#DeusExMachina

Deus Ex Machina, the coffee shop, surf, moto, and apparel depot of choice for the hipster set, recently hosted a custom bike build-off across all of its locations worldwide on Saturday, September 24. Feeling the need to take the family out for a night in Venice, California, an eclectic beach town known for its artist community and laid-back lifestyle, I ventured to Deus USA to get a peek at what the local garage builders are churning out these days. I came away pleasantly surprised. Check out my Top 10 picks within.

You might remember a couple weeks back I wrote in my column that I was clocking out and going on vacation to Japan. The point was to refresh myself and recharge my batteries by doing something other than immersing myself in motorcycles 24/7. For the most part I was successful in that endeavor – the wife and I had a fantastic time in the land of the rising sun playing tourists for a week.

The decision to get creative with rules and regulations is in keeping with the all-bike-brands-welcome spirit experienced at all Deus get-togethers. Another big plus was not only the variety of bike flavors – from small-displacement chittychittybangers to rorty Laguna Seca-ready hyperbikes – but also the wide spectrum of people who helped rev up the energy level. So, for this coverage, we do a little adapting as well, with a focus on five of the machines entered into the competition and then some handing out of my own non-official citations of excellence. Strangely enough, most of my early pix also scored with the judges. Yeah, great minds thunk alike.

Michael “Woolie” Woolaway, Deus ex Machina’s in-house bike builder, was launching his new “Dreamliner” Ducati hypo-custom, so what better reason than that to throw an Italian Day at Deus, the party complete with opera virtuoso singing Pagliacci. In any case, the bevy of well-tuned classic, vintage and race bred Italian bikes literally filled the parking lot and the adjacent sidewalks to overflow capacity. The event? Deus called it Raduno Ducati.