Southern California is famous for numerous things: Hollywood, great beaches, blondes, earthquakes and rush hour traffic. SoCal also happens to be hallowed ground for the sport of motorcycling. It's home to a few famous and historic road racing and motocross tracks, the US headquarters to the Japanese "Big 4" manufacturers, and a bevy of aftermarket companies. The Los Angeles area is claimed to be the largest single market in the world, so yes, motorcycles are a big deal here and the show at Long Beach is the most important show of the 12 city Progressive International Motorcycle Shows tour. There were North American debuts from Triumph, BMW and Ducati, a bike builder custom bike competition, a stunt show starring Jason Britton and special appearances by Nicky Hayden, Ben Spies and various other moto-celebrities.
A lot has already been written about the bikes that made their North American debuts because they made their world premiers at Intermot or Milan, so I'm not going to rehash what has already been said, but instead I'm going to give you my take on what I saw at Long Beach.
