The 2017 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show Bike Builder Party
& Calendar Bike Building Championship - Featuring 2 Events This Year!
• Saturday July 15th - Calendar Bike Builders Party at the Calendar Photo Studio
• Sunday Octr 15th - Rider RoundUp at The Ranch Calednar Bike building Championship
The 2017 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show continued its now 27-year tradition as the premier outdoor street bike event in America at two exciting dates and venues this year. Each Event featured top Celebrity Custom Bikes & Builders, selected Vendors and Exhibitors, Live Music performances. And the world premier of next year's new 2018 FastDates.com Motorcycle PinUp Calendars featuring the world's top Sport and Custom Motorcycles with the beautiful Calendar Kittens in attendance at the Show. Select Builders and their Bikes were be invited to be photographed by producer Jim Gianatsis for the next FastDates.com Calendars.
The 2017 LA Calendar Motorcycle Shows celebrates the premier of the new 2018 FastDates.com Calendars including Iron & Lace with the winning bike sof the 2106 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show's Calendar Bike Building Championship. Click To Order the New Calendars Here!
Meet the Calendar Bike Builder Party Crew! From left: FastDates.com Calendar producer and photographer Jim Gianatsis with Sara Balint, Mikuni Carburetor sales manager Steve Webb, Brittni, Mikuni Carburetor and Calendar Show marketing assistant Lee Chapin, and Jim Giuffra of AFT Customs.
Saturday July 15th2017Calendar Bike Builder's Party
Woodland Hills, CA, Saturday July 15th, 2017 - FastDates.com Calendar fans and legendary Calendar Bike Builders spent the day with legendary FastDates.com Calendar photographer Jim Gianatsis at Jim's home / photo studio for a private Calendar Bike Shoot with Invited Calendar Bike Builders and Calendar Kittens, followed by a Dinner Party with Live Music. It all took place at the FastDates.com Calendar Photo Studio in Woodland Hills, CA.. July Saturday 15th, 5-9pm
Some of the top custom bike builders and beautiful models joining us for the 2017 Calendar Bike Builder Party included former Calendar Bike Building Championship winners Samuel Kao / JSK Design, Adam Bean / Custom Airbrushing, Ron Simms / Simms Customs, Jim Giuffra / AFT Customs and Richard Jones. Shooting with us this week were former FastDates.com Calendar Kitten Sara Balint featured in our advertising campaign, and adult starlet Brittni Palmer. The live music was provided by Alex Nester, vocalist and keyboards for the legendary Carlos Santa Band, and singer songwriter Lenachka.
Earning a special invitation to the Party and Calendar shoot was local custom Harley enthusiast Todd Daniel with an incredible jaw dropping Candy Apple Red custom Bagger built for him by BX Custom Design in Gastonia, North Carolina. Todd himself is an Insurance Agent and Financial Consultant at his own company, TBD Insurance Services, Woodland Hills, CA.
"I chose BX Custom because of their reputation and the tremendous number of great builds they have down. I wanted the newest, baddest bagger they had ever made, so we sat down and decided on all the components, color and design before even starting the build."
"My two biggest priorities were the Candy Apple Red paint, ,the 30-inch front wheel, and a turbocharged engine - and they came through!"
The engine itself is a 103ci Evo Big Twin with a Black Trask Assault Turbo Kit that is guaranteed to haul the baggage.
The Flat Black engine paint really makes it look just as mean as it is, with just a few Stainless Steel bits to make it pop out.
In 2014 the Calender Show found a more affordable and beautiful location as it move to at the Malibu Gold Course in the Santa Monica Mountains near the Rock Store. Vendors numbered 22 with a paid attendance now down around 500. Following the Show that year the Malibu Golf Course announced it would close for 2 years for a major renovation. It would later declare bankruptcy and close for good, probably in part because the long running California draught made in cost prohibitive to water a small private gold course.
This required the Show to
move again to a new venue in 2015, this time being the popular biker weekend hangout in Calabassas again, this time at the Sagebrush Cantina. The Show remained at the Cantina for 2 years until 2016, but attendance continued to decline.
One of the biggest changes and challenges from the 2008 recession which really impacted paid admission events like the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show was that local motorcycle dealers became very aggressive in trying to draw potential customers to their dealerships on weekends. Many dealers began holding Open House events in their parking lots on the weekends with free live music, free food and beverages, vendors and demo bike rides.
Plus the internet with its free content of motorcycle 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 custom bikes, beautiful Calendar models, and top name female performers can not overcome.
For 2017 Jim Gianatsis moved the Calendar Show on Saturday July 15th to his home studio in Woodland Hills, and invited his favorite Calendar Builders and singers to come for a calendar Shoot, Concert and House Party. And then on October 15th would partner with long tome friend and Calendar Bike Builder Russell Mitch to hold a 2nd Show at Paramount Western Movie set in Agoura, CA.
For now, FastDates.com Calendar photographer 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 Motorcycle PinUp Calendars. 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 industry and motorcycle 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
Jim seated on the couch with favorite singer songwriters Alex Nester and Helene Himmel aka Lenachka.
Standing behind from the left is Show assistant Mark McDonald,
Alex's guitarist, builder Adam Bean and his wife,
builder Richard Jones, motorsports photographer Brian Mayfield and his wife.
Our favorite Calendar shoot MakeUp and hair stylist Victoria Rubell works on Sara Balint's hair in the office.
While in makeup for the day's shoot, Sara looks at her pictures featured in the 2012 Garage Girls Calendar.
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 band of legendary guitarist Carlos Santana and his son Salvador Santana. Also performing was incredibly talented 22-year old singer songwriter Lenechka.
Sara and Brittni with Richard Jones' newest custom, a retro British themed cafe racer with a springer front end and a modern Harley Evo engine. Richard is not a professional builder, and this was just his 2d ever build for his own collection. His first custom build was an aluminum framed Harley custom which won the Street Custom Class at the 2015 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show, and is featured in the 2018 Iron & Lace Calendar.
Lenachka sings at the Calendar Bike Builder Party. Click to view her music video below.
Sara shoots with one of two beautiful customs which Ron Simms sent to the shoot.
Jim jumps in for picture with Calendar Kitten Sara and Ron Simm's other bike at the shoot, a classic '60s Pan Head.
Sam Kao of JSK Custom Designs brought his latest build, a monoshock Harley Evo off-road racer!
Jim and Sara with Jim Giuffra / AFT Custom's latest build, a Honda CL350 with a single shock rear suspension and customized to Cafe Racer styling.
Alex Nester is the singer and keyboardest for the legendary Carlos Santana. She also performed at our 2016 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show.
Jim Gianatsis with Lenachka (left) , and Alex Nester (far right) and her guitarist.
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The Los Angeles Calendar Motorcycle Show is produced by Jim Gianatsis, Gianatsis Design Associates
Editors: Winning Calendar Bike feature photography is available by contacting Jim Gianatsis
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, even motorccyles in genearal, and many custom bike companies and 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.
