Bike shows present an attraction for collectors and are great for networking. As well, they provide the basis for opening the door for getting publicity for you and your superb bike. Since we live in an age of information, magazines send staffers and free-lancers to cover most of these. The guys with the serious camera bags. Publicity for you and your bike seldom hurts.

Signs

While some shows, typically the top shows, provide signs already made for your entry, those that don’t offer an excellent opportunity for you to both inform the viewer and control the commercial images of your valuable bike.

I use clear acrylic, footed signs, about a foot square. Designed to sit against the front wheel, the sign has info about the model, make and year of the bike as well as a company logo. Use typeface of the time, probably from the parts book. Mention just a fact or two and of course, who you are and where you are from.

Photographers sell images to calendar makers and all kinds of users of this kind of art. For big money. They can’t use them unless it’s a clean shot and that’s what the sign prevents. It allows photographs of the entry for the show to be captured, but prevents them from taking from you the rights to the image of your bike. A very subtle move. Staying by your bike, don’t allow anyone to move your sign for a quick photo unless you’re prepared to see it on a pack of condoms or whatever.

Cleaning a bike for shows is a subject everyone has an opinion on. Just don’t cover it with slime---ArmorAll or the equivalent. Use SaranWrap to cover the tires if you have to push it across sand or mud to the display area and cover it with a bike cover until the judging has begun. People love to guess what’s under the cover and that’s great attention.

Have a notebook to document key parts of the restoration to show that they are correct. Most judges pretend to know more than they do and no one can really know all that much. Celebrity judges are the worst about this. So, be able to prove your point and leave the notebook beneath your bike, unless you have placed a mirror underneath the engine to show it off to best advantage. Hover close by, but let judges do their thing.