While the Grand National Roadster Show represents one of the pinnacle annual events for automobile enthusiasts, there’s a pretty nice motorcycle show that takes place during the festivities as well. This year, Jimmy at Profile Cycle’s softail chopper Unforgiven took home the trophy for “America’s Most Beautiful Motorcycle.” The long and wide heavy metal machine replete with flaming tins, spiky chromed bits, and some strange future-medieval-femme-gladiator-necrophiliac portraiture wasn’t my personal cup of mead, striking me as stylistically behind the times, but I’m sure somewhere King Diamond is dialing Jimmy to solicit his next commission.

No matter, there was plenty for my jaundiced eye to admire. Eddie Sandoval must have a serious bagger fetish because he entered not one but two of his trolliped up tourers in the show. Metrics were represented too, courtesy of Brian Robinson’s 1977 Honda CB550, and Chris Redpath’s 1982 Suzuki Katana. Several San Francisco sixties-style chops were flying their freak flags high, not to mention their sissy bars and pipes. Despite the impressive presence of Jeff Leighton’s Violet Fantasy, Dave Barker’s Speed Metal, and Paul Cavallo’s Lizard King, I had to give my honorary, “Most Psychedelic Sled” award to Scott Jones’ Heaven Bound trike, which looked like it would be right at home launching out of a Robert Williams painting. In fact some of the most impressive designs weren’t motorcycles at all but rather lowrider bicycles by Chop Cycle that any badass biker would be proud to peddle on up to the saloon. Even a plushed out wheelbarrow wagon made me wanna hop in and beg somebody to give me a good push down the road. Of course, the GNRS is geared more towards four-wheeled fans than custom bike enthusiasts, but that ain’t all bad either, as close to 1,000 prime examples of classic coachwork were on hand to fill a solid weekend’s worth of perusing. We’re talking hot rods, rat rods, smoothies, lake bed racers, dragsters, the smorgasbord to end all smorgasbords for car guys, many of whom are also bike guys and vice versa, which is really the whole point I suppose. Great custom work is a pleasure to behold no matter how many wheels it rolls on and the GNRS always delivers an awe inspiring testament to the ingenuity, creativity, and relentless passion of the men who drove this hobby forward. This year, it may have been raining and cold outside, but inside the hangers it was pretty much my idea of paradise.