Published: 31 January 2017

Hits: 25138

Like many other San Diegans I spent a gorgeous Sunday morning yesterday at the beach: surfing, hanging with friends, and soaking up some sun. It was one of those classic days that everyone who lives here cherishes.

Before heading home, I did a quick check of InstaGram and in an instant had my world turned upside down. By now many of you reading this will already know of the unfortunate fate of our beloved Sofia Tiare Bartlow, whose body left this physical realm yesterday in an auto accident, though her unstoppable spirit will live on for eternity.

I read and re-read the posts and comments, just trying to make sense of it all, but it just didn't seem real. She was just too strong for a mere car crash to take her out.

These clips are from a 2013 Coalition of Surfing Clubs contest at Tourmaline in Pacific Beach. My good buddy Glen and I were deejaying, and somehow the mic ended up with this crazy-in-a-great-way blonde whom neither of us had never seen before. She soon had the crowd in stitches, and we developed a fast rapport between her announcing and our choice of tunes. It was surely one of the most memorable events ever held at the old Surfing Park.

This quote from Sophia says it all, and should go down in history:

"We're not complaining about the waves here, we are riding them, in our joy. Enjoy, everybody, in joy."

I spent some time with her over that weekend and discovered that not only was she an amazing personality with a brilliant sense of humor (not to mention incredible surfing talents), but that she was also an incredibly caring human being with a background in anthropology, and she had a genuine, deeply held passion for helping make this world a better place for everyone.

If you knew Sofia, it's not difficult to imagine that she is at this very moment surfing the greatest wave ever ridden, in a place that you and I can not yet know, gazing upon all of us with that irresistibly radiant smile of hers, and then laughing up a storm just to send a few waves our way.

Ride in Peace, Sophia. See you on the other side.

Published: 03 December 2016

Hits: 15065

User Rating: 5 / 5

Another blast from the past from back in the old West Coast Lambretta Works days

A few random thoughts on this photo...

Using the Gasca's (later Todd Delle's/Bob Brown's) Auto parking lot for Saturday morning test rides was common practice. Helmet laws were strictly unenforced.

This could be the shop "test bike", but something makes me think it's this one guy's puke yellow rat bike that had fake black fur glued inside the legshield and down onto the floorboards. Beats me what his name was, but he spent decent money on a good motor so I gotta hand it to him. Assuming this was his bike anyhow. Maybe Paul Piskor will chime in on this at some point, I do believe he was at WCLW during the "Gasca's Era"... 

But regardless of whose engine it was, we always gave any motor we had just built a good honest thrashing - nothing over the top, just testing out the clutch (wheelies), making sure it holds each gear at full throttle (burnouts), that kinda stuff. We expected the motor to have a long life of such abuse, so no reason not to make sure everything was ready for such shenanigans should that be the owner's desire... haha!

Published: 14 July 2016

Hits: 25666

I am so stoked that I ran into one of my musical heroes in PB yesterday afternoon: Rick Miller of Southern Culture on the Skids. I was leaving the beach heading east on Loring Street when I noticed a really sweet D fin board on the roof of a car, and when I looked at the driver I thought "Holy crap that dude looked just like Rick from SCOTS!"

I flipped a bitch real quick and caught a glimpse of his car heading toward the end of Loring overlooking the Pumphouse. I parked in the red right next to the steps leading down to the beach, and sure enough a couple minutes later here comes Rick cruising by with an eye popping Bing longboard with a blue D fin and fat balsa stringer under his arm.

"Hey Rick!" says I.

"What's up!" says he, not sure who I even am.

I tell him my name is Vince and I've seen him play a whole bunch of times and I'm a huge fan. He introduces me to his nephew Steven, we shoot the shit for a bit, and I say goodbye and wish them well out in the water.

As they head down the steps I think to myself, "Dude, get some photos!"

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So I grab my camera, tripod, and 800mm lens and set up shop on the manhole cover that sticks out of the bluff right above the famous PS18 building. I've never seen Rick surf before, so when he gets a wave and I start firing off shots, I'm as excited as a kid watching one of my childhood heroes for the first time in real life. So stoked! And dude can surf! He's got as much style on a surfboard as he does on stage!

By now I've already decided to grab my board and go join them. The crowd is thick and the tide is high, but we get to slide a few and shoot the bull some more about music, surfing, and just life in general.

What a cool dude, and what a way to end my day! Nice!

Published: 01 July 2016

Hits: 11374

Here's a nice smattering of Lambretta history for you, including a great shot of Matt Dawson's aluminum framed gas powered Lambretta vibrator, some snaps of Shawn Woolery and yours truly putting the WCLW sidecar through its paces during its first ever test run at Adams (with shopping cart level steering capabilites that we would later correct with some proper adjustments to front end steering geometry), and a lot of miscellaneous rallye snaps.

