2016 LA Calendar Motorcycle Best of Show winner Yuichi Yoshizkwaat center, joined from left: Show performers Alex Nester and Jaq Mackenzie, Calendar Kittens Kaustin Rose, Show producer and photographer Jim Gianatsis, Kittens Daria Dali and Alissa Bourne.
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Japanese Builder Yuichi Yoshizkwa dominates at 2016 Los Angeles Calendar Motorcycle Show Concours de Elegance
& Calendar Girl Music Festival
The Sagebrush Cantina, Calabasas, CA, Saturday July 23rd 2016 - The 2016 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show with sponsorship support by Russ Brown Attorneys continued its now 25-year tradition as one of America’s premier annual outdoor street bike events as it rocked the legendary biker party zone at the Sagebrush Cantina for the 2nd year in beautiful downtown Calabasas, California. Celebrity Custom Bike Builders premiered their latest works of rolling art in the Calendar Bike Building Championship, alongside selected Product Manufacturers and Vendors.
Taking Best of Show this year, as in the last 4 out of 5 years, was another new-to-America custom bike builder out of Japan. Yuichi Yoshizkwa / Custom Works Zon / cw-zon.com, flew his bike in from Japan to take Best of Show at the 2016 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show. This was the 4th out of 5 years that virtually unknown Japanese Builders have claimed the top spot at America's premier custom motorcycle show with their very unique and ornate hand crafted builds. Yuichiti's Cafe Racer themed retro Big Twin bike featured engraved hand formed brass bodywork, a unique front single sided and rear single sided swingarm suspension bolted to a one-off aluminum girder frame, and its American V-Twin replica Shovel Head motor fed by a exhaust powered turbocharger!
Yuichi Yoshizawa returned to the winners circle in the Street Custom Class with a dragster styled Harley-Davidson Flat Tracker 750cc that he had built with Custom Works partner Yoshikazu Ueda. A few months earlier the pair had garnered the the win with this bike in the Harley-Davidson of Japan sponsored “Street Build Off” where five of Japan’s top custom workshops were given free reign to tear into Harley’s new Street 750, with results that were incredible.
It was jaw dropping to see that Harley’s new water-cooled budget minded street cruiser could also be the base for this incredible custom featuring a single-cradle frame and completely new suspension front and back. The vibe is functional, with an eye on the drag strip: There’s a 19-inch W&W wheel up front, and a 15-inch Rocket Racing rear rim. Joining Yoshizkwa on his trip to America and in the winner’s circle at the Calendar Show was his good friend Hiroko Takai / also of Custom Works, followed by a road trip to Sturgis to show off their Show winning bikes.
The Show always marks the annual premier of new FastDates.com Motorcycle PinUp Calendars with the new 2017 Fast Dates World Superbike, Iron & Lace CustomMotorcycles and Garage Girls Pin Up Calendars featuring the world's top Race Bikes, Cafe Racers and Custom Motorcycles with the beautiful Calendar Kittens in attendance at the Show.This year’s Kittens included official SBK World Superbike podium girls Alissa Bourne and Penthouse centerfold Austin Rose who worked the podium at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca USA World Superbike round just 2 weekends before, and beautiful Russian model Daria Dali.
This year the Calendar Motorcycle Show payed special tribute to legendary custom bike builder Ron Simms / Ron Simms.com out of Oakland, California, as one of the favorite and most successful FastDates.com Calendar Bike Builders over the last 25 years. Ron has attended nearly every Calendar Show over the years going back to the mid ‘90s when the Show started at the Santa Monica Airport. His newest custom bikes are always photographed by Calendar publisher Jim Gianatsis for the Iron & Lace Calendar, with the bike shoots also featured in major magazines like Easyriders and American Iron.
An incredible day of live Calendar Girl Music featured American Idol contender Alex Nester and her band performing two exciting sets of rock classics and her own original songs. Alex also serves as vocalist and keyboardist in the bands of legendary guitarist Carlos Santana and his son Salvador Santana. Also performing was incredibly talented 16-year old singer songwriter Jac Mackenzie, also featured on American Idol lat season.
Like many we know impacted by cancer, singer Alex Nester and Calendar Show producer Jim Gianatsis are cancer survivors, with a portion of ticket sales from the Calendar Show, including a generous donation by custom bike builder Richard Jones, being donated to the American Cancer Society to help others. To find our more about the important work of fighting cancer go to www.Cancer.org
The annual LA Calendar Motorcycle Show is normally held on the 3rd weekend in July at the Sagebrush Cantina, 23527 Calabasas Road, Calabasas, CA 91302. For additional information and more Calendar Bike Show coverage go to: www.FastDates.com/BIKESHOW.HTM
2016 CALENDAR BIKE BUILDING CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS Best of Show: Yuichi Yoshizkwa / Custom Works Zon, Custom Panhead with Single Sidede Swingarm Front ans Rear Suspension.
