That done, we had breakfast and went to find Bill McCahill, at Spyke, who is a friend of Rich Horn's. We found the unit and went in to introduce ourselves. Bill was having lunch so we let him eat while we sat in the reception area for a few minutes.
When he'd had his lunch, Bill showed us around. What an experience! He is full of energy and enthusiasm for his work and has a really interesting business. I knew about the motorcycle electrics side of things, but had no idea about the wide range of tuning and development engineering that they were very successfully involved in. A lot of stuff went over my head; valve angles, seat depth and shit like that, but I managed to understand much of what he talked about. The list of things they produce is far too long to cover, but it includes items made from real space-age alloy, which has virtually no thermal expansion so allows pistons, for example, to run with very close tolerance to the cylinder. If you want to no more about the technical side, look on the website - the link is just above those photos up there.
Bill had kindly altered his schedule in order to spend some time with us over the next couple of days. He offered to take us south along the coast, to the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach, and somewhere to eat good seafood, afterwards. Just before we left, we met a young bike guy called Jose, who asked to be remembered to Rich Horn. Jose is really into Jesse James and had some original decorative castings he wanted to reproduce
Then we cruised down the str3eet. Here is our tour bus:
Which was nice, LOL!
Up until now, our experience of California had been desert, huge, really busy freeways and commercial or industrial areas - not at all like your mental picture of what California would be like. Our afternoon with Bill rectified that, as we were driven along wide, palm-tree lined boulevards and down the Pacific Coast Highway, with the Ocean on one side and expensive property on the other.
My photos don't do justice to the actuality, but unlike Vegas or the Arizona desert, you can picture this without having to have done it. The views are what you've known all your life!
No way were we going here!
We were going to the Sawdust Festival, an artsy fartsy thing in Laguna Beach, which Bill hadn't been to for years. They wanted you to buy stuff from there, but they charged you $10 for parking and then $7.50 for admission, not at all what we were used to.
I can do that
Once we'd had a beer, Bill suggested we soak up the ambience created by a local band. WTF?
This is must play!
It wasn't all, bad, sitting in the sun and downing a cold one, or two .........................
NIIIIIIICE LEEEEGS!
Pussy pass-out so one could go outside for a fag!
Having had a culture overload, we were hungry. We headed out to Dana Point for some seafood. On the way, we came across this Saleen Mustang. Wooohoooo!
We went to Cannons, overlooking the harbour, The view was superb, my photo was a bit naff so I nicked one off the web:
Bill said the condos on the cliff, next to the restaurant, fetch $30 million - despite the economy. Ouch!
The food was brilliant, as it should have been for what it cost! Kev and Bill had Surf n Turf, one had lamb and the other fillet steak, both with king crab legs. More modestly, I had Maryland crab cakes:
Luckily for us, Bill picked up the tab on his company card. Phew!
Wined and dined, Bill took us back to Downey. I slept in the car - as usual - with the irritating England Boy poking me if I snored. Cnut!
We collected our bikes from Bill's unit and checked in at the Best Western, on Firestone in Norwalk. Huge rooms and good WiFi, so we booked in for two nights, even tho' it was a bit pricey.
Uploaded photos to Picas, then zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
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