grassy and wooded grounds gave plenty of space for the swap meet and field games. It was great to see our local friends with their rare bike parts in the swap area and to meet new friends who drove from across the country to check out our new location. As the sun climbed in the cloudless summer sky, it was nice to cool off in the shade of the campground and catch up with old friends. Dyed-in-the-wool Harley fans, Tom and Cheryl Whittles, rode one of Milwaukee's smallest machines to Porkys. Not only was our main building full of bikes, but the parking-lot was packed with bikes as visitors came out in droves to enjoy the perfect weather. Our club staged two rides during the event. On Friday night over 30 antique bikes cruised down University Avenue to hang out at Porky's Drive-in; a fixture in the local hot-rod scene for decades. That night, the two-wheeled chrome outnumbered the usual four-wheeled variety! Saturday afternoon we headed out from the fairgrounds to ride the twisty, tree-lined parkways along the Mississippi River that the Twin Cities is so famous for. A nice selection of bikes to choose from on Friday night's ride. If your chapter is thinking that they should increase their promotion of their meet, our event showed how a little additional work can go a long way. Throughout the year leading up to the event, we passed out flyers at local motorcycle shows, sent out professionally-prepared press releases to local media outlets, and contacted 68 HOG Chapters in the five-state area. We worked the internet and got listed on over 25 event calendars. Through partnerships with MidAmerica Auctions, the Minnesota Street Rod Association and J&P Cycle, we reached over 20,000 "Gear Heads" in the Midwest. In the days leading up to the event, we were featured prominently on the Joe Soucheray radio show Garage Logic. A very popular show with anyone who understands that, "any problem worth solving can be solved in a garage." Talk about reaching your target market! With anything done the first time around, we expected there to be problems and mistakes to be learned from. Although the meet was pulled off smoothly, we are planning more additions and improvements for 2008. If you attended the meet, we look forward to hearing from you and your ideas on how we can make this year's event even better. We look forward to hosting the premiere antique motorcycle event of 2008. You won't want to miss it! © 2008 AMCA

We ReCycled The '60s