Pista Design X Pagnol
My friend Lindsay Ross from Pista Design mentioned his interest in being a Pagnol creative rider a while ago, then I was after him to do a shoot with his awesome Yamaha tracker build for our Pagnol creatives series and Bike EXIF for a few months now! Finally, we did it and boy was the wait well worth it! a great collaboration from mutual respect.
For a while, I also had my eye to do a photoshoot at the newly redesigned Petersen Automobile Museum exterior in Los Angeles, CA USA. Put both together and voila! A recipe for another epic Pagnol shoot if I may say so but YOU be the judge :)
Just in time to use our first sample of the M3 leather pants in our Tobacco color, which went perfectly with this retro-modern tracker and are available to pre-order NOW!
Lindsay is an industrial designer and creative director who works with cars to motorcycles and together with some friends, he founded Pista Design, a great custom motorcycles shop in Los Angeles, CA.
Check out the cool Bike EXIF writeup HERE, more of Lindsay's gallery HERE, and his interview below.
What did you do before industrial design?
I was a kid building Legos. I wanted to be a car designer from a pretty young age. It was that and architecture - which, okay to be fair, I studied for a year before switching to transportation design full-time. I met a guy named Dave Lynn who was the designer of Mazda-Kudzu IMSA/LeMans cars in the 1990's. He essentially told me if I wanted to be a car designer that bad I should commit to it, apply to Art Center College of Design like I wanted and chase the dream.
And you did it! Very cool.
How do you think riding a motorcycle and creativity are related?
I think they are forever intertwined, whether you identify as a creative person or not. As an example: creativity flourishes when you aren't stressed and you have a clear head and that's overwhelmingly how people describe their riding experience, to the point that it now sounds cliche, but so true. So whether your life relies on your brain's creativity or you just want a break from the rat-race, riding a motorcycle - dedicating that focus, essentially, survival and freedom - helps break your mind away from everything else. It allows you to breathe. On the racing side of things, this is stepped up even further. Speed, lines, passes, mechanics of bike geometry and energy transfer - this is all creative! You need to be doing things better than the next guy in order to out-fox him; to win. Racing and creativity have always been, and always will be, hand-in-hand.
Love it! especially the last part of be it racing or just practice at a trackday! The speeds are MUCH higher, to everything multiplies 10 fold, the risk but of course THE REWARD! and love the part about being creative to out speed the other guy! so true :)
What was the main goal with this build?
This build was actually intended to be a dirt tracker to help me with road racing. I just wanted a bike to slide around and get more comfortable with tires when they're at their limit of traction. As it evolved and we started playing with more creative ergonomics and functionality I made an off-hand comment that it was a working case study of sorts. Later that night or maybe the day after, the inspiration struck me that I could play up the architectural and design definition of a "Case Study." Being cynical (yet aware) I laughed about the juxtaposition on my hands: it can look trendy while still being unique and functional. That's, in fact, part of the appeal to me. Sure, the reference to Eames is a bit tongue-in-cheek but there's still something visually appealing about the contrasting textures and raw materials. To me, I'm able to pay homage to modernist icons while critiquing the stagnation in design for the last 50-60 years and have a functional, unique motorcycle.
VERY similar to our Pagnol design approach! but I also love that you "could not help" as a designer, to "design" something that was meant to be a practical thing for you! Very cool :)
When did you start riding and why?
I rode my dad's 70's Ossa as a teenager but I started properly riding pretty late in life - about 24 or 25 years old. I was working at Honda's "AD" (advanced design) studio in Tokyo, realizing my childhood dream of being a car designer consisted of a much more constructive and rigid structure with lots of politics to navigate, both personally as well as company-wide. We had an awesome team producing really spot-on designs (looking back with the benefit of history as a reference I can tell you this is an honest statement!) that would go nowhere because of company politics and lack of leadership vision. I got so over it one day, I caved into my friends' pressure back home in the US and bought a motorcycle, took a vacation and did a mind-clearing road trip with them for a few weeks.
A dads! my wife is not into our kids riding motorcycles, but so were not my parents into me doing anything "dangerous", and I still did BMX, Skateboarding and of course, motocross! I started asphalt-track late too, 35 I think! and just fell in love with it even harder than with dirt! So we'll see if my kids take it up on their own or not.
Thank you!
Paulo Rosas-Pagnol