AFT Customs Visionary Award: Nick O'Kane, Honda CB1100 Cafe racer
Pro Builder: 1. Gustavo Penna & Oliver van Anhault / Apogee Motor Works, Ducati 1098 Superbike Retro Cafe Custom; 2.Richard Jones, Aluminum Frame Softail Twin Cam Custom; 3. Ron Simms/ Old School Orange Flame Shovelhead.
Street Custom: 1. Yuichi Yoshizkwa and Yoshikazu Ueda / Custom Works Zon, Harley-Davidson Street 750 Tracker;
2. Paul Morris, S&S Drag Bike; 3. Zyke Unger, 2013 Harley-Davidson Custom Softail.
Bar Hopper: 1. Michael LaFountain / RacciaMotorcycles.com, 1967 Kawasaki 650cc W1 Cafe Racer; 2. Kris Van Damme, Triumph Thruxton; 3. Kevin Stanley, Triumph Thruxton.
Sportbike: 1. Adam Gasperic / Gasser Customs, Honda CB700 Cafe Racer; 2. Robert Loomis, Norton framed H-D 1200 Sportster Cafe Racer; 3. Alan Breise, BMW HP4 Superbike.
Classic American: 1. Joe Chavez, Beer Can Willy 1957 Panhead / 1966 Shovelhead custom.
Classic Import: 1. Nick O'Kane, Honda CB1100 Cafe Racer; 2. Jim Giuffra/ AFT Metric Customs, Honda VTX1300; 3. Vidas Enck, 1951 Vincent Black Shadow.
The 2016 AFT Customs Visionary Award presented by AFT's Jim Giuffra to Nick O'Kane and his Honda CB1100.
Pro Builder 1st Place: Gustavo Penna & Oliver van Anhault / Apogee Motor Works, Ducati 1098 Superbike Cafe Custom
Street Custom 1st Place: Yuichi Yoshizkwa and Yoshikazu Ueda / Custom Works Zon, Harley-Davidson Street 750 Tracker
Sportbike 1st Place: Adam and Lisa Gasperic / Gasser Customs, Honda CB700 Cafe Racer
Classic Metric: 1. Nick O'Kane, Honda CB1100 Cafe Racer
Classic American: Joe Chavez, Beer Can Willy 1957 Panhead / 1966 Shovelhead custom
Legendary Calendar Bike Builder: Jim Gianatsis and Jim Giuffra award Ron Simms/ Ron Simms Customs for his
22 Years at the LA Calendar Motorcyle Show with his winning bikes featured in the FastDates.com Calendars
The once Mikuni American sponsored LA Calendar Motorcycle Show saw its glory days from 1996-2008 as the premier custom street bike event in America when the custom bike market was at its height. The Calendar Show spanned two days at major Southern California venues the Santa Monica Airport Museum of Flying and The Queen Mary Event Park in Long Beach, drawing anually some 10,000 paid spectators and 190 major motorcycle and parts companies. Then with the Economic Downturn of 2008 much of people’s expendable income went away, and with it some 80% of the custom motorcycle industry going away, causing the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show to downsize as well.
Show funder, producer and FastDates.com Calendar photographer Jim Gianatsis has endeavored to keep the Show continuing these last 6 years as the last independently produced street bike event on the west coast. It has been difficult because of high event location costs, staffing and advertising. While today, on any given weekend in Southern California many Motorcycle Dealers, Cities and Indian Casinos, in an attempt to pull in the few motorcycle baby boomers and customers left after the economic downturn, put on free Open Houses and competing Events with their own staff, in their own parking lots, with live music, free BBQ, sale prices and demo rides. It is nearly impossible for an independently produced bike event on the West Coast like the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show to convince spectators to pay a low $20 admission, and to encourage the few remaining manufacturers and sponsors to support it.
The LA Calendar Show and the associated FastDates.com Calendars produced by Jim Gianatsis / Gianatsis Design Associates has seen a rich history over its last 25 years. It pioneered Supermoto races at the Show, innovative features like its Calendar Bike Building Championship, World Record Dyno Shootout, Builders Seminars, the Calendar Girl Model Pageant and its Calendar Girl Music Festival which many other International Motorcycle Events have copied. And it help to launch the careers of many celebrity builders including Jesse James, Russell Mitchell, Roland Sands, Russ Tom, Harold Pontarelli, AFT Customs, Richard Pollock and so many others who had their first custom bikes featured at the show and in the Calendars. Not to forget the legendary builders who have also have been an important part of the Show and featured in the Calendars - Ron Simms, Arlen Ness, Paul Yaffe, Jim Nasi, Shinya Kimura, Chica, Todd’s Cycle and so many more. As long as Show producer Jim Gianatsis can afford to keep the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show alive to support the custom and street sport bike market we all love, he will try to do so. Any supporters who would like to help keep the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show and the custom bike building industry alive, your support is invited and welcome.
