Antique Bike Show

A few years ago the local chapter of the AMCA (Antique Motorcycle Club of America) moved their Minnesota event from a small fairground south of the Twin Cities, to the state fairground in St. Paul. This is the third year the bikes and bikers had plenty of room inside and out for bike displays, a bike show, and the swap meet.

We always show up for the annual AMCA show in St. Paul, Minnesota with our elaborate booth and “bike show” special prices. Many thanks to Rick Thompson and Deb Shade for help running the booth.

The fact that the new location includes a nice building was especially relevant this year as the skies delivered rain and more rain on and off all weekend.

The local antique meet included a nice display of motorcycles manufactured in Minnesota, including this remarkably complete Minneapolis.

The club chose Minnesota bikes as a focus for this year’s event. It turns out that Minnesota was a hot bed of motorcycle manufacturing at the turn of the century and well into the teens.

As I’ve said before, the best part of setting up a booth at a show like this isn’t the vast amount of cash we take home, it’s more about seeing old friends and making some new ones. Old friends include Bruce and Kelly from Wizard Custom, and Steve Laugtug. Steve is a long-time motorcycle and hot rod enthusiast, one who started out paying people to fabricate parts, both large and small, for his various projects. During our conversation, Steve told me that he’s been doing more and more of his own work, and in fact built a complete hot rod chassis for another rodder. He also said he couldn’t have done any of this without those great how-to books from Wolfgang Publications (joke).

Note the “St. Paul” cast right into the crankcase on this single-cylinder Wagner.