Picking favorites at the Garage Brewed Motorcycle Show

When I left a couple hours later, the party was just getting started at the Rhinegeist Brewery and I’d seen one hell of a collection of custom bikes. Not just the bikes, but also the setting in the brewery and the causes the show supports made it worth the trip.

I got to the show about 15 minutes after it kicked off at noon. I ascended a couple flights of stairs to an adorned concrete hall. Motorcycles were displayed on beer kegs and I noticed a pristine Honda Trail 70 strapped vertically to a concrete pillar. To my right was an eclectic ensemble of well manicured motorcycles and to my left were several huge vats of the brewery’s finest beverages. What a sight to see.

As I made my way through the venue, I discovered there was more to the show than I’d thought. Doors led to another space with a couple of motorcycles and more vats of beer. In other rooms were several vendors (including pizza for sale) and a stairway led to yet another room with two dozen motorcycles on display.

The venue was almost as impressive as the show. Some very talented architect (or maybe a start-up brewery without a lot of money and great architectural taste?) maintained the industrial feel of the building’s original design while making what should’ve felt like a concrete catacomb come across as an exciting, intriguing and unique setting.

A show award-winning Triumph

Rushing to take photos as the crowd grew larger by the minute, I noticed a man scrubbing the engine casing on a vintage Triumph. What looked immaculate to my ride-in-any-weather eye was, to him, an ever-so-small blemish that simply couldn’t be tolerated. I asked if he was the proud owner of the Triumph.

Graham Cousens introduced himself as the owner of Jack Pine Cycle in Detroit and said the 1968 Triumph TR6R Trophy 650 was one of three motorcycles in the show he’d restored for owners. He told me how his dad was the one who got him into restoring vintage British motorcycles and how all three bikes he had in the show spent about a year in his shop getting restored to their current condition.

This particular Triumph was “a piece of junk” when it was brought to him, he said. Almost everything on the bike had to be replaced or reconditioned, and it took a month just to get the bike put back together.

“No detail was overlooked,” Cousens said. “These Champion spark plug covers. No one makes these anymore, so you have to do some searching to find them.”

According to Cousens, the bike’s original paint job was one of the best of all the Triumph models. The bike’s restored paint work was one of the last three projects done by Don Hutchinson, Cousens’ former boss and a master of motorcycle paint jobs.

Apparently, the show judges were as impressed with the 1968 Triumph as I was. The bike won first place in the Classic category.

Bathtub Bomber: Whimsical name, somber cause

Another bike that caught my eye while I was walking around was the Bathtub Bomber. It turns out there's more than one story behind the 1968 Honda CB160T.

Shane Richardson and his wife formed the Tyler Richardson Foundation, named for their two-year-old son who died in a farm accident in 2006. Richardson has entered a foundation-related custom in the show for each of the last three years. This one honors the memory of Anita Angello, who was associated with his foundation and who crashed her car into a bathtub that was sitting in the middle of a road.

That's not all of the story. Anita’s father, Chuck Angello, plans to race the bike at as many as five vintage roadracing events this year.

It took Richardson's team three months to complete the build, including molding the custom plastic fairings. One of the neatest parts on the bike is its steering damper, which looks like a bathtub knob. I’m not the most mechanically inclined, so I didn’t figure out exactly how it works, but it’s a really neat accent to a stunning custom bike. The Bathtub Bomber went on to claim first place in the show’s People’s Choice category.

Garage Brewed, past and future

After a few hours and a few tasty brews, I left the show with the crowd continuing to grow. The show was scheduled to go on until midnight, so I later contacted Bill DeVore, presdent of the Cincinnati Café Racer Club, to find out the winners.

DeVore estimated that the 2020 show — which marked the sixth year of the event — had about 60 motorcycles on display and drew 7,000 to 8,000 people. It started when a group of riders decided they wanted to put on a motorcycle-related event during the winter to help brighten the non-riding months. One person in the group suggested partnering with the newly opened Rhinegeist brewery on Cincinnati’s north side. DeVore said both the riders and the brewery were hesitant about the partnership, but the show went ahead and was a hit.

“They brewed seven different beers for the first show,” DeVore said. “We drank them dry on four of them.”

In the years since, Rhinegeist has doubled its brewing capacity and this year’s show had people lined up down Elm Street waiting for the doors to open. About 80 volunteers give their time to make the show happen. One thing that keeps people coming back to the show is that no motorcycle can be featured twice. Attendees get to look forward to an all-new crop of motorcycles each winter.

The show also helped support two military charities this year. A raffle by show sponsor Lincoln Electric raised $2,300 for Battle Buddy, which provides service dogs to veterans who need them. Another show sponsor, Biltwell, gave helmets to local artists to paint, and those helmets were auctioned to raise money for Operation Combat Bike Saver, which aims to lower the suicide rate among veterans dealing with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other conditions.

As I said, I’ve been to a lot of motorcycle shows. But the setting, the array of bikes and the atmosphere of the Garage Brewed Show impressed me. I know where I’ll be on whatever weekend the show is scheduled for in 2021.