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Published: 30 June 2016

Hits: 12201

I'm actually really stoked on how this site is coming along. I have a few issues with the pink login module and the blue More Articles module not loading correctly on some pages, but overall I'm really happy with how things are coming together.

In particular I have been working hard on the mobile versions of the site a lot lately. I sooo love all of the background images on the home page and how perfectly they convey where I've come from and what I'm doing with Qustom. And at 1920x1200 on my Mac, they look brilliant. I find these images to be so key to the site's overall look and feel that I'm working on different size background images for each common screen resolution out there. For now I hope everyone can get a chance to view the site on a large computer screen, or at least a high resolution tablet.

Twist Magazine, Spring 1983

The first background image on the home page speaks to the synthesis of two loves of my life better than any I could imagine. The late '70s through mid '80s were such a magical time for so many of us. It seems that nearly every time SoCal's mods, punks, NewRo's, rockabillys, and whatnot got together for a scooter rally, it went straight to the coast and then north or south, no matter what the starting point. Ski Beach. Carlsbad State Beach. Sunset Cliffs. Redondo Beach. Mailibu. Coronado. Laguna. Newport. Long Beach. San Luis Obispo. Poseurs were shunned and derided like the plague, but they were few and far between anyhow. Mostly it was great times.

And there were some great coastal music venues - The Roxy Theater and Headquarters in PB, Club Zu in Encinitas, Fenders Ballroom in Long Beach, and many others in coastal OC that skip my mind at the moment.

And yeah, though I didn't surf at the time, I was well aware of the deep roots that San Diego and surfing share. I conveyed this in my advertisements with WCLW by playing up the southern California theme, and also our through our logo with the palm trees in the background. Even the paint schemes on our race bikes came to be known as "seaweed". Get prepared for some new "seaweed" motifs on Qustom surfboards in the near future!

The WCLW Team Visits the Innocenti Factory?

The second background image is one of my all time faves. It started as a photo of me from 2003 standing in the barren remains of the Innocenti factory on the outskirts of Milan, Italy. After many, many hours with keyboard and mouse I was able to create a whole new scene that included both of my brothers: our shipping manager Brendan and our webmaster Sean, along with many of our favorite Lambrettas and even our shop mascot, Norton. This image was a huge hit in several magazine ads as well as the WCLW catalogue. I still laugh at how many people actually believed the caption I jokingly added below it in the catalogue that went something like "The WCLW crew gather in the warehouse for a photo shoot"... Actually our workspace was just a tad smaller than that!

Don't Miss Out on the Good Stuff!

The last background image on the home page may just be my favorite surf photo that I've ever shot. It's a picture perfect San Diego day, and there's Herb Bradley flying along on a left at the Pumphouse, perched solidly on the nose, slightly crouched to make a high speed section, left hand reaching out for the lip, intense and insanely casual all at once... and meanwhile some dude who looks just like Gregg Maddux is putting his sunglasses on while walking away from shore at exactly the wrong time to take in this bitchen scene.

It reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite surf flicks, Waves of Change. I have written a ton about this one particular scene elsewhere (including here and here), but suffice it to say that as the action reaches a crescendo, there is a quick cut to this OH* slouched on the shore, his bearded gourd planted up to his ears in a newspaper, completely oblvious to the insane action going on right in front of him.

Douchebag.

LOL

Vince

*(OH = Original Hipster)

Published: 26 April 2016

Hits: 10915

Few things in this life are as exhilarating as flying through a turn at high speed on two wheels with your inside knee skimming across well groomed tarmac. The better racers use this third point of contact to provide extra stability through corners, to the point that their knee is actually supporting some of the weight of the rider/machine combo as both tires began to lose traction. By feathering throttle and/or front or rear brakes, a really hot racer can control the sliding, and distribute it as needed amongst these three points of contact to maximize cornering speed.

Digging this out of mothballs brought back many fond memories, despite the fact that I was never one of the real fast guys in the twisty bits. But that's a story for another day...

Vince

p.s. - Off the top of my head I can think of three of ASRA's best racers that didn't bother getting their knees down and still dominated the scene - Nyle Schafhauser, Tim Slagle, and Bryan Thompson.

Published: 26 April 2016

Hits: 12308

I found this patch while digging through some old stuff looking for photos. By 2002 I was pretty much over putting patches on things, but I think this one is going on my PBSC jacket - when I get one that is...

I dig how the dude in the foreground is pumping his fist, while the dude in the background is balancing his scooter on his head... not sure what to make of the other figure though... haha!