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The Los Angeles Calendar Motorcycle Show is produced by Jim Gianatsis, Gianatsis Design Associates
LA Calendar Motorcycle Show History The first annual LA Calendar Motorcycle Show actually started out as a backyard BBQ at producer Jim Gianatsis' house in 1991 to celebrate the publication of the 1992 Fast Dates racebike, and first 1992 Mikuni Iron & Lace Calendar with custom bikes and models. One of the calendar models, Playboy Playmate Teri Weigel, actually handled cooking the burgers on the outdoor grill.
The first Mikuni Calendar actually pubished in 1990 with my photo of Playmate Teri Lynn Doss on the cover holding a Mikuni carburetor, and inside the "Mikuni Calendar" featured nude model photography from Penthuse photographer Steven Hicks.
This first Calendar was produced by Gianatsis Design for our client Mikuni to replace the generic stock nude photogrpahy which Mikuni had been buying from Japan, imprinting Mikuni name on it and giving it to distributors as a Christmas present each year.
It was our intention (Gianatsis Design and Mikuni marketing director Lee Chapin) to bring out an origional calendar which incorporated Mikuni carburetor products.
Then the next year, 1991 we decided to produce a Mikuni promotional calendar we could sell to the public and featurd Mikuni carburetors on all the top racing bikes of the era.
The 1991 Mikuni Calendar was photographed in its entirity by myself and included cover model and new Playboy Playmate Pamela Andreson with Miguel Duhamel's Yoshimura Suzuki "Big Poppa" unlimited class Superbike.
In 1992 we movied to Mikuni Calendar premier party to Mikuni American and invited all of the motorcycle media and mikuni distributors to attend, along with the models and big builders.
It was such a great party, I suggested we open it to the public the following year, and weith Mikuni as a 50/50 parter to moved to to the Santa Monica Airport's Museum of Flying
The Mikuni Calendar Motorcycle Show remained and grew at the Sanata Monica Airport through year 1999, but at that point the 1-day Show had become too big for the Museum Facility and the available parking.
And Mikuni Corporation felt the Calendar Show was taking time away from the Carburetior Division's main focus of carburetor development and sales. So Mikuni relinquised its partnership in the Calendar Show to Gianatis Design, and in 2000 the Calendar Show was renamed the Los Angeles Calendar Motorcycle Show and it moved to the Queen Mary Park in Long Beach in association with the Queen Mary Corp. The Queen Mary Park location right on on the Pacific Ocean proved to be an incredible event location for a Motorcycle Show in the hot SoCal in the summer, and in 2001 we expanded the Show to 2-days as it continued to grow.
The Calendar Show continued to grow during the mid 2000s with the American V-twin custom bike market, fuel by TV Shows like American Thunder, West Coast Choppers and Biker Buildoff.
Many of the celebrity custom bike builders who gained their recognition
and fame at the Show and being featured in the FastDates.com Calendars included Ron Simms / Bay Area Customs, Russ Tom / Downtown Harley-Davidson, Jessie Rooke, Roland Sands / Roland Sands Design, Jesse James / West Coast Customs, Tussell Mitchell / Exile Cycles, Richard Pollock / Mule Motorcycles, Jim Giuffra / AFT Customs.
Show Producer Jim Gianatsis introduced many newaspects to motorccyle events at the LA Calendsr Motorcyle Show during this period including the Calendar Bike Building Championship, the Calendar Girl Music Festival, the World Championship Dyno Shootout, Supermoto races in the parking lot, Bike Builder Seminars, Calendat Girl Beauty Pagent, and the Perfect Angels all-girl dance team.
The LA Calendar Show reached its peak in the year 2007 at the Queen Mary Park venue with a 2-day weekend event that drew 191 major motorcyle manufacturers, custom bike companies, product companies, vendors, and some 7,000 paid spectators.
Then in year 2008 with the economic collapse which started on Wall Street and spread across America and around the world, many people no longer had the disposable income to spend on expensive toys like custom motorcycles, and motorccyles in genearal, and bike companies and many aftermarket parts companies were soon out of business.
By year
2011 almost all paid admission street bike events on the West Coast had gone out of business. The LA Calendar Motorccyle Show was the last to remain and had downsized to 1 day at the Queen Mary's smaller Sea walk location, with now some 40 vendors and prodcut comapies and 1000 paid admisisons.
