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Veteran scooterist Elker deMello has answered Mike McCarthy’s recent contribution of scooter-rally cheesecake with his own trove of photographs from outdoor gatherings of the San Diego mod tribes, including his own Dancing Skeletons.
This batch from the Elker deMello Archives comprises photography from the very same Mount Soledad rally Mike documented along with some great shots of our mod friends congregating alongside the volleyball players at Ski Beach.
Here we find another wonderful collection of Mod photos!
Classic and cool…
Slide show on disc for the big event. I’m a fricken jeeneeouse!
Matthew wrote: “Looking at these photos persuaded me that someone should do a coffee-table book on early-’80s SoCal mods. It was really such a singular movement, and so dimly understood by the general populace.”
In my experience, whenever someone does a book or study on a subculture they usually end up misinforming the general public.
Hi. I am the girl with orang/red hair picced with Elker.My old name is Adriana Smith. Many of you could remember…My new name is Adriana Durgan. I really like these pics and love that fact that after all these years every now and then I will see a few mods still riding down Adams. Thank you Elker for all of the fun times and rides!
You’re right Matthew, pictures speak for themselves anyway. I’m loving the pictures too!
What’s really funny is that looking back on these pictures now some of us look so 80s, but we were trying to look 60s!
Yep- I agree- pictures only. There is no retroactively explaining this stuff to most people. He who felt it, knew it.
Adriana . . . nice to see you around a kicking it still . Hope all’s well !
I need to get busy and scan a few dozen more pictures from those rides . I have a lot of early / mid 80’s scooter shots still yet to be seen .
Stobbe get on it!!! Photos are the best!!!I had a bunch and they may be in storage…I know I have a couple of Paul on his scooter earlier then this time.
I have one of Ray,Mike and Ron just hanging out in a lot and Ron has a metal pole in his hand..funny.
The rest of my pics were taken at TTH’s shows and in LA. Ahhh memories!
Adriana have you heard anything about Adam Morgan? I am still friends w/Cherie trotter she is beautiful !!! She just got married.
Last month I saw a rally of at least 200 kitted out puch mopeds, some whining at near 50 mph down great highway, near Sloat street in SF. It instantly fired memories of the San Diego scooter rallies and our underpowered anachronisms spewing oil and gas clouds and holding up car traffic. Only a few of us had scoots in Encinitas and I rarely participated in larger events, but still, …good times! Great photos, wonder where all these old bikes are now? Even total scrap project bikes are really expensive up here these days.
In Kailua Kona the purists don’t actually bring “scooters” but there is a huge turnout for the Underground Moped Alliance rallies. Sooner or later the multitude of one off mopeds have to be restored to perfect retro goodness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CStVNCsePS0
LAEdge Video Snipers caught a flock of mopeds in Los Angeles in March 2009. Amazing… Hope you enjoy the Video!
Yeah the moped thing is huge! I laughed at first because people called scooters glorified mopeds.
In california I have not seen to many restored mopeds but have seen them cafe racer style, with expansion kits by mallosi and polini, just like we had on our scooters. I had a polini pipe, no kit, sounded great, dig, dig, dig, dig!
Conrad Macey had a moped with a kit on it, while he was working on your bike he would let you take it for a spin, the thing did like 50mph.