This past Veterans Day weekend was the third annual Victory Moto Show in Savannah, Georgia — a city we’re thrilled to call our new hometown. The show was founded by Anna Heritage of the Big Bon Family, home of the mother/daughter popup pizza sensation Big Bon Pizza and wood-fired bagel shop Big Bon Bodega. Born and raised in Savannah, Anna comes from a family with deep roots to motorcycling, Savannah, and veterans:
“In 2017, she had a vision to bring together a show to celebrate community, beautiful bikes, and help a veteran cause, all in her coastal hometown of Savannah.”
Savannah has an especially strong moto community, owing largely to the good folks at Coastal Empire Moto — the repair and customization shop located on Bull Street — and the city is closely tied to Hunter Army Airfield and Fort Stewart. So it’s the perfect venue for an event of this kind.
For 2019, the show returned to Service Brewing, a veteran-owned brewery, with proceeds going to Motorcycle Relief Project, a Colorado-based non-profit that offers therapeutic 5-day motorcycle adventures for military veterans and first responders. Founder Tom Larson realized how beneficial motorcycling was when dealing with his own trauma:
“Aware of how therapeutic it was to get on his motorcycle and ride when he needed to relax and blow off some steam, Tom couldn’t help but think that taking veterans with PTSD and other injuries on motorcycle adventure trips could be a great way of helping them decompress, learn some tools for managing stress, and connect with other veterans with whom they may have something in common.”
With a team of talented ladies behind the scenes, the 2019 Victory Moto Show was another great success. It was killer collection of bikes: vintage enduros, Italian classics, Japanese and British cafe racers, flat track and road race bikes, and much more. Adventure was a strong-running theme this year, especially in light of the chosen nonprofit, so Drew Perlmutter’s ’72 Honda SL350 stood at the center of the show amid a “Life’s a Beach” scene.
Best in Show 2019
Last year, the Best in Show award went to Coastal Empire Moto and Julia Wheatley for their Honda CL350 scrambler, which we featured on the blog last December. The CL was back in attendance this year, but it was time to crown a new winner.
For 2019, the Best in Show award, voted on by the attendees, went to Honda engineer and friend of the blog Justin Blue and his Honda IFR750F2, an absolutely staggering RC30-inspired CB750 build we featured on the build last month.
Below, we share some of our favorite bikes from the show, with photography by painter/photographer AJ Grey.
Victory Moto Show 2019: The Bikes
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