The Venice Vintage Motorcycle Club gathered at Jay LaRossa’s shop Sunday
For quite some time the Venice Vintage Motorcycle Club had a regular group ride every third Sunday of the month. It was fun. But some members started to think up new ways to make it more fun.
“We wanted to do a ride to these places, to cool shops and places like that,” said VVMC’s Brady Walker.
So, on Sunday January 17, they did just that, powering in a massive, thundering column of twos from Venice Beach, Calif. all the way down to the “cool shop” of custom builder Jay LaRossa, LoSSa Engineering, in Long Beach. They made quite an entrance, turning what was a quiet, empty industrial side street to a beastly powerdome of two-wheeled multi-cylinder apocalypse. This must have been what Hollister was like, at least at first. When the Venice riders dismounted, they were pretty much all friendly and happy to talk about bikes.
So was Jay LaRossa. His shop is pretty cool, indeed. While he seems to be well-known for his Honda CB550s, that’s hardly the full repertoire.
“I started on the Hondas and people think that’s all I work on,” said LaRossa, whose family on both sides were motorcycle dealers. “We’re a motorcycle shop, we build anything!”
While there were some very nice Hondas in the shop before the VVMC rolled in, including a 550 we wouldn’t mind owning, there was also a finished BSA for sale ($ 6000, well worth it), a couple of future frames with Kawasaki Ram Air blocks sitting in them, a few Triumph Bonnevilles and, way in the back, a roomful of dilapidated project bikes awaiting inspiration and customers.
“I’m not doing this to make money,” said LaRossa. “It’s my artistic output!”
Jay LaRossa, founder of LoSSa Engineering and host last Sunday of the Venice Vintage Motorcycle Club.