In 2012 the Calendar Show move to the Calabasas Inn in Calabasas, CA, an outdoor banquest and wedding facility which was better suited to the now downsized event. But misguided Biker groups, spurred by social media, would boycott and block the entrance of the Show that year because of its "No Gang Color Policy" which had been in effectall previous 20 years, and was also enfored at other bike events across California, with the protrst and blockade only hurting the motorcycle sporteven further. The Calabasas Inn would go out of business later that year, forcing the Show return to the more expenses Queen Mary Sea Walk in 2013.
For 2014 the Calender Show found a more affordale and beautiful location as it move to at the Malibu Gold Course in the Santa Monica Mountains near the Rock Store. Vendosrs numbered 22 with a paid attendace now around 500. Following the Show that year the Malibu Golf Course announced it would close for 2 years for a major renovation.
This required the Show to
move again to a new venue in 2014, this time bing the popular biker weekend hangout in Calabasas again, this time at the Sagebrush Cantina.
One of the biggest changes and challenges from the 2008 recession which really impacted paid admission events like the LA Calendar Motorcye Show was that local motorcyle dealers became very agressive in trying to draw potential customers to their dealerships on weekends. Many dealers becan holding Open House events in their parking lots on the weekends with free live msuic, free food and beverages, vendors and demo bike rides.
Plus the internet with its free content of motorcyle pictures and information, pretty models, and product vendors has impacted attendance at paid motorcycle events as well.
These two factors, free competing events by dealers in Southern California and free content on the web, has became the big challenge for the LA Calendar Show, that even its exclusive featuring of many the world's top custom bike builders with their latest cusom bikes, beautiful Calendar models, and top name female performers can not overcome.
But for now, FastDates.com Calendsr photogrpher and Calendar Show producer Jim Gianatsis will continue the Show as an annual tribute to the world's top custom bike builders and beautiful models and music performers in support of the FastDates.com Motorcyel PinUp Calendsrs. It may return full circle to that back yard BBQ at Jim's house where it first started some 25 years ago, but it will continue. And hopefully the industy and motorcyle enthusiasts will still want to be a part of it.
Mikuni American still remains a Associate Sponsor of the Iron & Lace Calendar, and the Calendar Bike Building Championship at the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show Weekend. - Jim Gianatsis
Beautiful17-year old singer songwriter Jaq Mackenzie was featured on American Idol 2015.
An incredible day of live Calendar Girl Music featured American Idol contender Alex Nester and her band performing two exciting sets of rock classics and her own original songs. Alex also serves as vocalist and keyboardist in the bands of legendary guitarist Carlos Santana and his son Salvador Santana. Also performing was incredibly talented 16-year old singer songwriter Jac Mackenzie, also featured on American Idol lat seasom..
Adrian Packett of Canyon Motorcycles / TT Wheels / Black Bike offers wide custom spoke wheeel sets for sportbikes and cafe racers.
Show and FastDates.com Calendar producer Jim Gianatsis, here with the Best of Show winning bike, premiered the new 2017 Fast Dates Superbike, Iron & Lace Custom Motorcycles and Garage Girls Calendars with the help of beautiful Calendar Kittesn Kaustin Rose, Alissa Bourne and Daria Dali.
Ron Simms (seated at right) proudly shows off two of his custom bikes featured in the new 2107 Iron & Lace Calendar.
LA Calendar Motorcycle Show producer and photographer Jim Gianatsis with Legendary Calendar Bike BuilderRon Simms/ Ron Simms Customs who was honored at this year's event for 22 Years at the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show with his winning customs bikes featured in the FastDates.com Calendars
Morgan automobiles at the Calendar Show with their production 3-Wheelr classic which is built in England and features an American made S&S V-twin engine mounted up front .
Calendar Kittens Kaustin and Daria arr anxious to take the cool Morgan 3-Wheeler for a drive!
FastDates.com Calednar Kitten, Penthouse and Hustler magazine cover model and centerfold model Kaustin shows off on Nick Kane's Honda Cafe racer/
Cafe Racer extrastrodinaire! One of Gustavo Penna / Apogee MotorWorks' winnging Ducati Cafe racer customs at last year's 2015 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show is featured in the new 2017 FastDates.com Calendars.
World Premier of the New FastDates.com Calendars!
The Show features off the premier of next year's new 2017 FastDates.com Motorcycle PinUp Calendars featuring the world's top road race and custom motorcycles with the Bikes. Builders and beautiful Calendar Kittens featured in the Calendars in attendance at the Show. Click above to find out more and to order.
