Born-Free Motorcycle Show - Silverado, California
From the moment we walked through the gates on Friday night (vendor setup night) we knew Born-Free was going to be an incredible weekend. Nestled in the Santiago Canyon, Oak Canyon Park provides a perfect place for the Born-Free show. It is just 15 miles outside of Santa Ana, providing a refreshing escape from the busy California traffic. The surroundings are quite different than the flat corn fields we are used to in North Western Ohio. It was so nice to see some hills and curvy roads for once!
Friday (pre-party)
On Friday everyone kicked off the weekend at Cook's Corner for the Show Class Magazine People's Champ Pre-party. Cook's is a well known biker bar near the Born-Free Show.
Daril Borba took first place of Show Class Magazine People's Champ with his Panhead.
Saturday (first day)
Saturday was the first day of the show and let me tell you what, it was a bit overwhelming. The amount of people that rolled in was amazing. The grass pass riders took advantage of the early entry and they filled the show grounds with some pretty rad bikes. The amount cool custom bikes in the parking lot was literally a show in itself. Not to mention the 30 mind blowing builds by the invited builders of the show.
We met a ton of cool new people that swung by our booth to pickup some free swag and Vol.3 of our print catalog. We also were able to put a "face to the name" to plenty of our current customers. It was really neat to see some bikes that our customers rode from all over the country. I always love seeing people enjoying our products and hearing what they think of them. It is a refreshing change of pace to get out of the shop and see some sunlight for once haha! We send our parts all over the world but most of the time we don't get to see what people create using them. That was my favorite part of the show.
Saturday concluded with one of the bike give-a-way raffles.
Mason Burke was the winner of the 1953 Panhead Built by Chopper Dave's. He was ecstatic to say the least.....but hell wouldn't you be?
Sunday (last day)
Naturally I was skeptical about Sunday at Born-Free. Most shows we attend are pretty tame on Sunday's. As we sat at the booth and watched all the grass pass riders cruise in I knew it was going to be another incredible day. There were tons of new people at the show and plenty of Saturday veterans recuperating after their fair amount of Saturday's beverages. The band started playing and got everyone back in the groove.
We were setup next to the guys from Sweatshop Industries. As years before, they brought in their carnival dunk tank. It was entertaining to say the least!
Sunday concluded with Pheenix Peterson winning the Give-a-way Knucklehead and Jocab Johnston winning the brand new Harley Lowrider S.
Pheenix Peterson winning the Give-a-way Knucklehead. Not bad for the cost of a $25 raffle ticket right? I can't imagine how exciting it was for her.
Jacob Johnston with his brand spankin new '16 Harley Lowrider S. Damn I am jealous now!
Once the show winded down we packed all of our stuff up and hit the road. Overall it was a huge success. It's incredible how passionate Grant, Mike, and Chris are about putting on this show. It really shows how much work they put into it and that is the reason this show is growing so rapidly each year. I hope we can make it out to California in the coming years and always be a part of it.
'till next year...
Cheers,
-Tim Cobb